Vegan in DC just gets easier and easier...

A new Protein Bar location opened up near Dan's work in DC. I'd wanted to visit the one near Chinatown for a while but never got around to it, so it was my first choice lunch-food when I went to eat lunch with Dan last week. They have plenty of vegan options--many things can be veganized as they serve tofu and Daiya cheese.

Vegan Original Bar-rito

They serve wraps, called "bar-ritos", which are grilled or chilled. I got the "Vegan Original", a grilled wrap with quinoa, black beans, tofu, and Daiya. The seasoning was really great, and overall it was a lot better than Chipotle or most other similar fast-food-ish places. Quinoa tastes even better than brown rice. You can see that the tofu is cut up small, which I liked, since it blended well and it meant no bites full of tofu instead of other stuff.

Green City Vegan Bar-Rito

Dan got the Green City Vegan, a chilled wrap with tofu, kale, chickpeas, and dressing--it tastes like a caesar wrap! If it wasn't labeled as vegan, I would seriously doubt its vegan-ness, since the dressing was so tangy and reminiscent of cheese or cream. It was really good, if a little overwhelmingly tart at some points, for me. I preferred the Vegan Original, but both are definitely worth getting. The other veganizable menu items look great too.

Protein Bar is advertised as healthy, protein filled eating (we know we get enough protein anyway!), and it's great to see that they have a holistic concept of proteins like tofu and beans. It seems like they use a lot of organic ingredients, though I don't know about fairly traded, but I'm sure you could ask about that. It seems like it would be a great place to go for lunch with a mixed crowd of health-conscious people and don't-love-health-food people, since they have stuff like BBQ and buffalo wraps that really go against the health food stereotype while still being healthy. They also are very clear about what's vegan or not on their menus and website. We'd definitely go again! We added the DC locations to our DC Eating Out Guide, as well.