Overall vote for the eating experience:
Accommodation: 10
Flavor: (the only two vegan dishes) 10
Creativity: 10
Experience: 10
Donna Jean is a local San Diego, sit down, fully Vegan restaurant. Recently they opened a location in Los Angeles in Sherman Oaks.
Donna Jean has been on my radar since around the time I moved to the West Coast, I typically would eat at its neighboring Vegan joint Evolution (also delicious, but fast food oriented). I always, always, always, wanted to try DJ, and never seemed to have gotten around to it. After Matt and I started dating, and post-quarantine era, I looked at their cooking classes as a fun gift idea or date night. And I'm telling you YEARS passed before we finally made it happen for my 27th birthday back in October. We were both floored.
"What Plant Based cuisine should be" (seasonal, sustainable, rustic, comforting). Thats what it says on their site, and I couldn't agree more. I mean, Plant Baby Hungry runs off the notion that Plant Based options don't have to be complicated. I think when places assume that accommodating any options is a complicated task, it always ends up bad or lackluster, and for food...those shouldn't ever be two words associated with something made for sustenance and enjoyment. In 2017 and 2018, they won the award of Best Vegan Pizza in San Diego, and then over all Best Vegan Restaurant in 2018. They were also a finalist for Best First Date Restaurant!
And we can tell you, it was a fabulous place to celebrate a birthday and, most recently, our third Anniversary.
We want to gate keep Donna Jean so badly, although we know there is already a cult following since Friday night we couldn't get a reservation, and on Saturday (when we impromptu decided to finally follow through with our month long awaited Anniversary dinner) there was a $25 penalty fee for a missed reservation. Not uncommon in some places here in SD.
The reason we don't want to gate keep such a local and (I'll say it) National, treasure; is because Matt is not vegan by any means! With the exception of his mostly Oat milk vs. regular milk intake, we got IBS in this household!!!
Being that he isn't vegan, he is, and always will be a meat and cheese guy. That's okay, as long as he is sorta willing to experiment and try new things and occasionally have a vegan meal with me, it makes a huge difference. With all that being said, he proudly crowns Donna Jean as one of the best restaurants in San Diego. Period. Not 'Best Vegan', not 'Oh I just enjoy that its good and we can both eat there'. It is straight up "I could eat that pizza, every, damn, day".
So for my other fellow Plant Based, and Non-Plant Based couples, duos, families, out there- this is for you, and we hope you don't lock us out from ever being able to eat there ever again. SO HELP ME GOD!
Their menu is different from October's, which is fun, I like that options rotate and change. It won't get boring. If I remember correctly we shared the Cacio e Pepe ravioli (which ended up being one giant rav, so it was unfortunately kinda doughy, but the flavors were good and still wished it was multiple little ravs instead of one), I got the skillet mac, which was to die for. We also shared the Widow Pizza, and as our amazing waiter then said, its basically their take on a BBQ pizza. We got the truffle cream dipping sauce and it was life changing.
This most recent visit our wonderful waitress was Aspen, like the server we had last time, the service was just perfect. Enough shooting the shit with us that we felt comfortable, and almost like old pals catching up, telling us how a family member of theirs guilt pleasure is "this pizza", etc. Just enough checking in during the phases of the meal where you feel a perfect ability to shoot the shit some more about how good this is, how tasty that was, and so on.
When we ordered the bread plate, she asked "butter, garlic butter, pesto or olive oil and vinegar?" as our accompaniment, I immediately "uhh...garlic butter, for sure" and she giggled "thats the right answer!" after bringing us the plate of garlicky melted gold, and perfectly warm bread, she gave us the pro-tip "save what you can of that butter for that pizza you're ordering". Done.
I ordered the mushroom risotto, and asked for the truffle cream on the side, since I was anticipating mixing the two, reading my mind she offered "do you just want me to ask the kitchen to drizzle that directly on top" I closed my eyes slowly in happiness and just nodded, SHE GETS ME!
We got our meals, and I think if our eyes rolled into the back of our heads any more than they did from the enjoyment of the food, we would have popped them out of the sockets!
At the end, we knew we wanted desert but I was so incredibly stuffed I couldn't muster the last umami trufflely bite in my bowl. Matt took half his pizza home for snacking. She offered to put the cheesecake to-go so we could enjoy it while not being so full.
We took it home and kinda forgot about it on the counter for an hour, the whip cream started to melt, Matt threw it in the freezer for 10 minutes, and we eventually got around to trying it.
I think the coconut whip cream was too overpowering, I'm not a fan of "coconut" anything when it comes to dairy replacements because it takes over everything. The cheesecake itself I imagine was probably better fresh to our table and not left out and then flash freezed. But it surely wasn't as good as the one we had in October which was peach something if I could remember correctly.
All in all- it was a religious experience.
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