vegan paradise at uno chicago grill
thought it might have been a fluke, but last night i had my second deep dish pizza from out of this world. with the slight possible exception of sugar, it was free of animal cruelty, far as i know. this was only possible because of a super cool manager who has offered to prep a large cheese-free crust whenever i call between 2 and 4 on the days when he works. if you can find someone at a local uno who’ll do the same for you, i recommend it. using the uncheesed crust, get the chef’s choice (3 toppings at discount), specify no cheese topping of course, then add onions, green peppers, and roasted vegetables. do it even if you normally eat animal products, because it’ll blow your mind.
those roasted veggies were so good the last time that i figured they must be prepared with butter or some other animal fat, and that the jig would be up once i asked last night. i asked the manager about it before ordering. as always, he promptly went to find out the answer for sure, though he thought it was vegan. came back and said it was only the veggies, olive oil, garlic, and salt (i think it was salt; in any case, there were no animals in the mix).
in striving to eliminate factory cruelty from your food, i think you eventually reach a line where being too intense about ingredients can hurt the ultimate goal. so i’m not going to push whether the sugar in uno sauce was filtered with bone char. it gets to the level where you may as well start asking if the trucks delivering it have leather interior. this manager and his staff have extended themselves freely on my behalf, simply to keep my business. i’m drawing the line at pressing for info on the sugar processing chain. by not being a prick about it, i was able to have an extended conversation with the bartender, who told me of her research into animal testing, and how she’s stopped buying some products because of it. year or two from now, she may cut out factory farming products because i wasn’t a jerk. who knows? i don’t think it’s unlikely.
side note from the bonehead department: when my pizza came out the other night, a dude sitting one seat away at the bar said, “man, that must be the healthiest dish in the whole restaurant.” did look very healthy and not at all like a pizza. later, i noticed he had a baseball cap with a script W on it, which i took for a vintage washington senators logo. i asked where he got it. he nodded to his girlfriend or wife and said she bought it for him. i said something about her having good taste, and that it reminded me of my childhood. they both looked at me funny, and he mumbled something about “washington nationals”. doh! well, i turned away and minded my business, waiting until later to verify my hunch; yes, the new DC baseball team has been around for years now, and i had no clue they used the same cap graphic as the senators, who i saw many times as a kid.
the next night i was at the gym and ran into a casual acquaintance. he mentioned something about “the game”, and i did my usual embarrassing “what game?”
ahh, college basketball. he could’ve said any sport and i’d have believed him.