Toga Grill

4439 Nelson Rd., Lake Charles • 337-477-4142

The sea is life giving. Human civilizations have used the bellowing great blue expanse to their advantage for time immemorial. The Phoenicians used it for trade. The Portuguese for exploration. The Vikings for war.

Almost all civilizations have used the sea for one thing or another — a fact that American artist Robert Wyland recognized in his words, “The sea lives in every one of us.” The quote has metaphorical power, undoubtedly. But the maxim also works literally.

Travel to the Mediterranean and you’ll see why. Since the ancient period, the Mediterranean Sea has enriched the soils of many a country that share a border with its waters. The count of such countries is now 21. The sea, teamed with a temperate climate, has provided an agricultural bounty for countries in this region. It’s no wonder the “Mediterranean diet” is praised for its high consumption of olive oil, legumes, fruits and vegetables, as well as a low consumption of meat that isn’t fish. 

Lebanon is one of the 21 regional countries. Its cuisine profits from an enriched Mediterranean soil. Even though Lake Charles is thousands of miles away from Lebanon and the countries that share its cuisine, fortunately we can dine with the sea inside us at Toga Grill.

The restaurant’s owned by Jamal Chloun and his sons, Sammi and Hadi. It’s a family-friendly establishment that cherishes health, togetherness and happiness. Mix that with foods from or inspired by the Mediterranean soil and you have a perfect place for vegetarian cuisine.

The most popular vegetable-based foods derive from Toga’s Veggie Sampler, which comes with cabbage rolls, grape leaves, falafel, hummus and baba ganouj.

Flavor is imperative for Toga Grill. Take their falafel, for example: a dish of spiced mashed chickpeas formed into a deep-fried fritter. Their chickpeas, or Garbanzo beans, are mixed with 16 different spices — like cumin, cinnamon and nutmeg — and soaked overnight for full flavor. This recipe, which has been in the Chloun family for 60 years, has won four medals in the Lake Charles Rouge et Blanc competition held at McNeese.

Chloun feels that the “fast-paced life is making the slow-paced life fade away,” and he wishes to “bring it back.” Cooking fresh and allowing ingredients to soak overnight follows the slow-life creed that points to the slow rhythms of rural Lebanon, where bread is still baked on a hot saj and wild za’atar is harvested by hand.

I have quite a few favorite meals at Toga Grill, which pays heed to Lebanese traditional cuisine. But if I were to choose one, it would be eggplant with eggs, with a side of fried cauliflower. Sammi’s grandmother used to cook the meal for him as a boy. I feel the handed-down love while enjoying the dish. The eggs are fried, and the medium-sized chunks of sautéed eggplant lie on a bed of spinach. In terms of taste and texture, the oil wasn’t too heavy, and the eggplant was nowhere near rubbery. It was light and clearly seasoned well, with onions and spices, which paired nicely with the fried eggs.

On its walls, Toga Grill displays many artworks that pay heed to the Mediterranean region from which Lebanese cuisine derives. There are images of the Parthenon in Greece and the Coliseum in Rome. But more than these, I noticed a burgundy shirt that bore Toga Grill’s main slogan: “Let’s Eat Togather” — a portmanteau of “toga” and “together.” I felt the inclusion.

Very soon, Toga Grill will have a menu that makes explicit what is vegetarian and vegan — a considerate move for the vegetarian group and others who have similar diets.

Pho Tien          

4415 Nelson Rd., Lake Charles • 337-477-8557 

Vietnamese cuisine will always hold a special place in my heart. I spent a great deal of my coming-of-age years in New Orleans, and I’ll never forget that the Vietnamese food culture, and the Vietnamese in general, played a large role in the city.

After the fall of Saigon in the 1970s, many Vietnamese fled to New Orleans and wound up calling it home. Immigrants and their descendants now number more than 15,000 in the Crescent City. They’ve become so much a part of the Big Easy that Dong Phoung, one of their bakeries, is a fierce competitor to Leidenheimer’s as the king of the Po Boy loaf.

Their dedication to the city was especially apparent during Hurricane Katrina. Two-thirds of Vietnamese-Americans returned to the city after the hurricane, and members at Mary Queen of Vietnam Church were serving meals to their eastern New Orleans neighbors before the Red Cross arrived.

On par with their community service, their impact on food in the Big Easy is palpable. More than 18 Vietnamese restaurants line NOLA streets.

My first love was Magasin Vietnamese Café, located on Magazine Street. Once you peruse their menu, you’ll see why. It has a distinctive vegetarian and vegan twist.

A vegetarian may often get side-eyes for showing strong preferences for Vietnamese cuisine, which can be meat-heavy in beef and pork. Many Vietnamese restaurants have “pho” in their title; pho is a popular noodle dish that uses beef as one of its main ingredients.

But, at Magasin, this is turned on its head. The pho is made as a vegan dish. And the venue’s spring rolls can be stuffed with avocado and other vegetables, instead of chicken or shrimp.

Meatless or with meat, Vietnamese food is all about a special combination of distinct ingredients and flavors — so much so that an admirer can combine bean sprouts, peanut sauce, mint, Vermicelli and tofu all in one dish. Therefore, no matter what city I find myself in within Louisiana or the United States, I must have Vietnamese.

Luckily, there is Pho Tien in Lake Charles. The restaurant is located on Nelson. It’s owned and operated by Bui Tien. He knows that Lake Charles isn’t New Orleans in terms of its large number of Vietnamese restaurants. Thus, one of his key reasons for opening a Vietnamese restaurant in Lake Charles was to fill a niche.

When searching for vegetarian food on the menu, first start with the appetizers. There you’ll find fried tofu and edamame. Tofu is coagulated soymilk; in other words, bean curd. Having tofu baked or grilled is a delight. The texture is soft and the taste is light. Having tofu fried is a similar treat; it usually serves as a great gateway food for meat eaters thinking of going vegetarian or vegan because of its crunchy texture on the outside and its soft texture on the inside.

But don’t have the tofu by itself. Tien’s tofu is elevated and enhanced with a side of peanut dipping sauce, well seasoned with herbs and spices.

Still on appetizers, try not to pass up the edamame. These are soybeans still in the pod. They are best eaten boiled or steamed and seasoned with sea salt, which Tien offers. Edamame should be a hit with the kids, since you eat them with your hands, pushing the beans out of the pods with your fingers and popping them in your mouth.

But edamame’s for everyone. Tasting the salt on its slightly rough outer skin is a delight. The beans inside the pod provide great protein. According to the USDA, one cup of edamame equals 17 grams of protein, making this appetizer both tasty and healthy. The beans also healthily fill you up quickly, which prevents you from splurging on a meal heavy in saturated fats and carbs.

For your meal at Pho Tien, you can’t go wrong with a traditional noodle bowl — ask for no fish sauce — with Vietnamese vegetable or non-meat staples: peanuts, bean sprouts, tofu, basil and cilantro.

But since you’re in the world of Southeast Asian cuisine, you can also travel slightly west from Vietnam and head to Thailand. You can do so at Pho Tien. Under the noodles section, order the Pad Thai, the delectable stir-fried noodle dish from Thailand. Like Vietnamese cuisine, Thai food combines the best flavors: peanuts, jalapenos, lime, carrots, broccoli, bean sprouts and grilled tofu.

Tien offers all of these in his Pad Thai, and we are the greater for it. He recognizes and values the cross-cultural connection between Vietnam and Thailand when it comes to food. As he claims, the “sweet, spicy and sour” notes in the food translate well.

Tien is from Ho Chi Minh City, a city located in southern Vietnam. One of Tien’s favorite places in the bustling Asian metropolis is Cho Ben Thanh Market. It’s a place of culinary magic that brims with dragon fruit, mango, durian and Jackfruit, all of which have very distinctive flavors. Tien has a picture of his favorite market that hangs in his restaurant in praise of its distinctiveness.

For vegetarians, all of this is music. To eat well without meat means to choose food dishes that never sacrifice diversity of flavors and ingredients.