I’m going to Austin for a few days for the Chaos In Tejas music festival and I thought maybe Dopers could help me out with some good places to eat.
I’m a vegetarian tho, so BBQ joints are prolly right out.
I’ll be staying downtown at the Residence Inn, so places nearby would be great.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions!
Oh, and if anyone else is going, lemme know and maybe we can coordinate some headbanging.
Kerby Lane on South Lamar is one but Austin is a very Veggie Friendly place, you will have no trouble eating except of course BBQ restaurants and the like. Also, go eat at Whole Foods, the cafe is great. Seriously you will have no trouble at all.
Capt
This is very antithetical to me but, in the spirit of Texas hospitality:
Central Market is another grocery (actually, it’s the upscale part of the HEB chain) that has a cafe & prepared food to go. Some of which is certainly vegetarian! (And a good choice for those who boycott Whole Foods. Alas, I occasionally visit my neighborhood WF; but I’m not pure enough to live in Austin.)
The *Austin Chronicle’*s restaurant finder might be useful. But I’m pretty sure that most “regular” establishments will feature vegetarian options.
For example, the dinner menu at Green Pastures offers Grilled Tofu with Spinach–but the folks at the next table might be chowing down on the Texas Game Sampler. (Does one “chow down” at Green Pastures?)
That’s a high-end option. Even some of the Tex-Mex places will use vegetable oil rather than lard…
Wow, I ate at Mother’s back in the late 80s. I had the best vegetarian Reuben there.
I gotta ask… what do they put on a vegetarian Reuben?
My cousin is an Austin vegan, when we visit we go to New India Cuisine on South Congress a lot. I also second Kerby Lane and Whole Foods. Austin is very vegetarian/vegan friendly on the whole, you won’t have much trouble.
Corned beef, hold the beef. 
Magnolia Cafe on S. Congress has a pretty good range of vegetarian dishes, and is a pretty cool S. Austin kind of place. They have meat dishes as well
You might want to check out the Chaos in Tejas site’s recommendation too- they have a LOT of vegetarian restaurants listed.
Thanks everyone!
bump, I did see that the festival lists restaurants, but I wanted recommendations so I can whittle that list down.
I have Whole Foods in Vegas, but Kerby Lane, Mothers and New India all sound like great places. I’m only here for a few days, so I don’t need many places to eat, just a few good places.
I’m also thinking about renting an ebike tomorrow and having a bit of a looksee around town. I already know about the bat bridge; what else should I have a gander at?
I walked to New India cuisine this evening for dinner. The waitstaff was uniformly friendly, knowledgable and obviously proud to work there. The food was very good overall BUT the mint chutney was by far the best I have ever tasted. They hit my preferred level of spicy on the nose, too (hot enough to make your nose run but not so hot you can’t close your mouth).
Thanks very much for the recommendation, pravnik!
Tomorrow for lunch I’m off to a Kerby Lane for some Green Chili Cheese Fries. Sarah, the lady at the front desk here, says they are her favorite food in the world and that’s a good enough rating for me to want to try them myself.
Update: I asked my wife where she recommends (she’s a born & bred South Austin girl who had a bunch of vegetarian hippie friends growing up), and she said Mother’s and then commented that the Magnolia Cafe is pretty vegetarian friendly, even if it’s not strictly a vegetarian restaurant. She’s partial to the black bean entree, FWIW.
Oh, yeah - Mother’s Cafe is great, and my first though when I saw this thread. Have a great time and enjoy all the sights and foods! 
We recently went to Bouldin Creek which is 100% vegetarian and was pretty good. The Whole Foods downtown has a raw food bar which is 100% vegan.
Kerby Lane Cafe for lunch today.
The GCCF were good but the Hippy Burger was less than impressive.
Thanks again to everyone for the recs!
Late to this, but one of my former students is a vegetarian and visited from Louisville, KY two weeks ago. She said she was craving Austin food and demanded we do Mother’s. I got her to compromise and we ate at Cuatro’s on 24th. But among the vegan/vegetarian set Mother’s is routinely noted as being tops.
I’m a confirmed omnivore but I can tell you I could probably go veggie for a week eating the Brussels sprouts salad and Liberty Rice at East Side King. It’s that good, and the owner won one of the reality cooking shows when it actually meant something. The one I go to is inside of Hole in the Wall at Guadalupe and Dean Keeton (right across the street from the Belo New Media Center), if you’re visiting the UT campus.
I’m all done in Austin for this year, but I’m already planning on coming back for next years CiT festival, so I’ll be sure to get to Mother’s.
A place I found while walking around (I think I walked close to 40 miles since I got here; I like to wander) called The Clay Pot is an Indian place that looked awesome, so it’s on my list for next visit as well.
Thanks once again for all the suggestions and recommendations! Dopers totally fucking rock!