Los Angeles, CA?

[cactuspear]

I'll be there next month and need some recommendations for quick vegan eats, especially breakfast/lunch, in the downtown and convention center areas. Anybody familiar with the city?

Also, would it be totally crazy for me not to rent a car? How easy is it to rely on public transit in LA?

[Mr. Cleetus]

I am not much help with vegan options near the convention centre as I lived in a different part of the city, although I do know there is a mostly vegan soul food restaurant near USC which isnt terribly far. Its called Vegisoul and is worth a trip. I was in the convention center area for 1 week and managed to find options, but just in standard places - a lot of mexican food.

I lived in Pasadena for 18 months and did so with out a car and it was fine. The light rail is excellent, but only if it goes somewhere close to where you want to go! Buses go most places but can be very very slow (we went all over on them). So, it can certainly be done w/o a car, but if you have limited time there, it will certainly be easier to have a car. It also somewhat depends on how far you really want to go.

[karena.towle55]

Ahh i was their but its quite some time ago. I don really rember where exactly I ate my lunch. But I'm sure you will find something in the center.
Good luck - and enjoy the city - its just an amazing place to be!

[miriya52]

For getting around downtown during the weekday 9-5, there are these Dash buses to zip around. I have really only been to Little Tokyo and there is a good vegan place called Shojin (http://www.theshojin.com/)

If you are going to travel outside the downtown area, there are some good veg*n places near Silverlake. In particular, I would recommend Pure Luck (http://www.yelp.com/biz/pure-luck-resta ... os-angeles) and there is a really good ice cream place across the street called Scoops, that usually has a few vegan flavors.

Traveling outside of the downtown area via bus can be tough, but I would use http://metro.net/ to plan your routes.

Here are some more links you can read as a resource for finding vegan eats.
Good luck! I think LA is actually quite decent for vegan restaurants. The problem is getting there... since everything is so spread out =(

http://www.vegparadise.com/restaurants.html
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/505860
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/309877
http://www.losanjealous.com/2007/03/07/vegan-la/

[cactuspear]

wow - thanks so much for all the info!