INDIAN/PAKISTANI

Hookah Cafe, 1132 Decatur St., 566-7057 (LD)

The first time I ate here, I stupidly ordered only a beet salad with, I think, mango sauce. It was tasty enough but I left crying with hunger and had to quickly inject a falafel at the Mona's on Frenchman for dessert.

Then I went back and had the spinach and tofu and smoked a hookah. I felt like the cutest fluffiest little puppy in the world romping in a sunshiny meadow. Little did I know it would be the high point of my life. The levees failed, and now I have an anxiety disorder. Shit, I need to go back there for my mental health if nothing else.

India's Restaurant, 5230 Essen Lane, Baton Rouge, 225-769-0600 (LD)

pakupaku.info had to evacuate to Baton Rouge after the levees failed. But instead of moping about the shitty town we had to hang out in while our town dried out, we decided to make fertilizer out of it. Yes, the website is proud to announce that it's expanding its restaurant review section to Baton Rouge. We hope to crush or annex any websites containing vegan-oriented reviews of capital-area restaurants, just like the good little capitalists that we are. Well, the buffet was a bit slim in its vegan pickings, but what was there was pretty all right. One of the steam trays was packed with mini masala dosas. And although they were kind of soggy, you should count your blessings--it's not every day you run into dosas at your local Indian buffet. The bhindi masala shows all you Southern motherfuckers how okra should be cooked.

Nirvana Indian Cuisine, 4308 Magazine St., 894-9797

You know when you've been to a restaurant a long time ago and you remember you didn't like it that much, and you haven't been back for decades? And then you go again? This is my story. I hit the buffet recently. The standard two or three vegan choices packed a wallop, briefly making me regret my hiatus, only to have my world come crashing down around me thanks to the ice cold pakoras. How perfectly goddamn delightful it all is to be sure.

Salt N Pepper, 201 N. Peters St. , 561-6070 (LD)

I always knew that America and Pakistan would make sweet beautiful love in the form of a restaurant. And then Salt N Pepper comes along and has the balls to open a little dive serving the cuisines of these two mighty Allah/Jesus/Great Void-fearing nations right in the French Quarter. You could order a pizza or an oyster po-boy here, but being the foreign food snobs that we are, we always go for the Pakistani.

These crazy coo-coo birds love oil more than George W. Motherfuckin Bush and his momma put together. Be careful, too, to order the food to the proper spiciness level. Otherwise, you might have flames shooting out of your mouth. Well, if you can get past the grease, the vegetables will do you right, especially the spinach and eggplant are both creamy delish. Be warned about the samosas, too. They've got this weird flaky crust, but once you break them open, the taters will give you love. Stay away from the pakoras unless you're prepared to chomp into fried bits of onion and potato that may be well-cooked or may be the temperature of ice cream. The cook clearly gives a shit when he's making the flaky slightly sourdough naan and the deeply spiced potato parathas, though. Red alert: make sure you get it without butter. Oh, and with any dish, be sure to scream from the top of your lungs that you don't want any yogurt, or else you'll get a big stinking pool of it with anything you order.

Even if the oil and hot peppers make you recoil in horror, Salt N Pepper does have the strategic benefit of being really close to Canal Place, New Orleans' mainstream art-movie house. So you can park at Canal Place, then scarf some cauliflower before readin' them subtitles thar.

Taj Mahal, 923-C Metairie Road, Metairie,836-6859

I can't recommend this place. I can't not recommend it. You won't love it. You won't hate it. I pretty much don't remember jack shit about this place except that one waiter looked like Hunter S. Thompson, and the room was as stuffy as my dead grandma's armpit.

Tandoori Chicken,2916 Cleary Ave Metairie,889-7880 (LD)

Don't be fooled by the name, this is the best Indian food in town. It used to be located in the CBD, close to my work, and I ate there all the time. Sadly for me, it's recently moved to the suburbs, but if you're going out that way, you should dash over for some excellent buffet.

The owners have described the menu, which I think is Punjabi, as Indian soul food, and brother man, I say, raise a fist in salute. This place is never crowded, but the masses can go take a flying fuck at a rolling donut. You can get tiny French lentils, mixed vegetables, aloo chole, and eggplant, but you're in the wrong place if you're looking for the kind of delicate Indian food that prances around on your tongue. This is comfort food, thick with plenty of oil and spiced with reckless abandon. Wipe up that stew with a yummy roti (tell 'em, to sub it for the naan, and your wish is their command). And if you're feeling extra bossy, ask for spinach without cream or cheese. This is the way the cook himself eats it, and if he's feelin it, he'll share the goodness (though I would suggest adding salt). And now even more insider info: If you luck out and hit this place on Friday or Saturday round about lunchtime, you'll find samosas on the buffet. Horde 'em And don't forget the lemon pickle--them's some good shit right there. You can get a dangerously heavy clamshell's worth of all this stuff for $5.99, or you can pig out in the dining room till your stomach needs stapling for $8.99. Tandoori Chicken, your name sucks, but I don't care what the others say -- I am desperately, gloriously, unhealthily in love with you.

JAPANESE

Horinoya, 920 Poydras St., 561-8914 (LD)

When I'm not reviewing restaurants that dare to serve vegan food, I'm a conniving, sleazy lawyer who loves nothing more than twisting the truth into a pretzel for the sake of my clients. You can scratch up a powerful hunger in this honorable work, Priscilla, and there's nothing that quite quenches the growl in my stomach than heading to Horinoya, my pick for best vegan sushi. The green seaweed salad is crisp and not too sweet the way some amateurs prepare it. Go wild and try the hijiki salad, too. Make sure you tell the waiter to leave the bonito flakes back in the kitchen, though. If I were you, dear vegan reader, I would also order the vegetable rolls, tiny gardens of earthly delights, all crisp and fresh. And these guys put the rock in broccoli. You get a ton of it, and it's steamed to the perfect texture, right between crisp and soft and topped with a creamy carrot-ginger dressing. Shit, there's a million things you can get on this menu, even Cajun-style edamame. The only thing I had a problem with was the natto, stringy and sour fermented soybeans. It's probably an acquired taste, but I think I'll be a closed-minded American bastard and just stuff myself with the broccoli.

Kyoto, 4920 Prytania St., 891-3644

We last ate here once about three years ago. The room was pretty enough and the food presentation precious in the usual finicky sushi-restaurant way. I don't remember much about the chow. It was probably OK. Why haven't we been back since. Why? Why does a mother love her ugly fucking stupid baby? I have no idea. Does everything have to make sense? Can't we just bask in god's mystery? Yes, I know, another helpful review.

Miyako, 1403 St. Charles Ave., 410-9997; 3837 Veterans Blvd., 779-6475;(LD)

Miyako advertises the largest hibachi tables in town. If you can deal with the stench of sizzling meat soiling your nostrils, you could do worse than eat here. There's a vegetable tempura entree, and the St. Charles location is right on the streetcar line.

Little Tokyo Restaurant, 310 N Carrollton Ave, (866) 543-0206

Don't you feel a little guilty when you hit the sushi bar and you have to tear open a package of disposable chopsticks, knowing you're at the end of a production line that started with a drunken lumberjack chainsawing yet another of Motherfuckin Earth's beautiful trees? Just so you can shove rice and veggies in your spoiled American maw? Well, check your guilty consciences at the door. Little Tokyo will sell you a pair of reusable sticks for $4.00, or let you bring your own for free, and the restaurant'll wash and keep 'em there for you. Wait! Oh shit! Another ice sheet in the Arctic Circle just cracked right under a polar bear nursing her cubs. Her left paws are on the part of the ice sheet floating away toward the left, and her right paws are on the ice sheet floating away toward the right, so she's doing the splits. The cubs gamely hold on to the bear's nipples for a second to avoid falling to a cold, watery death. The bear, enraged by the pain in her nipples, raises up and roars as the cubs lose their grip, tumbling into the ocean. . . .

Okinago, 2712 N. Arnoult Rd., Metairie, 780-8588

Okinago sets out a sprawling buffet of not-half-bad Japanese and Chinese items, not half-bad a'tall. You get the inevitable slightly stale tinge of buffet food slowly dessicating in the open air, but the variety will put you in a gleeful mood. There's everything from seaweed salad to pickled vegetables to vegetable sushi and saucy Chinese possibilities (no MSG, I was told), too.

Sake Cafe, 4201 Veterans Memorial Blvd., Metairie, 779-7253 (LD)

kittee thinks the vegetable rolls are the bee's knees; I think the avocado rolls are the bee's balls. As in reallly good bee's balls. The creamy avocado rolls went down more easily. The last time I ordered the seaweed salad, it was cloyingly sweet. And the tofu steak, while OK in and of itself, was accompanied by a dipping broth that may have been wrung out of sweaty socks. Plus, the house salad was buried under dressing a bit too thousand-islandy for my comfort. Better were the cucumber and bean-sprout salads, which may be the only things that keep me coming back. (Warning: the second time I ordered the bean-sprout salad, it was polluted with strips of fake crab.) Oh, I did have maybe the best glass of sake ever, pearl sake, an unfiltered brew that came off almost like spiked rice milk. Of course, Sake Cafe almost ruined the whole thing by serving it in a martini glass, for christ's sake. Demand that you be brought a shot glass or you'll look creepy.

I don't think kittee would disagree with me about the atmosphere--it's intimidatingly sleek, modern, and humorless. The bathroom is frightening--oh, it's clean enough, but try taking a whiz while an up-tempo lite jazz groove pumps in your ears and you know you have a heavy, heavy paper towel waiting for you after you drive your hands. Don't forget to wear your thin Armani sweater, linen slacks, and fake tanning cream, ya'll. As far as I know, kittee is the only woman with sweaty, hairy armpits to have ever dined at Sake Cafe.

Sekisui Samurai, 239 Decatur St., 525-9595;(Unknown)

Smack in the touristy end of the French Quarter, but pretty peaceful nonetheless. I had a damn fine tofu lunch special, and the waiter was careful enough to point out the non-vegan part of what I'd ordered (though, to be fair, the waiter lives at a punk-rock warehouse for many a vegan/vegetarian hoedown).

Wasabi Sushi and Bar, 900 Frenchmen St., 943-9433 (Unknown)

We went here last back when Clinton was still president or something. I ask kittee, "Do you remember anything about Wasabi?" kittee sneers, "Yeah, I don't like it." Long pause. "It's just adequate." You won't get food poisoning if you eat at Wasabi, but it won't flip your wig either.

I just read the above to kittee, who with no guilt at all says, "I just feel like I closed that restaurant down." Please, as if two people in the world will ever read this. Maybe I would be this arrogant if I, like kittee, had been named Vegan of the Year by the World Wide Web Internet On-line Vegan Benevolent Society fourteen straight years.

KOSHER

Kosher Cajun New York Deli & Grocery, 3520 N. Hullen St., Metairie, 888-2010, (Open)

Veganism and zionism hook up and make some beautiful love in Kosher Cajun. I mean, they totally get it on. Shit. I haven't ordered anything from the deli, but who cares, because Kosher Cajun's store is stocked full of vegan treats. Put all of these on your shopping list: containers of Tofutti cream cheese and sour cream; a 48-piece assortment of Mon Cuisine Frozen Foods Vegetarian Vegan Party Favorites, including pigs in a blanket. And then you can celebrate the continued mass murder and oppression of Palestinians by moseying over to the clothing section and picking up your very own Israeli Defense Forces jacket. Fantasize about mowing down a rock-throwing Palestinian child with your Bazooka while chewing on the Israeli version of the namesake bubble-gum. Mazel tov!

MEXICAN

Juan's Flying Burrito, 2018 Magazine St., 569-000 (LD) (Open)

Juan's is so punk rock. Angry Caucasian caveman music blares from the hi-fi, and two to one, your pierced waiter might just have a titanium rod jammed through his anal wall and curling out the head of his cock. Of course, I brought my out-of-town friends here one day, and wouldn't you know, someone had just sucked down a tank of ironic gas and proceeded to torture us with the Footloose soundtrack. So if you want a nice peaceful dinner, fuck off. But if you want a decent, wholesome (and, unfortunately, about as Mexican as Nanook of the North) burrito, you'll need to party down at Juan's. I always go for the veggie punk on whole wheat with smoky pinto beans, taters, and guacamole subbed absolutely free for cheese. Of course, the bean tacos will show you a helluva good time, too. Then what you do is get fucked up on a pitcher of margaritas and pump some money into our economy by blowing your whole paycheck on overpriced tschotchkes in the delightful antique shops nearby.

Nacho Mama's Mexican Grill, 3242 Magazine St., 899-0031 (Open)

Stay away. kittee had a cold black bean burrito, and I had some other kind of crap I only have bad semi-suppressed memories of. Of course, it's wildly popular here, proving yet again that we are all alone in this great void.

Taqueria Corona II, 857 Fulton St., 524-9805 (Unknown)

Pre-Levee Failure, New Orleans pretty much had its head up its ass when it comes to Mexican food. If you wanted good vegan Mexican, you pretty much had to hop on I-10 West and keep going till you hit Houston. Now there are taco trucks fighting for space on every flooded-out corner to serve Latino construction workers. I doubt any of these rolling taquerias has much vegan food. But Taqueria Corona is a good example of the bad stationery comida in town. Someone blindfolded the cook, put a clothespin over her nose, and said, "Make that poor slob out there a bean burrito." That's the only way I can describe how off this food is.

Any taco truck

Lots of meat tacos, but you can get an all right horchata.

MIDDLE EASTERN

Any discussion of Middle Eastern restaurants has to start, of course, with Ralph Nader. Or maybe Nader's parents, who immigrated from Lebanon, opened a restaurant, and hatched the favorite whipping-boy of those Republicans in drag, the Democratic Party. I feel nothing but pity and the urge to giggle in your face if you dismissed Nader and voted for Obama. My warmest congratulations to you for voting for a man who thinks gays are second-class citizens, who voted to reauthorize the Patriot Act and for FISA, and to make class action lawsuits more difficult to file. And if you say to me now's not the right time to vote for your heart, I say, change the poopy diaper of your moderation because this was the same argument against ending slavery and Jim Crow. And Mr. Barack's shit stinks. And Mr. Barack himself smells like Hamburger Helper. But Mr. John is kind of like Rice-a-Roni, the San Francisco treat, jinkle jinkle. That was real popular for a while -- Rice-a-Roni. They gotta bring that back. If they don't bring Rice-a-Roni back pretty soon, I'm moving to Canada. That would be the last sucking liquid out of the straw. The flavor can't be beat. You know, maybe this restaurant reviewing thing isn't working out. Maybe I'm just using it as an excuse to go on political tirades. All I know is that if I'm elected president, I promise a free extra falafel ball in every sandwich, and you will be pleased because I will have no trouble getting an excellent falafel ball as New Orleans has a fuckload of very tasty Middle Eastern restaurants.

Babylon Cafe, 7724 Maple St., 314-0010 (Open)

My friend Blair thinks this is the best Middle Eastern restaurant in town. Blair is nice, handsome, and witty, but he might be a little meshugana because, he's dead wrong. It's the second best. kittee thinks they have great homemade flatbread though. Even President Punny-Printer would like the grape leaves, I mean dolmas, I mean dolmas.

Byblos, 3218 Magazine St., 894-1233 (LD)(Open); 1501 Metairie Road, Metairie, 834-9773 (Counter Only--Open)

I've never been to a fancier Middle Eastern restaurant. The serving staff are prettier'n Barbie and Ken with a radical makeover. You also get to eat on glamorous white tablecloths and stab your falafel balls with forks so heavy you need a fucking crane to lift them.

My advice is too ignore all the rich bitches surrounding you and just dig into the mezze. You can pick from the standards like falafel, hummus, and baba ganoush or go cuh-cuh-cuh-crazy with grape leaves, mujadarah, foul, and brown rice. Stay away from the spinach, which seems to be sauteed in butter. And make sure you ask if the spinach pies are vegan because I've forgotten now, and I'm too damn lazy to call and confirm this.

Plus, on Thursdays, you get to pitch an R-rated tent over all the belly dancers shakin' and bakin' right past your table

Casablanca, 3030 Severn Ave., Metairie, 888-2209,(Unknown)

My ancestors stopped being kosher about three or four generations after we climbed down out of the trees. When I grew up, the last vestiges of this quaint little ritual meant that we could pack in the sausage or bacon but not pork or ham. Yeah, we were really assimilating, man. I've never really understood why you could eat as much campylobacter-stuffed chicken as you want, but the noble pig is somehow off limits. Whatever. I will, say, though, that the anti-cheeseburger set really does me right sometimes. Like Casablanca. The bad news here is the meat. The good news is that this means dairy stops at the door. So you get tadziki and, rumor has it, chocolate mousse pie made with soy. kittee liked the grape leaves, heavy on the dill, but I say the rice inside is too dry. The combo appetizer is bi-polar. I don't like overly lemon-juiced hummus, but Casablanca's left me crying for more. I thought the falafel and baba ghanoush were too bland and the tabouli too soggy. I was also annoyed by the fluffy moistness of the pita bread. Fluffiness doesn't seem like a bad thing when you think about it, but I wanted the traditional flatter, drier version. Maybe I'm just a whiner. The spinach pie was more of a solid, vaguely cheesy mass than the delicate flaky thing I'm used to, but I liked it just the same. I also kind of liked the spicy red eggplant dip, which was very non-wimpy. I will defend the fresh fries to the death, though--they might be the best in town. If you want something more down-homey, go for the couscous with mixed vegetables. And don't forget to slap the rabbi on the back if you see him.

kittee informs me this isn't her favorite review. She wants me to say that the tadziki is made with Tofutti sour cream ("I can tell") and that the grape leaves are big doo-doo size fatties. There, happy, kittee?

Dixie Gyro, 110 Carondelet St., 523-6614 (Open)

So you were wondering which Middle Eastern restaurant is the worst in New Orleans? The falafel, hummus, etc., is either dry, off, or both. Of course, you can get away with serving slops like this when you're steps away from where the streetcar drops off loads of tourists who may not know any better and you can practically smell the piss on Bourbon Street from the front door.

Lebanon's, 1500 S. Carrollton Ave., 862-6200 (Open)

Flash forward to the year 200999. The liberals have prevailed. Marriage is no longer defined as being between just one man and one woman or even one just between one person and another person. . . . Lebanon's, do you take dazee to be your lawfully-wedded husband? I do. dazee, do you take Lebanon's to be your lawfully-wedded restaurant? I do. Yes, this is what America has come to. Yes, it's the year 200999. Restaurants are marrying people. Dogs are marrying their owners' crotches. See, I told you so.

Seriously, though. Can I be serious for just a minute? Lebanon's grape leaves make me do the hokey-pokey. They're made not with just rice, but some other kind of grain, maybe cous-cous or bulgar wheat. Hell, I would marry Lebanon's just for the grape leaves. The falafel, hummus, etc., etc., also make me feel so fine, I freakin' be losin' my goddamn mind. And you don't have to feel like you're some kind of weirdo for not using whitening strips on your teeth like you do at Byblos. All you alcoholics out there should listen up, too: Lebanon's lets you BYOB. Me and Ol' Dirty Bastard were gonna bring a bathtub full of Moet and Chandon down to Lebanon's, and then he died. He died, man. Why'd he have to die? Why? Why? Why'd you have to die, ODB?

Mona's, 3901 Banks St., 482-7743; 504 Frenchmen St., 949-4115; 4126 Magazine St., 894-9800 (Open)

You can't spit or throw a rock in New Orleans without hitting a Mona's. Or spout some sad cliche, apparently. So it's inevitable you'll end up here sometime or other. And while you should do everything in your power to get to Lebanon's instead, you'll probably be quite satisfied at Mona's. Go for the huge green salad or the grape leaves plate, and you'll have a good day.

Nile Cafe, 3100 Magazine St., 897-0920 (Open)

If you're in the Irish Channel and you're feeling too poor and/or grubby to brave the white tablecloth scene at Byblos, Nile Cafe may or may not do you right. This place just opened, and may well be closed by the time you read this.

Our first couple of visits went well enough, though not without some serious vegan drama. I went here maybe the first day it was opened and ordered the veggie grape leaves. The dude behind the counter had a spoon full of labna hovering over it when I shouted, in slow motion, Nooooooooooo!" After catching my breath, I got him to drizzle tahini on it instead, and damned if these grape leaves weren't some of the best I've had, all mushy and tangy the way I like 'em. We later went back for a giant bowl of fresh fattoush and a perfectly decent falafel pita. Although it pissed me off that Nile doesn't have whole wheat pita the way almost any self-respecting Middle Eastern restaurant in this town does, the white pita wasn't the kind of pita bread I usually think of, a tool to cram falafel, hummus, baba ghannoush, whatever, into my face. Instead, it was richer and chewier. I would've eaten it by itself. If Nile Cafe can do this with whole wheat pita bread, I'll be happier than Lou Gehrig without the disease. Oh and we shouldn't forget the greasy piece of lamb that somehow ended up in kittee's salad.

The third time, though, was not the charm. The falafel was dry and gray, the grape leaves old-looking and withered, and the baba ghannoush a bland blob. Only the fresh tabbouleh and zesty humus showed any signs that Nile will be around for the long haul.

NEW ORLEANS

Cuvee (Open)

Although I can't remember for the life of me what we had, I remember it was like the coldest day of the year or something, and the vegan surprises were good, so good we almost didn't mind that we were freezing our clits off.

Commander's Palace, 1403 Washington Ave., 899-8221 (Open)

It took a special request, but at luncheon here recently, I had a salad drizzled with some fruit dressing that made my damn eye pop out. And the chef took my tiny grilled vegetables very seriously. As well she or he should have. This place is lousy with Nancy Reagan impersonators who may or maybe wouldn't give a shit if you showed up in shorts without a jacket. The only way you could probably get away with wearing shorts here is if you worse a certain jacket -- a yellowjacket -- and it was stinging the shit out of you, you burst in screaming. They'd kill the yellowjacket and feel sorry for you. They'd feed you, man!

Cochon, 930 Tchoupitoulas St., 588-2123 (Open)

I'm pleased to say that cochon.com is a French porn site. It'd be cool if the restaurant, website cochonrestaurant.com, showed images from cochon.com as you ate. Full disclosure: Stephen, one of the chef-owners, is our friend and neighbor. I leant him my copy of Omnivore's Dilemma about one or two years ago, and he's still reading it. Slow but thoughtful reader? Yes. Good cook? Quite. Sensitive to vegan needs? Very. Call him up about a week in advance and tell him you want to dine with three other vegans, and get him thinking all up in his mind about what he can make that's great and vegan. Or maybe he just slaps it together that same day with that same easy elegance that the late one-eyeballed Jew Sammy Davis, Jr., used to employ at the Sands when he was quietly threatened to whip fellow Jewish Hebrew and Sands co-owners Carl Cohen and Jakie Friedman if they didn't up his cut.

PIZZA

If I had a nipple for every time . . . oh, fuck, I've used this metaphor already. Okay, those stinkin' non-vegans, they never shut up about it: "Pizza without cheese? What's the point?" Well, you might ask yourself a complementary question: Pizza in New Orleans? What's the point? If you've come here for the pizza, I say, get ready for some punishment, Monsieur Masochist. Nevertheless, this is one of kittee's favorite foods, so we regularly brave the bullets whizzing by, the drunk drivers busting through red lights (in New Orleans, just so you know, it doesn't matter if the light is green, yellow, red, or white, non-Hispanic -- you call it a red light), and the Palmetto bugs the size of Ron Jeremy's member in search of what we know will be underachieving dough-sauce-vegetable food. But you know what, it doesn't even matter, brother, we still live in the greatest, grandest city in the world! The real question is what should a painter paint. The thing which one can't locate. That's what Mr. Jasper says anyway.

Rocky's Gourmet Pizzeria, 3222 Magazine St., 891-5152 (LD) (Open)

Our New York pizza snob friend Mr. Billy likes to say, If you want some good matzo, go to Rocky's. Well, the whole wheat crust that we get is a bit on the er, um, crackery side, to put it politely, but this is still our favorite pizza parlor, and it can be yours, too. Here's what you do. Order a Big Al's Roasted Garlic or a Farmer's Market with the red sauce. If you don't specify the red sauce, you may end up with the non-vegan white sauce or no sauce at all. Tell 'em to hold all the cheese--mozzarella, feta, all of it--and substitute olive salad (pickled olives, carrots, cauliflower and spices in oil). Then mow down that pizza and guzzle a glass or pitcher of one of the many varieties of the fine local Abita beer. If you're getting poorer while The Man gets richer--or even if you are The Man-- remember that all food tastes better after you don't eat for two days.

Whole Foods Market, 5600 Magazine St., 899-9119 (Open)

We haven't tried the pizza at Sugar Park in the Ninth Ward, but if you dig New York-style pizza, the Whole Foods uptown probably does the best reasonable facsimile. In addition to the usual toppings, you can pile it high with the most scrumptious yuppie delights, including artichoke hearts, button and portabello mushrooms, a mix of eggplant, squash and zucchini, and sundried tomatoes. If you just blew a big wad on washing your Hummer (which of course still has that Kerry/Edwards bumper sticker on it if you're shopping at Whole Foods), you might time your pizza mission for the happy hour Monday to Thursday from 5-7.

THAI

Sing Ha Thai Cafe, 413 Carondelet St., 581-2205 (L and early D) (Open)

The CBDers love this place. They're in denial. The pad thai is .

Sukho Thai, 1913 Royal St., 948-9309 (Unknown)

A bit snobby, but the cooks know what they're doing when they start slinging the coconut milk. If you're a pretentious tea-loving fuck, well, son, I do believe you're in the right place.

VIETNAMESE

Frosty's Cafe, 3400 Cleary Ave. (Open), 888-9600; 2800 Manhattan Blvd., Suite B, 361-9099 (Unknown)

Frosty's bubble tea is the messiah. In the future, we will all pray to Frosty's bubble tea and kill people of other cultures in its name. Frosty's has all kinds of crazy fresh fruit, and you get soy milk, not powder to float your bubbles in. I think the sauce for the spring rolls suck big ass, but kittee is into 'em.

Jazmine Cafe, 614 S. Carrollton Ave., 866-9301 (Open)

Pack yourself into some St. Charles streetcar and get off when it starts to turn up Carrollton. The waitstaff was insanely, touchingly eager to please, and what I ate made me glad that George Bush gave me my $3.00 tax refund or whatever it was because it went a long way toward purchasing the best gol-dang spring rolls in the city. The rice paper wrapper was soft and pliable unlike the slightly drier, stiffer version you get most anywhere else, and the roll was ridiculously full of juicy avocado. The seaweed salad is a beautiful thing, too.

Kim Son, 349 Whitney Ave., Gretna, 366-2489 (Open)

When kittee walks in this place, she must have the same kind of buzz Bush was sportin' when he snuck into Iraq that one Tofurkey Day. The vegetarian page on the menu is long on pretty tasty morsels. kittee has a bone for the sweet-and-sour chicken, which couldn't be more deep fried. I'd be generally wary of the other chicken, gluten, and bean cake offerings on the left side of the vegetarian page. Stick with the right side, especially the Bean Cake w/ Black Pepper and the Bean Cake w/ Curry & Coconut Sauce in Clay Pot. And you'd be a crazy coo-coo lunatic not to get the Vegetarian Salad, which is packed with fried tofu in a light sweet and sour sauce on a bed of cabbage. Extra bonus for the vegan fellas: to use the urinal, you have to stand on an angled board that triggers constant flushing. It's funky smelling, fun and hygienic all at the same time!

Pho Tau Bay, 113-C Westbank Expwy., Gretna, 368-9846 (Open)

I have it on good authority that the honcho behind these restaurants was questioned for jury duty in a capital murder case in Jefferson Parish, New Orleans' death-penalty-lovin' neighbor, see www.blackstrikes.com. The owner said under oath that he would automatically vote for the death penalty in cases where the defendant was found guilty of first degree murder.

That said, the food was as good as the owner's views on capital punishment have been and may still be misguided. See www.deathpenaltyinfo.org. A Jefferson Parish jury recently voted to sentence Patrick Kennedy to death for child rape. Cruel and unusual punishment! you cry? Well, old Patrick was thinking the same thing, and so he took his Eighth Amendment challenge right up to the U.S. Supreme Court. Another Kennedy, Justice Anthony, wrote the decision for the court saying that Patrick was right. Cool. Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal acted mad but probably was secretly proud that the state played such an integral role in making extra-double sure the U.S. is no longer the only Western democracy with the death penalty for rape.

So let's get down to brass tacks. The vegetarian soft spring rolls are filled with fresh cilantro and come with the best peanut sauce in the city. Order the pho xau do chay (mixed vegetables with tofu and gluten and pan fried rice noodles), blow on it, then pour directly into your mouth. kittee and I have stabbed each other repeatedly with our forks trying to get fried noodles off each other's plates and would've shot each other except this is Louisiana, and, well, we don't want to wake up one day with Angola warden Burl Cain standing over us with the tiny boner he always gets in the execution chamber when it's lethal injection time. But I digress. Pho Tau Bay gets in on the po-boy action with the vegan banh mi chay, starring fried tofu and dressed with julienne carrots, Chinese radish, onions, cucumbers, and "HOT!!!" (note the three exclamation points, gringos) peppers. I've only ever had something like this in Montreal, and I don't think I'm talkin out my ass when I say I'm sure it's good here. Lots of folks rave about the soup rau chay, a.k.a., vegetarian soup, but kittee doesn't like it. kittee insists I don't like it either, but I want to give it another try. We both like the many weird desserts, and there are far too many beverages to get into here.

COFFEE, DESSERT, Y MAS Y MAS Y MAS

Permit me one tirade. I don't have to look far to find something that makes me unhappy. For instance, rigged elections and the acceptance of voting machines that don't leave a paper trail. Kerry wins in the Ohio exit polls, but Bush somehow gets more than 100,000 more votes. Check it out. Wow, what kind of voting booth shenanigans will go on in Rocky Balboa, I mean Cynthia McKinney/Rosa Clemente vs. Ralph Nader/Matt Gonzales vs. Barack Obama/Joe Biden vs. Bob Barr/Wayne Allyn Root in 2008? Holy Crap, McKinney, Nader and Barr have already picked running mates. They're being so natural, and we're being so uptight. I love how Barr's grizzled hand clasps Root's Nevada anchorman hand. Root should know how fucked a no-regulation system is. A lack of regulation allowed mortgage lenders to royally screw up. If you privatize gain and socialize loss, you end up with a scary undercapitalized Freddie Kruger Mac smellier than a giant pool of factory farm pigshit. Perhaps more importantly, when a coffeehouse charges an extra 50 cents or dollarr for a splash of soymilk in your coffee, not only is this highway robbery in and of itself, but we soymilk drinkers also end up subsidizing cow milk drinkers, who get to guzzle their phlegm for free.

Zotz, 8210 Oak Street, 861-2224 (BLD) (Open)

Zotz is a curious combination of asshole and good company. I was charged a dollar for a two-ounce splash of soymilk in my coffee. That's a predatory business practice -- Zotz's policy, then, is to charge $16 for a 32-ounce container of soymilk it pays maybe $2 for. Zots also once boasted of its pro-smoking policy at one point, though I don't know if it does anymore. On the other hand, it is so Fair Trade hipster. And so vegan-optional.

The scene: Hi Mr. Prince Albert-wearing Speed Freak. Hello Stitch-and-Bitcher. Are you knitting me a cell-phone cozy? And is that you in the corner, Mrs. Face-Tattoo? Okay, I love this place. It's twenty-four hours a day of corporate-free coffee drinkin'. I got a stale vegan cookie right before my acupuncture session one day.

Oh, did I mention Zotz serves Che Guevara's favorite beverage, yerba mate? The dude was a leper doctor. You know that yerba mate shit's gotta be tasty. Or it's just because he was from Argentina. Viva Zotz! Drink your coffee here and tell Starfuckers it can go piss up a rope.

Fair Grinds, 913-9072 (Open)

Right by Jazz Fest, where I saw Cheeky Black in 2007. Here's a little Big Freeda. Do it for ya. Somebody gawn be my . . . Girl, clap it for ya. We like to shake it for ya. We like to shake it for ya. Shake it like a baby daddy. Ha-ha-Hollygrove. Lil Wayne went to McMain. The best coffee in New Orleans. Fair Grinds has vegan stuff off and on, but as far as I know, it's always Fair Trade.

Mojo, 1500 Magazine St, New Orleans - (504) 525-2244 (BLD) (Open)

Sometimes Fair Trade, sometimes not. The owner might like Constitutional fundamentalist Ron Paul. I used to bring Vee, our freegan dog, in there. He's the cutest boy. The poor pooch -- he was drinking a nice pint glass of ice water when he knocked it over by accident. Dogs are now banned, though I don't think it had anything to do with Vee.