Sunflower Vegetarian Restaurant — Restaurant in Vienna

"Welcome to Sunflower Vegetarian!"

We are the only ones here right now.

This gave me time to hear an employee coughing behind  the curtain area.

I heard the sounds of En Peligro de Extinción (In Danger of Extinction) by La Adictiva playing on the speakers.  However, after the song ended, the Spanish songs stopped playing and English songs from the 50's, 60 and 80's started playing. I wonder if this was done for our benefit?

The area of this restaurant is about three buildings away from 5 Star Massage and near Chick Fil-A.  The business parking lot was empty except for our vehicle at around 4:50pm (16:50).

The layout of the place gave off a nice Caribbean Cottage feel and the Spanish music set the tone for a relaxing atmosphere.

Our server Douglas greeted us and let us pick our table, since we were the only customers at the time.  Douglas Speaks some English, but his native language is Spanish. I enjoyed practicing my Spanish with him. Practice makes perfect"  as Bruce Lee, Vince, Lombardi and Kurt Cobain have said.

The Food Experience:

We both ordered Spring Rolls, but my wife ordered the cold Spring Rolls, while I ordered hot fried Spring Rolls...yes, they were hot as the name implies.

Douglas (our server) mistakenly brought us both fried Spring Rolls with only one dipping sauce.   Upon seeing the mistake, I decided to keep the hot fried Spring Rolls my wife did not want, in order not to waste food. Douglas apologized and corrected the mistake.

I will say I am not into dipping sauces that this restaurant had to offer, so I wasn't bothered by not having a dipping sauce of my own.  I ordered The Golden Nuggets  and my wife ordered soup.  Unfortunately, she doesn't remember the name of her soup.

The Golden Nuggets came out and it was not how I envisioned it.   Soy sliced up into wannabe chicken slices were wrapped into a thin sac that reminded me of a spider's egg sac.

The broth of the soup/Golden Nuggets were okay. The broccoli was okay. However, upon slicing open the ball sac, the taste of the sac and fake chicken was unequivocally revolting,

repellent, repulsive, sickening,

nauseating, distasteful and stomach-churning if I do say so myself.

Revolting: for the taste.

Nauseating: if I had not listened to my body and my brain.

Stomach-churning: for the way I felt for the rest of the evening.

Yucky: For how I still feel on 8/24/24 @ 9:17am.

Toilets have come a long way and they are essential in our daily lives. I can only imagine the  crap they have to deal with.

Speaking of dealing with things, my wife couldn't deal with the soup she was eating.  It was extremely monotonous. Trying to add flavor to the soup with the options given to her did not work.

In the end it was just an untenable situation and she cut her losses.   Douglas wasn't around when we asked for him.(Enters Mia Mia into the picture)  Mia Mia (The Uncaring)  did not seem to get nor understand or care that the soup is despicable.

The words coming out of our mouths were not making an impression on the memo being sent out. After what seemed like a long time, she talked to her boss.

Douglas finished whatever he was doing and came out to attend to us.  He apologized for the food not being plentiful. Douglas informed us there would be no charge for the bill.

Since some of what we ate was good, we paid for the Spring Rolls and Drinks. As a classmate of mine used to say "What's Right Is Right" and this was the right thing to do.

What wasn't right and this is what I saw and heard Mia say to Douglas...

Mia Mia's look on her face when Douglas was apologizing to us had a fiery look in her eyes and an incredulous look on her face.

If this wasn't bad enough I heard her chastise Douglas for apologizing to us. "Why did you apologize to them? You are always apologizing." More was said but I don't remember it entirely.

Nevertheless, it was unprofessional and it reminded me of Bill Goldberg  saying "I never apologize." Even though he ended Bret Hart's wrestling career...

TO BE...

Usually, being a vegetarian means that you often end up eating more fresh-tasting foods. Somehow, on the two times I've visited Sunflower restaurant, they managed to skip right past this good aspect of vegetarianism. On my last visit, I had their "As-You-Wish Garden" dish, which was "Layers of gently pan fried noodles, topped with fresh mushrooms, snow peas, carrots and soy protein in a basil and ginger sauce." On my first visit, I had some iteration of their General Tso's chicken. With both of these recipes, the sauce had a nauseating, lumpy, gel-like consistency, and the "soy protein" tasted just as you'd imagine "soy protein" to taste: bland, but with a terrible chewy texture that manages to make it disgusting. I am a big fan of all sorts of veggie substitute foods, like veggie burgers, veggie bacon, etc (which, for some reason, this place doesn't offer), but the substitute chicken lumps I had at Sunflower were by far the most unappealing I've ever had. The flavors of the ingredients did not, I thought, work together in any meaningful way--the impression was of having thrown the ingredients together and smothered them all in the gel-sauce to give them flavor.

The environment was mostly pleasant--it was a little hot and noisy inside. Wait staff was just adequate, though on both occasions I had a particular waiter try to guilt me into finishing my terrible, overpriced entree. Moral: I make fresher-tasting, more appealing vegetarian...

So I have passed this place by for years. I went tonight becuase , one I wanted to try it, 2 I was having dinner with a vegetarian friend and she always goes to places I want to go, and 3, I needed to try something new.. I was pleasantly surprised. The spring rolls were good. They had a slightly different taste then what you would get at a maybe thai place. I think for me I could really taste the mushrooms. It had a great crunchy outside. I would do it again. Now the wontons without a doubt I really enjoyed. Next I tried the zen roll. Basically sushi with avocado and cucumber. It was good. Light. The main course. I had the thai tom yam. It was a spicy and sour combination. For me I tasted more sour. Also usually made with rice. They made mine with noodles. I wanted something closer to pad thai. It was good and they did well on the spice, but i asked for more. I wish i had ordered the general tso surprise. A great twist on chicken general tso ,but that is what the surprise is. No chicken ,but soy protein. I tasted some of my friends. Oh man deliscious. I overheard it being ordered several times while I was there. It was the soy protein surrounded with broccoli. Soooo good. I will definitely order that next time. The people were so friendly and the customers so calm and happy. Made me think am I angry becuase of all the hormones in the meat I eat. Maybe there is something to vegetarianism. All in all a great experience. Again will definitely...