21825 Sherman Way, Canoga Park 818/348-3240 (cross st. Sherman Way and Owensmouth)
Open 8 am-9 pm
This is the best vegetarian restaurant in Los Angeles, and it's tucked away in a natural foods market (which was formerly a butcher shop!). The decor remains a genuine artifact of 1975, around the time Follow Your Heart first opened. There is a long bar, half with stools and half with stool-chairs. There are also tables, but if you're party is more than 2 and you're coming at the prime eating time, expect a wait (though a nice one, because they will take your name and you can peruse the market -- with great books and gifts -- until they call your name on the speaker). They also have nice outdoor seating, with heating in the winter. Bring a sweater -- the eating area faces the open freezer section, and excepting stifling heat outside, you may need it!
The wait staff are extremely nice and the atmosphere is friendly in a community sort of way -- people sit at tables and talk occasionally to the people at the next, and the barstools are always filled and lively. The people range from full blown table-congoing hippies to industry types with bulging beepers and cell phones; with the occasional movie or tv star (I won't name names but there are regulars)...If you have a wait be forewarned: the service is variable and often the food can take a LONG time coming. When this looks even like a vague possibility, I drag something from the market section (juice or a great Follow Your Heart cookie -- dessert is a perfectly honorable start to any meal!) -- and let them tack it on the bill. This way you won't have to make baby seal faces and wave your hands and fall in the aisles...the waitstaff are so kind and friendly you will find yourself incapable of getting really angry with them (especially if you have the cookie).
All this being said, it's SO WORTH IT. We started going at the beginning of '98 and have eaten there at least once every single week (I know I know I've been holding out on you!). This place got me more interested in cooking, because they've done the nearly impossible: taken healthy food and made it tasty enough for anyone (and I mean anyone -- a child, a voracious carnivore...).
Breakfast: the greatest pancakes ever -- get the golden cakes ($4.25 for 3) and have them throw in Blueberries for the extra $.75. Get a side of scrambled tofu (no really, you have to taste it to believe how good it really is -- mixed with veggies and not rubbery or tasteless -- $3.00). Generally half a side of scrambled tofu and 2 pancakes is a meal, and Follow Your Heart is more than gracious about splitting -- for most of the entrees you can tell them you're splitting something and they'll do it for you in the kitchen instead of you juggling blank and full plates. The Tofu Benedict ($5.95) is delicious, but I would recommend that for more hardcore health food eaters, as it has eggless hollandaise sauce (that is truly amazing) -- add the spinach -- it's a dollar more and it's good for ya. They also offer terrific specials like French Toast with whipped white beans on the side, fried bananas and strawberries for $6.25. Be sure to check the board -- they have good deals and good stuff there...
For meat-eaters paying a visit to Healthland, I would HIGHLY recommend the Follow Your Heart Burger -- it's made with Cheddar Cheese, lettuce and tomato and is the closest tasting thing to cow you can get (for Vegans, there's soy cheese!). Then you can order a side of baked french fries that, I kid you not, taste just like the real thing. The only thing that's weird and different is the cinnamony ketchup. I love it, Steven is on the fence.
Many of the entrees (non-burgers) come with soup or a salad. There will be enough food for you to take home or share even if you have a tapeworm. Excellent to split: Spanakopita ($8.50), or as we call it Spank My Pita, phyllo dough filled with spinach and ricotta and feta that is ridiculously tasty and huge and conveniently, there are two. They come with basmati rice and a little feta-covered tomato, cucumber and onion too. You can split the salad that comes with it generally, or order soup and get another one ala carte. You'll both be full. Likewise: braised tofu tacos(2) ($8.50) that come with black beans, rice, guacamole, a little salad and if you order it dairyless, the most amazing tofu sour cream.
The soups at Follow Your Heart are amongst the best soups I've ever tasted. If you are inclined to cook, pick up their soup cookbook in book section and never look back. A bowl with a slab of cornbread or a roll (you can even get soy margarine with it) will fill you up. The salads are fresh, and filled with goodies -- the spinach salad(nutritionally better than regular salad) has apples, onions, mushrooms and vinaigrette walnuts. They also have a large selection of dairy, non-dairy and fat and non-fat dressings.
Dessert! The best part of splitting any meal! -- They make a non-dairy Vanilla/Chocolate cake that is out of this world (and $3.25). You have to reserve your piece when you sit down usually -- it's very popular. And it's the one thing your waitperson will deliver quickly just to get it out of the case and people's prying and begging eyes. They also make a really smokin' chocolate tofu mousse, and some pretty hefty cookies that taste warm and yummy, but might be a tad strange to the unadjusted palate of a meat eater or someone who eats a lot of refined sugar. While you're there, you can pick up a package of Uncle Eddie's Vegan Cookies, which are very popular and very yummy.
Follow Your Heart and the world rushes to help you -- I believe that's the quote. This is one place where they really set out to make a certain kind of friendly place with amazing food and it really surpasses anywhere we've ever eaten in L.A.
Quick update: Follow Your Heart has recently added some nice things to their menu -- among them, a fake-o Meatball sub that is just YUMMY. It is smothered in a nice red sauce with soy cheese and makes me think of my days in NY when I used to eat the real thing (only now I'd like to stay alive long enough to see old age!).