I started this series last summer and wanted to continue it this year since vegan-friendly restaurants keep popping up all over the place. For a bit of background, my mother-in-law and grandmother-in-law live in Ocean City full time. Austin’s mom is the grounds manager at her condo association during the summer and can’t travel to Baltimore to visit so we make a point to visit frequently over the summer. It’s an added bonus of course that they are a short walk from the beach. They have a fully equipped kitchen in the condo, but part of the fun of being away from home is eating out! Thus, this series was born to share the restaurants we’ve enjoyed eating at as vegans.
Shmagel’s Bagels is a spot we frequent since bagels are a super easy breakfast when away from home and all the local grocery stores now carry vegan cream cheese. Recently they’ve made a real push to be more inclusive to vegans. We always go to the 33rd street location and outside of their store front is a chalkboard sign promoting their vegan items. In the store, the bagel basket labels include a “v” on all of the vegan bagel flavors. I can’t speak to the smoothies or coffee, but their bagels are delicious. I’m pretty sure they offer vegan butter right now, but I don’t think they’ve ventured into vegan cream cheese just yet. I wouldn’t be surprised if they offer that soon.
I always get an everything bagel. They are simply the best bagel and I will not debate that. I’m a fan of Kite Hill cream cheese topped with olive. I’m sure that sound weird to some, but if you’re an olives fan you have to try it. Tapenade works well too.
Much to our surprise on our last visit, sitting on the counter by the register were these vegan blueberry scones! This is the first time I’ve noticed a vegan item in their baked goods offerings. The scone was a hair dense, felt more like eating a biscuit, but was quite tasty. That said, I’d definitely try more of their vegan baked goods in the future. It was lovely dunked in my morning coffee.
We were looking through Happy Cow to find a new place we could go with Austin’s mom and grandma and we came across Mug & Mallet. Mug & Mallet is on the boardwalk at 2nd Street. There are stairs involved with getting to the restaurant so its not the most handicap accessible, but we were able to get grandma down the 3 steps required for outdoor seating.
Mug & Mallet is a seafood restaurant, but their chef has created several vegan items which are all clearly labeled in their own section on the menu. I could kiss whoever made that decision. It makes life so much easier.
Austin and I shared the Shrimpless Cocktail for an appetizer. I was so surprised with the taste and texture. They had the flavor of shrimp without being too fishy. The texture was really nice. It’s like they captured everything I liked about eating shrimp prior to being vegan and eliminated all the grossness like the weird, murky vein. The cocktail sauce was fairly standard but still very good. I loved this appetizer.
Austin and I both had the Crabless Entree, which comes with 2 crab cakes and 2 sides. I picked fries and the vegetable of the day – broccoli. Admittedly, this is not my favorite vegan crab cake. I like the crab cakes from Land of Kush and Harmony better. But, for this being my only vegan crab cake option in Ocean City, I’m not mad at it. I would definitely eat it again. I might get the sandwich version of the meal next time because 2 crab cakes was a lot of food.
Austin’s mom and grandma got the crab dip and burger, respectively, and they both enjoyed their food as well.
