Vegan Date Night in Park Slope

Park Slope gives a vegan date night a simple shape: a small opening course, a walk down a busy street, then dinner at a restaurant that spells out its vegan choices on the menu. You start at Electric Beets, a fully plant-based deli, before heading toward Miti Miti Modern Mexican for the main meal. Along the way you can ask each other what's one plant-based dish that changed how you think about vegan food, a question that works whether you've eaten this way for years or you're trying it for the first time tonight. Nothing about this plan asks you to guess at what counts as vegan. Electric Beets describes itself as fully plant-based and lists every ingredient, and Miti Miti marks its vegan dishes on the menu, so neither of you has to guess.

The neighborhood

Park Slope's stretch of 5th Avenue between Union Street and Atlantic Avenue is lined with small shops and bars, the kind of block that rewards a slow walk instead of a straight line from one stop to the next. Electric Beets sits nearby on 7th Avenue, and Miti Miti Modern Mexican sits on 5th Avenue, so the evening naturally bends around that walk between them. Parking here is metered street parking along 5th Avenue and the side streets, and neither venue keeps a dedicated lot, so leave a few minutes to circle a block if you're driving in. If you'd rather skip that search, the R train's Union St stop puts you close to both places without needing a car at all.

The evening, in order

Start at Electric Beets for an early bite. Its online menu lists the Sunrise Tofu, made from tofu, nutritional yeast, salt, black pepper, turmeric, garlic powder, and kala namak, and the Green Goddess Salad, built from broccoli, cabbage, edamame, celery, spinach, cashew, lemon, and coconut aminos, with no animal products named in either ingredient list. From there, walk up 5th Avenue and let the small shops and bars slow your pace before dinner. Close the night at Miti Miti Modern Mexican, where the menu marks the Vegan Gringo taco and the Vegan Burrito/Bowl as vegan, the bowl built from mushrooms, kale, and sweet potato. Before you order, ask what they'd pick first if every dish on the menu were vegan, and let that question carry you into the meal.

Something to ask each other

What's one plant-based dish that changed how you think about vegan food?

If the two of you eat differently

Ask what they'd order first if every dish on the menu were vegan.

A few things are worth asking the kitchen directly rather than assuming: whether the Vegan Gringo's blue corn shell is fried in oil shared with meat dishes, whether the vegan cheese on the burrito bowl is made without casein, whether the Sunrise Tofu is prepared on a station shared with other proteins, and whether the Green Goddess Salad's cashew dressing is made in a nut-free area. A short question to your server settles what the menu alone can't, and it's a small, easy thing to do together before the food arrives.