A vegan date night in Silver Lake: Indian to Taiwanese in one walk

Silver Lake gives you two very different vegan kitchens within a short walk of each other, so tonight's date runs on curiosity instead of compromise. Start at Silver Lake Vegan on Fountain Ave, where the whole menu is plant-based and nobody at the table has to ask what can be swapped or left off. Order a few appetizers to share and let the conversation settle around spice level and which curry direction to take, not around what's technically edible. From there you walk to Pine & Crane on Griffith Park Blvd for Taiwanese comfort food built vegan from the ground up, then close with a walk down Silver Lake Boulevard while the neighborhood cools off around you. Nothing here needs explaining to a non-vegan date. Indian and Taiwanese cooking both lean hard on vegetables already, so the two stops read less like an accommodation and more like two strong ways to eat.

The neighborhood

The two restaurants sit close enough to walk, with Silver Lake Boulevard connecting them and giving the evening its own built-in intermission. Silver Lake Vegan is on Fountain Ave, where street parking is available on the permit-free blocks just north of the restaurant; if those fill, metered spots line the surrounding streets. Pine & Crane sits over on Griffith Park Blvd, which has metered parking with a two-hour limit during business hours, so it's worth timing the meter to how long you want to sit and talk. If you'd rather take transit, LA Metro Line 92 runs this stretch, with a stop near Silver Lake and Fountain Ave northbound and another at Griffith Park Blvd southbound, so both restaurants sit on the same line whichever direction you're coming from.

The evening, in order

At Silver Lake Vegan, start with appetizers and let the table work out spice level and which curry to chase before the mains show up. The kitchen's channa masala, cauliflower curry, and vegetable tikka masala in coconut sauce each give you something different to react to, and a vegan mango lassi is on hand to cool things down between bites. From there, walk over to Pine & Crane for the second course: vegan mapo tofu built on garlic and fermented funk, dan dan noodles in sesame-peanut sauce with cucumber and crushed peanuts, bok choy potstickers, a scallion pancake to tear apart with your hands. The loose-leaf teas sourced from Taiwan mean the conversation can keep going without the meal steering you toward last call.

Something to ask each other

Which do you order first at a new vegan restaurant—the signature dish everyone talks about, or something that sounds unusual?

If the two of you eat differently

At both stops, a non-vegan partner would find plenty to eat. Indian restaurants typically have broader vegetable options than Western menus. At Pine & Crane, the same vegan dishes work for anyone; flexibility on ingredient sourcing is the only ask.

Let dinner settle on the walk between Fountain and Griffith Park Blvd, past the galleries, small shops, and trees that make this stretch of Silver Lake worth slowing down for. It beats ordering a third dish you don't actually need. If your date isn't vegan, both stops still work for them: Indian menus tend to carry more vegetable dishes than a typical Western menu, and at Pine & Crane the same vegan plates work for everyone at the table. Before the check comes, ask each other how you pick a dish at a restaurant you've never eaten at before: the one everyone's already talking about, or the one that sounds the strangest on paper.