The burgeoning plant-based dining scene on H Street NE has received a fair bit of press recently (including this Washington City Paper piece) as Fancy Radish (600 H St. NE) joined Fare Well (406 H St. NE), and a number of other spots in serving a menu that is either entirely vegan, or features numerous options created without animal products.
Asian-inspired fast casual restaurant Pow Pow (1353 H St. NE) has fallen squarely in that second camp, even while rapidly expanding its plant based menu options. That appears to be changing as the restaurant embarks on a month-long experiment that will feature an entirely plant based menu. If all goes well, this shift could be permanent.
Press release:
This upcoming week marks Pow Pow’s 2 year anniversary since opening on H street. The past two years have been amazing for us as we’ve grown with the neighborhood and our customer base.
When we first opened, our menu housed very traditional Asian recipes. Over time, we developed those recipes to incorporate more modern plant-based and allergen conscious ingredients; substituting fish sauce for plant-based fish sauces, making our dressings eggless, and eventually creating house-made plant-based proteins and cheeses. The response has been extremely positive among both traditional meat eaters and plant-based customers. In general, we find that carnivores appreciate our house-made proteins and cheeses just as much as real chicken, pork or cheeses that they get anywhere else.
We think one big difference between us and other places that provide plant-based options is that we make it all ourselves in-house. People ask us, why we go through all the trouble? We simply think, it just tastes better!
This past month marked a huge milestone for Pow Pow as part of a partnership with Jrink Juicery, we launched three separate plant-based bento boxes in two downtown DC Jrink locations. The boxes received overwhelming response and were sold out immediately the same day orders were fulfilled. All seven Jrink locations throughout DC and VA will begin carrying the bento boxes mid-May.
As part of another huge milestone, we are extremely excited to announce that Pow Pow’s in-house menu will be going totally plant-based for the entire month of May to gauge support.
We feel very strongly about our existing menu. However, we believe all of our plant-based proteins and cheeses are just as good and are excited about the new options we will provide.
8 comments:
If it means no more steak & cheese eggroll I'm against it. I like a lot of their vegetarian/vegan options but some of them don't quite work (vegan mozzballs, brussel sprouts), if they want to have a customer base outside of vegans they need to address that before going meatless.
Dang, PowPow was a go-to spot for chicken wings too!
Thank you for giving this a chance!!! You have our vote!!!! ✌🏼✌🏼✌🏼
What I don't understand is that their tag line is "for vegetarians and carnivores alike" and that you could already substitute all the meats with 'mock meats' anyways. I'm worried this means that Pow Pow wasn't profitable in it's current format, and eliminating the costly meat (and additional work needed to prepare meat) is the only way to stay them in business.
YAAAAAAS!!!!! So excited to see this!
7:44,
I'm not so sure the numbers are adding up at all correctly in your equation.
vegan here. came to say, "YAY!"
I go there about once a month. I don't eat out often so the fact i go to them so much is telling. While I do order a lot of their plant based proteins even though I am not a vegetarian, I think it is unnecessary to jettison their meat options. The trolley fries with pork belly added on are to die for.
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