Floodwater
Tucked into a corner lot next to the Holiday Inn Express in Mill Valley, Floodwater will surprise you once you step inside. It has a warm and inviting main room with beautiful high ceilings, dim lighting and a buzzy bar meant for hanging out with friends, as well as a smaller second room reserved for dining. The menu covers a wide range of contemporary California gastropub staples, with some interesting twists (matzah ball soup!). I am going to start with the many positives here…and will end with the appetizers.
Floodwater gets high fives from me as I continue my crusade for #ONEVEGANENTREE. Their vegan main dish is a hearty and delicious cassoulet— made with cannellini beans, smoked mushrooms, broccoli de cicco and lacinato kale., topped with gluten-free panko. Get this!
Floodwater also gets a shout-out for offering Miyoko’s vegan cheese on all of their pizzas, and their pizzas are GOOD. Like every other place, there is an extra charge for vegan cheese ($5), but that is a result of our government’s dairy subsidies that are not offered equally to plant-based farmers. :)
They offer a healthy (sounding) and very filling house-made veggie burger, which consists of mushrooms, tempeh, legumes, brown rice and cashews and comes with house cut fries.
They offer one vegan salad—featuring farmers’ market lettuces, radish and Japanese cucumber with a sherry vinaigrette, as well as a couple of salads that can easily be veganized, such as the warm winter salad with roasted squash and apple, grilled radicchio, Ricotta Salata and pomegranate, or the braised beet salad with Labneh, lentil and sunflower sprouts, za’atar and a shallot vinaigrette. I really loved the beet salad.
They also offer three vegan sides, including broccoli de cicco with sweet onion, chile flake and lemon; pomegranate glazed Brussels sprouts; and the ubiquitous fries, of course.
As far as vegan starters go, they have soft pretzels (served with cheddar cheese sauce, so easy to avoid), and on their online menu I found portobello mushroom steamed buns with pickled daikon and carrots, hoisin and scallion—but I did not get to try these.
The appetizers section of the menu is where Floodwater misses some easy opportunities to push it a bit further for the vegans and Flexitarians. They have three delicious-sounding appetizers on the menu that would be super easy to just serve vegan….and none of their customers would know the difference.
Vegetable tempura
Potato latkes
Onion rings with gochujang (yum) ketchup
All three of these items have egg in the batter. Why? There are literally hundreds of fantastic recipes online for egg-free tempura batter, and those latkes could easily be made with JUST egg.
They offer a sorbet trio for a tasty vegan dessert.
Overall- I find Floodwater to be way ahead of the Marin curve as far as plant-based menu choices go. It is so easy for me to comfortably eat here with my omnivorous friends without needing to eat at home before we go out. With a few small tweaks, this restaurant could easily move into the Best Choice category!
