Well rounded 🍽
Eat very vegan, very well at The Well + Northside newbie Bellas Bagels' vegan options
This week Side Dish is proud to feature its first guest review by its vegan contributor/partner JL Fields. In addition, Matthew offers a snapshot of plant-based offerings at a newly opened bagel shop on the north side of town. Enjoy!
Well at the Well
Whelp, you can’t let a little layoff shut me up about all things vegan. Thanks to a delightful collaborative relationship over the years, Matthew invited me to join him here to continue the foodie convos, bringing my take on all things veg.
Before the commercial break, I was eating my way through The Well and it seems like a great place to pick things up. Because the truth of the matter is that food hall-style establishments in the Springs have not been consistent with their plant-based and vegan offerings.
When The Well reopened with its new vendor lineup for 2023, it was clear they must have gotten the memo, because all four food establishments in the cafe have you covered. As a foodie, I’m also seeking mainstream joints that intentionally cater to the plant-based diner, and The Well is doing just that.
Here’s what to eat:
Formosa Bites
On (re)opening night, I knew I needed the veg potstickers. They are as solid as ever. And since opening night, they’ve added fried tofu to the menu and it’s exactly what soy-lovers love: lightly crisp and juicy, meaty inside. [Editor’s note: the menu now hosts veggie potstickers, sweet potato fries and fried king oyster mushrooms.]
Sivar
The sister restaurant to Monse’s in OCC, you can still get a vegan favorite: yucca fries. The yucca supreme was fleetingly on the menu — and that’s always my go to in OCC — but, alas, it’s no more at The Well. But the standard yucca fries are here and I just order a little vegan pastor (soy curls) and pile ‘em on top. Vegan pupusas, tacos and empanadas are available, too.
Shovel Ready
The sammie-only menu has expanded — good news for vegans! There was a beet sandwich on the menu opening night that is gone, but the expanded small bites and salads have plenty of pleasing options for the veg-heads: falafel, hummus, tabbouleh, oh my!
Tossed
Sure, salads are a vegan cliche, and salads — yet a bowl of leafy greens (or wraps or hippie bowls) is something many of us wish we could get at a bar. Here, everything is easy to order vegan. The Southwest wrap remains my fave: copious veggies + black beans = winner!
Stellar Bellas
Colorado Springs has a new bagel shop that’s already going somewhat locally viral. Bellas Bagels opened only three weeks ago off North Powers Boulevard just across from Pine Creek High School, and owner/operator Jason Stele (who’s co-owner/wife Michelle is the baker) tells me they’re already selling out of 1,500 bagels on weekends.
I’ll have more of a writeup on Bellas’ backstory (plus some more impressions from our visit) in my free newsletter later this week. But to accompany JL’s piece for now, I want to shout-out Bellas’ vegan offerings.
First thing to know: All of the bagels are vegan (even the chocolate chip!) with exception to the obvious ones like asiago or jalapeño-cheddar, which clearly cheese it up. And vegans can skip the cream cheese in favor of other “schmears” like peanut butter and grape jelly.
From the dozen-item bagel sandwich list, the hummus sandwich (named The Coal) has been specially designed to be fully plant-based. It gets carrots, bell peppers, cucumbers, onion and lettuce along with the hummus. We ordered ours on Bellas’ olive oil and rosemary bagel, a unique flavor I haven’t seen elsewhere.
I must confess that before I knew I was going to place this mini review under JL’s piece this week, I wasn’t thinking vegan. So I did an add-on of Pueblo Green Chile cream cheese, which for omnivores I highly recommend for the little pop of earth and spice.
The Steles —who actually started Bellas at area farmers markets and sold online during the pandemic — go to Pueblo annually to stock up on green chiles for the season. (Methinks they’re gonna need more this year than they’ve ever bought prior). And they make their own schmears by whipping ingredients into big 30-pound cream cheese blocks, resulting in a much fluffier texture.
They also make their house hummus from scratch; it holds a nice garlic edge, which I appreciate. All the veggies on The Coal give a very fresh crunch, and even with my dairy addition, it feels like a quite light affair. (Especially compared to the Bagel Dog, a Nathan’s beef hot dog “wrapped in a dough hug.” Think pig in a blanket, but better. Vegans: pretend like you didn’t read those last two sentences. Ahem.)
To the star attraction, the bagels themselves are delightful. Michelle ferments the dough for three days “which adds a lot of flavor” says Jason. (He’s not wrong.) He’s also proud to point out that Michelle’s techniques between the ferment, boil and bake lend desirable air pockets to the crumb, which assist the crust’s crunchiness. It’s true, the bagels have a great chew that Jason says the New Yorkers in town have already given their blessing to. (The Steles hail from New Jersey.)
My only feedback on the olive oil and rosemary bagel is I’d go a touch heavier on the rosemary for more herbal and aromatic impact. (But that’s coming from me, who grows it in my greenhouse and loves finding it as aromatic garnish on fancy cocktails sometimes.)
Anyway, like I said above, I’ll have more on Bellas later this week — and an early apology for a few parts of what I’ve written above that might be redundant to what you’ve now read. (I need some of the framework to give structure to the free subscriber blurb. Just go with it.)
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These all look great JL!