While Miami's vegan scene might be a little bit lacking, we have to give props to the dedicated herbivores working to educate the masses on the benefits of local produce, meatless Mondays and cruelty-free cuisine.

One such teacher is Ellen Kanner, blogger, columnist and now, cookbook author. Kanner has long been a force for healthy living in South Florida, and she's about to reach a broader audience with her new cookbook, Feeding the Hungry Ghost: Life, Faith and What to Eat for Dinner. In it, she schools readers on the four seasons, spirituality through food and greens galore.

See also:
- Top Five Vegan Cheeses
- Ten Superfoods to Make You a Stallion in the Sack

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Cafe Prima Pasta wants you to veg out.

In a city where it's not unusual for a restaurant to open and close in a few months, Cafe Prima Pasta is celebrating 19 years of feeding Miamians.

It could be the cool dark space that serves as a welcome respite from the harsh Florida sun, or it could be the simple and identifiable Italian food. You'll find no liquid nitrogen tanks in the kitchen. Instead, the menu features favorites like chicken parmigiana, lasagna, and spaghetti and meatballs. No wonder the restaurant was packed on a Tuesday evening with multi-generational groups dining on food everyone can agree on.

Cafe Prima Pasta is introducing a menu catering to vegetarians. Owner Gerardo Cea explained that many European customers came in requesting a lighter, more vegetarian-friendly menu. "I have a restaurant. I can do that." he told Short Order. The result comes in two parts.

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Sandwich options for the meatless among us are sadly lackluster. Grilled cheese, PB&J, BLT minus the B? We're missing the creativity, the oomph, the drive for tantalizing flavor combos found in meatier selections.

Luckily, even in meat-crazy Miami, vegetarian choices are expanding as we speak. And there are several sammie shops across the MIA that offer options so scrumptious you won't even miss the meat.

On that note, here are our five favorite vegetarian sandwich options. Eat up, herbivores.

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Photo by John Zur

They might not look spectacular, but those bricks of tofu pack some incredible tastes and textures.

​Of all of the Latin American-Asian fusion dishes on Asia de Cuba's diversely unique menu, why would you order slabs of brown tofu? Because they're damn good and you don't have to be vegetarian to enjoy them.

Dining with a vegetarian - when you are a natural carnivore who seeks out beef, veal, lamb, and anything that had its head cut off - can open you up to an appreciation for how inventive meatless cooking can be.

Such is the case with the marinated crispy tofu at Asia de Cuba, the inventive eatery inside the Mondrian Hotel on South Beach.

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Camille Lamb

This Labor Day, leave the killin', keep the grillin'.

​Labor Day, the holiday with the name that never fails to confuse scads of recent immigrants, is upon us yet again. So kick off your shoes, enjoy not working, and celebrate.

If you're a human, that is. For cows, chickens and pigs everywhere, Labor Day is a murderous nightmare. Livestock all over the country hunker down and clench their gaping wet nostrils to avoid inhaling the stench of their brethren's charred flesh wafting from barbecue grills. It's a truly barbaric ritual. No wonder PETA president Ingrid Newkirk's will requests that the "meat" of her body, "or a portion thereof, be used for a human barbecue, to remind the world that the meat of a corpse is all flesh, regardless of whether it comes from a human being or another animal, and that flesh foods are not needed."

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A. Cuevas

For both rabbits and tortoises, the fast ends with a party on the 9th

​Vegan Assassin and soon-to-be Miami restaurateur Alex Cuevas is at the helm of yet another veg-head initiative here in Miami --- a mass juice fast lasting from five to seven days. Via Facebook, 45 Miamians and friends have committed to joining one of two groups of juice fasters: the rabbits and the tortoises. Rabbits started their fasts yesterday, and tortoises link up on the 5th. The final fast day for both groups will be July 9th, when all will convene to toast a glass of wheatgrass juice at Cuevas' new (and not yet officially open) Choices Cafe (379 SW 15th Road) and celebrate their victories (which will likely include detoxing, weight loss, and mental clarity). The event runs from 7 to 10 p.m., and the health conscious public is also welcome to attend. Vegan DJ Golden Del will be spinning chill house beats for the event. Entrance fee is a bag of organic greens, ginger, lemons, green apples, or the like.  
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Camille Lamb

The entrance fee for a vegan potluck is an animal product-free dish, like this "fruits of the forest quinoa."

​At 7 p.m. Sunday, Short Order pulled up to the quiet block near Brickell where Om Garden used to be. It was a little dreary outside, but we followed some smiling, healthy looking people carrying Tupperware dishes to an open door at 379 SW 15th Road. It led to a bright stairwell from which dance music trickled down out onto the sidewalk.

Upstairs, a group of people whose appearance defies categorization was chatting over paper plates of colorful food. It was a vegan potluck hosted by vegan galvanizer Alex Cuevas, thrown directly upstairs from the site of his forthcoming restaurant, Choices Cafe. The entrance fee? A vegan or raw vegan dish, preferably home made, like the "fruits of the forest quinoa" created by Short Order. (It consists of pecans, raisins, and mushrooms sauteed with vegan Earth Balance spread, sprinkled with sea salt and turbinado sugar, folded into several cups of organic quinoa and topped with raw walnuts.)

Lightly promoted via Facebook and word of mouth, this was the fourth potluck Cuevas has thrown since the outset of his campaign to promote the vegan lifestyle, nutrition education, and the ethical treatment of animals in Miami.

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​I am a happy girl, because a wonderful new fully-veg restaurant has opened not a mile from my house. Mi Vida Cafe is located on NE 72nd Street and Biscayne, in the small space next-door to thrift store Divine Trash. You may sit inside and watch your meals being prepared as we did, or there are some tables out front. In a few weeks they're planning to open up even more seating in the urban garden out back.

MVC has a board of daily specials. The regular menu has an extensive list of fresh juices and smoothies, several starters, and six main entrees. The day I went, the specials were: Raw Spaghetti al Pesto, Spicy Kale Chips, Raw Carrot Cake with Coconut Icing, and the soup of the day was Raw Celery & Sunflower Seed.

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​A quick recap: I went vegetarian in '94 and over the years phased out eating gelatin, buying leather, and cut way down on eggs and dairy. Toward the end of 2009 I decided to stop making excuses to myself and just go vegan.

Never imagined I'd do it, but it's now 1.5 years later and I've settled into it just fine. Not only am I not huddled in a corner in an anemic coma, but I'm better for it. I upped my fitness level, maintained tons of energy and even passed my iron test with flying colors the last time I donated blood.

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John Zur

Hakkasan's vegetarian dim sum.

​Four Diamond Award-winner, Hakkasan, at the Fontainebleau Hotel, may not be the most likely destination for vegetarians. But the menu is rich with offerings to suit most every taste and preference.

Executive Chef Ooi Soon Lok offers fresh, well orchestrated food that is likely the area's best. Consider he fried rice ($16) with pumpkin, French bean, and Thai fragrance. Chef Lok says, "The secret to any fried rice is the wok must be hot enough before you add the rice; if the wok does not have enough heat, the rice will stick on the wok and the dish is ruined."

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