Sacramento Vegan Chef Challenge 2014 -- Pizza Rock

My son Zack took me to Pizza Rock for lunch on Thursday so I could check out their Sacramento Vegan Chef Challenge menu, which includes several lunch, dinner, and brunch items. I know when a person goes to a pizza parlor, it's expected that they'll order the pizza, but since several local vegans had already posted beautiful pictures of the vegan pizza that Pizza Rock is serving up this month, I decided to try some of the other items on the Challenge menu.


I started with the 3 Bean Balela Salad, a tasty mixture of garbanzos, black beans, kidney beans, cherry tomatoes, red onion, mango, and mint, tossed with a serrano citrus dressing. Such a beautiful, colorful salad!

I followed up the salad with a nice hot bowl of Hearty Vegan Chili, made with kidney beans, garbanzo beans, lentils, green beans, peppers, onions, and dark chili tofu. Since it's finally starting to feel like fall, this spicy bowl of chili was just the comfort food I needed.

I was really glad I saved room for dessert, an incredible Vegan Tiramisu. I haven't had tiramisu since I went vegan, since it's one of those dishes that's usually chock full of non-vegan ingredients. Somehow, the chef at Pizza Rock managed to create a delicious vegan version of this fabulous dessert. According to the description on the menu, it's made of "house-made lady fingers dipped in chilled coffee and layered with house-made vegan sour cream and cream cheese, organic cornstarch, vanilla and organic powdered sugar, cocoa powder and chocolate shavings." Amazing!

This was actually my second trip to Pizza Rock this month. The first week of the Sacramento Vegan Chef Challenge, I went there to try the Vegan Cinnamon Roll Pancakes. The menu gives the option of a small, medium, or large order of pancakes. I opted for a medium order, which turned out to be four enormous pancakes. They were delicious, but I couldn't even eat half of them in one sitting. I took the leftovers home with me and discovered that they were just as good reheated. I managed to stretch that one order of pancakes into three breakfasts! I noticed later that a few pictures on the Sacramento Vegan Chef Challenge Facebook page showed these pancakes served with fresh fruit. Mine didn't come with fruit, and apparently if you want them that way, you need to order them "ambrosia-style." Either way, you're in for a treat!

Pizza Rock is located at 1020 K Street, and their phone number is 916-737-5777. Their website address is http://pizzarocksacramento.com/, and their Facebook page can be found at https://www.facebook.com/PizzaRockSacramento. The restaurant is open Monday and Tuesday from 11:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m., Wednesday and Thursday from 11:00 a.m. to midnight, Friday from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 a.m., Saturday from 10:30 a.m. to 3:00 a.m., and Sunday from 10:30 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.