Rico's Diner, a photo by bbarneclo on Flickr.
Although I am proud of my gastronomic identity, it sometimes takes me a little while to come out. You never know how a person might react. Case in point: it took me eight weeks out of my ten week summer internship to disclose that I was a Fat Kid to my fellow interns. They were deeply offended by my lack of trust, but were immediately supportive of my lifestyle. I suspect that a few also identify as a Fat Kid, but aren't quite ready to come out publicly. Some seem a bit nervous about using the label Fat Kid in particular and, out of an abundance of caution, avoid this seemingly pejorative term and instead refer to our joint lunch-time food adventures as FK outings.
For our first official FK outing, we ventured a few blocks over to Rico's Diner. The place is your typical greasy spoon diner, but with a unique twist. They offer a substantial vegan/vegetarian menu with a wide variety of traditional diner dishes.
They are probably most known for their vegan pulled pork. Honestly, if I didn't know it was vegan, I would have thought it was regular pulled pork. Pretty tasty and incredibly convincing.
I went the opposite direction and had a bacon cheeseburger. Substituted the beef burger for a turkey one instead. In the moment, I felt like this decision made dish slightly more healthy. It's all relative, right? Good bacon, nice and crispy. Turkey burger was also good- flavorful and moist. Sometimes turkey burgers are dry and have no taste, but Rico's seemed to get it right. I just wish they offered blue cheese instead of cheddar- goes better with bacon. On the bottom right hand corner of the picture, you see the hit of the whole lunch- SWEET POTATO TATER TOTS!!!!! A-maz-ing. Seriously, it was worth going there just for these. Dipped in a little bit of ranch dressing- fat kid heaven.
Last dish, traditional burger with sweet potato fries. I didn't try this dish, but my coworker gave the thumbs up. Sweet potato fries were a hit. (If you can't tell, I'm a sucker for sweet potato fried goodness.)
Rico's also has legendary milkshakes. We didn't try them, but I plan on going back for dessert (and tater tots) sometimes soon. Will update when I do.
Not my pictures (grabbed it from flickr) but you can see what you might expect. Similar to the food menu, they offer both regular and vegan shakes. When we were there, I saw a blueberry shake offered- must try.
In addition to lunch options, Rico's also offers traditional diner breakfast dishes.
Country fried stake and eggs.
Biscuits and gravy.
French toast sticks, ham, potatoes and fried eggs.
Tofu scramble.
In addition to the food, the place is super cute.
Love the cartoons on the windows.
If you are in Downtown Oakland and/or are vegan/vegetarian, this place is definitely worth a try.
