Dandy Meals: Hungry Horse restaurant features vegan dishes, blooming with flavor
Tom and Meg Blakney.
By CHRIS PETERSON
Hungry Horse News
Meg and Tom Blakney have been caterers locally for years. But the more they served big parties, they found more and more people with diet restrictions and food allergies.
So they thought, what if there were a restaurant that was plant-based and gluten free that served dishes full of such great flavor you wouldn’t even be aware they were also meat, gluten and dairy free?
And what if it was right on Highway 2 in Hungry Horse where more than a million people pass by every year?
So they opened the Dan d’Lion. Locals will recognize the building as the former Hungry Horse Corral. The Hungry Horse sculpture has been moved across the street and the Blakneys have planted a host of flowers in the yard.
Tom said they bought the building about four years ago and have been slowly remodeling it since. They put in a commercial kitchen for their Earth Angel Organic catering business and then got the restaurant up and running this spring.
The menu features popular item like Greek Salad, gluten free and plant-based pizzas made with a gluten-free crust that is indistinguishable from the wheat one, Middle Eastern inspired Quinoa Tabbouleh, vegetable burgers that actually have flavor and a fantastic Huckleberry shake that is dairy-free and yet somehow tastes richer than the milk-based standard.
Meg is an accomplished chef. She’s been featured in Good Housekeeping and has decades of experience in food science.
“We’re not here to make fake meat,” she said. “We’re here to give an amazing flavor profile to all our dishes.”
The key is to source quality ingredients and use a host of different spices and flavors. She said she went to Seattle to attend a plant-based burger class, only to discover that the instructors were years behind what she’d already been doing.
Both locals and tourists are finding the restaurant to their liking. Brandy Ramus was visiting from Iowa and had eaten at the restaurant every day of her trip.
“We were mind blown there was a (vegan) place here,” Ramus said. “This has been wonderful.”
Ramus is a plant-based baker herself in Iowa. She said it’s very difficult to find vegan restaurants even in large cities, nevermind a small town like Hungry Horse.
“We think people with restricted diets deserve to eat just as well as anyone,” Meg said.
The restaurant is open from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday, closed Mondays and Tuesdays. The full menu is available at: https://www.earthangelorganicsmt.com/
People can dine in or take out.