By the time I left work yesterday, I knew three things for certain: I was tired and a bit headachy, I didn’t feel like cooking, and I wanted a very particular take-out pizza for dinner. As S and I drove home, I broached the topic:

Me: So, are you hungry now?

S: Um… not really. You?

Me: No. But when I am, I won’t feel like cooking… and I bet you won’t either…

S: You know what our option is.

Me: What? What is our option?

S: Vegan Thai Pie.

Me: Yesss, I was hoping you’d say that! I’ve been dreaming of it for the past two hours!

S: Really?! I thought you’d reject it outright!

Me: Nope!

Normally, S would’ve been right – I’m nearly always the one who balks at eating out. But I’d already dropped a fair chunk of change yesterday day to pay off one of my [admittedly smaller] student loans, and spending a couple more dollars on dinner seemed like a good way to celebrate.

S called in our order to Glass Nickel Pizza Co. and agreed, darling that he is, to pick up the pizza while I got a workout in. What a champ. So while he drove out to get our dinner, I spent some QT at our complex’s fitness center (read: room with some rickety old exercise machines from the eighties, a rack of free weights, and a single all-purpose weight machine).. Not long after I returned, S and our pizza arrived.

That’s the pizza, not S.

To my knowledge, Glass Nickel was the first local pizzeria to offer Daiya – I blogged about it earlier this year. Since then, they’ve also introduced the vegan version of their popular Thai pie.  The Vegan Thai Pie features cilantro, Daiya, tofu, broccoli, carrots, red pepper, and yellow onion. It’s topped with chopped peanuts and features a spicy peanut sauce in lieu of a tomato-based sauce.

It’s amazing. It’s a perfect pizzafication of pad thai. I love it.

Seriously, it’s one of the best pizza-joint pizzas I’ve ever eaten. I love that Glass Nickel offers such a creative vegan option! Honestly, though, the Daiya is a bit extraneous – the rest of the pie’s flavors are more than robust enough to keep it interesting, and Daiya just gets in the way. My only other nit-picky issue is with the tofu – it’s pretty plain; if Glass Nickel marinated it and chopped it into smaller cubes, the pizza would be out-of-this-world delicious. But those are minor quibbles – I might submit my suggestions to Glass Nickel, but if I do, I’ll be sure to thank them more than profusely for even offering the Thai Pie. Gotta encourage the vegan friendliness!

What’s the most creative pizza combo you’ve eaten? Do any of your local pizza places offer creative vegan options like this one?