Fresh off an appearance on Food Network's The Great Food Truck Race 2, Costa Mesa's own Seabirds truck now has a national profile. The show benefitted from telegenic truck owner Stephanie Morgan's striking beauty, but you wouldn't know how delicious her inventive all-vegan menu tastes by watching the telly. Where else can you find a tempura-fried avocado taco, or a Jamaican jerk-seasoned jackfruit that you'd swear was pulled pork? With no prior restaurant experience, the self-taught Morgan launched Seabirds in June 2010. She claims she didn't even like to cook until switching to a vegan diet four years ago. She's now on a mission to make vegan food exciting and delicious even for those whose knee-jerk aversion to vegetarian food stems from the one time they ate something vile in their college food co-op that believed in the horrid '70s-era Moosewood Cookbook brand of brown-rice-and-tempeh vegetarianism. $$
