Vegans aren’t an ethnic group. They’re an eating group – people who don’t consume animal products. No meat. No eggs. No dairy. No processed sugar (it’s bleached using cattle bones). The most orthodox vegans eschew bee’s honey.

So, vegan-American cuisine, a Yankee-doodle dining dandy?

You can bet your red-blooded burgers.

Now, for the really delicious news: Vegan-American soul food is cooking in full fusion force on Tacoma’s Hilltop, where Quickie Too serves up nonmeat cuisine of American diner and deli favorites: breakfast scrambles, burgers, fries, hoagies and “steak” sandwiches.

Some of Quickie Too’s ingredients might have foreign-sounding names – quinoa, millet, tempeh and seitan – but there should be nothing foreign about healthful versions of dishes that, in the animal-eating world, might be good-tasting but aren’t always good for you.

At Quickie Too, Tacoma’s only vegan restaurant and just one of the handful that cater to the South Sound’s equally underserved vegetarians, the food is both good-tasting and good for you.

Burgers, each served with a satisfying side of beans and rice, aren’t “veggie” burgers. Quickie Too makes its burgers with tofu (soybean curd), seitan (a grain product known as “wheat meat”), tempeh (protein-rich fermented soybean), millet (an ancient whole grain) or quinoa (a plant seed whose protein quality rivals cow’s milk, according to the World Health Organization).

I’m a carnivore, and I’ll tell you what: I didn’t miss meat. In fact, thanks to the whole grains and complete proteins that comprise Quickie Too’s cuisine, something as simple as a burrito ($4.49, filled with a spicy millet-and-onions scramble, chopped romaine and creamy soy dressing) kept me sated for hours. A rarity, I can assure you.

Smoked tofu stood in for bacon in the TLT ($7.99). Thin slices of pressed tofu had a certain meatiness, with edges crisped, slightly burned and slightly dry. Almost like bacon from a pig.

Seitan earned its “wheat meat” moniker in a steak sandwich served on whole-grain bread ($7.99). OK, seitan is not steak; but at Quickie Too, my seitan steak sandwich was devilishly meaty and moist. It had a bit of sponginess – but I chalk that up to the marbling of the meat, vegan style. Potato salad, as a condiment, added creamy bulk.

The Frijole Moly Burger ($7.49) rivaled any red-meat chili burger around.

Pastrami-style tofu was smothered in refried black beans, which were studded with pieces of spicy ground and fried tofu.

Tofu in the Crazy Jamaican Burger ($7.49) had an edge of jerk seasoning that melted into the sweet sauteed plantains layered with onion and tomato on a whole-wheat bun.

The Mama Africa Burger ($7.49), a millet-quinoa mix, was sloppier than a Sloppy Joe and just as good.

Mac and cheese? Try the mac and yease ($3.79), in which nutritional yeast stands in for cheese. There’s even house-made soy ice cream.

Quickie Too has been in business as a commercial kitchen for 15 years, supplying sandwiches to natural foods stores such as PCC and Marlene’s. Earlier this year, Quickie Too went from a three-days-a-week lunch operation to a seven-days-a-week cafe that serves lunch, dinner and Sunday brunch.

It’s a real mom-and-pop operation: Niombi is the single-named owner. Her husband, James Howell, is the executive chef. One daughter, Afi, runs their 5-year-old Seattle restaurant; another, Makini, runs Quickie’s brand-new Seattle shop.

Quickie’s brunch is fine fare, too. Here’s I what sampled of my brunch mate’s $9.95 meal that came with coffee: tofu scramble with onions and peppers; polenta with mushroom gravy; home-style potatoes with onions and peppers; fried plantains; and moist-and-fluffy blueberry loaf.

The Mississippi Gotdam – the seitan centerpiece of the $14.95 Plantation Brunch that includes everything mentioned above plus more – is the latest addition at Quickie Too. I’m sorry to report I missed its introduction last week, as it sounds like the kind of chicken-fried steak four out of five cardiologists would prescribe.

Ed Murrieta dines anonymously. The News Tribune pays for all meals and services.

Quickie Too (4 stars)

1324 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Tacoma 253-572-4549

CUISINE: Vegan-American soul

ATMOSPHERE: Casual – dig the reggae music and posters.

SERVICE: Friendly but slower than the restaurant’s name suggests

NOTE: Cash only

HOURS: 11 a.m.- 8 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays; 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays; Sunday brunch 11 a.m.-3 p.m.