1st Anniversary (and first time) at Shojin

Last night we went over to Shojin for the first time for their 1 year anniversary party. I was thinking all you can eat was going to be a buffet like Flore's brunch. Rather it was a lot of appetizer type dishes, which were mostly noodle or rice based, being served on trays by the waitresses. But they did have a drink table right in the front for easy access, one free beer! A crowd was forming around the sushi bar and then I understood what was going on. We all waited plates and chop sticks in hand until the giant sushi boat was all filled and then.. all hell broke loose. Who knew people would go so insane for veggie sushi! It was like a zombie attack or a sale at that bridal store. Ok so I missed out on the first boat but then came another and another through out the night massive amounts of sushi came out and I did eat more than I should of, like any good all you can eat attendee should do. There were also very mini desserts that came by through out the night and I think I tried them all except for the choco cake, but it's ok, I was so full by that time! I can't wait to go back and try food sitting down!
PS: pix aren't that great

So much good

One of my favorite places to totally stuff my face and be a giant fatty AND be full for the entire day is Nyala Ethiopian where they have all you can eat vegan lunch special for less than $7! Warning.. this place is DANGEROUS! The food is so tasty that you keep wanting seconds. How I like to approach all you can eat is sampling everything that looks good then coming back for my faves during seconds. This tends to make my first plate pretty big. For seconds I chose to only get the greens and the browns but still filled my plate. By the end we were stuffed but we didn't know how stuff we really were! I was full for the entire day and felt like a beached whale and didn't want to do anything all day but lay on the couch, which is the tell all that it was a great meal! But I am pretty sure my cravings for Ethiopian food is sated... for now.


I usually don't post food that I make at home, no reason. But I might start doing it because I do make delicious dishes at home but by the time its done I just want to eat it! I made a ruben (actually a few rubens) for the first time. I made it a little ghetto fancy because I used really good sourdough bread but it being a hot LA spring day, I wasn't feeling the whole spending time making faux meat at the moment so I just seasoned and fried up some tofu, mixed up my own thousand island, slabbed on some sauerkraut and fried it up! I was surprised how good it was! I think a smothering something in thousand island does make it even better even the tofu came out tasty! The only regrets was that I didn't make more...


Today I traveled up to Pasadena to visit my oldest friend who has now recently became vegan (whoo hoo!). She gave me a mini-tour of a few vegan treats around town. She lives right behind Orean but the only thing I really dig on is the Philly Cheese steak (w/o the sketchy cheese) but there is a new restaurant in town so watch out! My Vegan is actually like many other Thai influenced vegan places but it has a very big menu. They have the standards like curry, noodles, burgers, wraps but they mix up the flavors and aren't afraid to try new things. They even have lunch and dinner specials available on weekends. So my friend got the green curry with this fake meat called Near (what is new to me) lunch special and I tried out the chicken curry burger (with an order of fries and vegenaise mmm). I tried some of the Near meat and it tasted just like pepper steak seitan and it was good but I still don't know what the heck it is (no thanks google!). My chicken curry burger was good but it really needed more curry! When I read it on the menu I was thinking a chicken burger dripping in curry but it was just lightly on there and I could hardly taste it unless I took a bite only of the meat. I mean they might have tried out having more curry on it and it didn't fly well but I don't know I like lots of intense flavor! None of this hints of subtle flavor for this gal. All and all it was pretty good and a nice change of pace from Orean.



After we went over to South Pasadena where the curbs are high and the trains go by. This adorable little bakery My Sweet Cupcake where on Thursdays and Saturdays they offer a variety of vegan cupcakes! OMFG right? Well it turns out that they are testing out the waters to see the most popular vegan flavors and might even offer to have vegan options everyday! Nom Nom Nom more of a reason to travel to that side of town. The options for the day were green tea, Mexican chocolate and oreo. We got the Mexican chocolate and oreo. I usually don't like the idea of chocolate and spicy but it was really good! And the cake part was moist and the frosting was just the right amount of spicy to sweet and the chocolate was even rich and dark. The oreo one was almost sold out but for some reason it was not as good as the Mexican chocolate. It was dry and the frosting did taste lie oreo but it just wasn't satisfying. So my vote of the day would obviously be the Mexican chocolate but if nobody tries it how will they know to keep it on the menu!?!




For din I made a bacon cheese burger with sauteed mushrooms tomato and avocado vegenaise and bbq sauce

Tender Greens

I got my salad! My mom and I ordered take out from Tender Greens which is about 5 min from the house but it was too cold and windy to hang out there. It was nice that she could get something meaty while I can get something veggie. I got the grilled veggies salad (without parmesan) and roasted tomato dressing. Next time I think I will order the dressing on the side because the veggies were most of the flavor and I could hardly taste it! But it was a pretty good combination of veggies with fennel, asparagus, and mini carrots and parsnips just to name a few. I'm not sure if the roasted roma tomato bread soup with basil is ok but I'll as the next time I'm over there. There are many other different vegan options, one named happy vegan, and most of the small salads which you can get grilled veggies on and they don't look at you funny if you ask for a salad without meat.

Swingers brunch

Jeff and I went to Swingers today for brunch after debating whether or not to go to Flore again or to M but we decided on Swingers because we needed a salad or something less carbo than our road trip meals. Jeff ordered the vegan cob which really isn't much of a salad but more like goodies on top of some lettuce. Those fried onions... SO GOOD! We also ordered fries (with a side of tahini) and the weekend special of vegan choco chip pancakes. So pretty much we didn't do such a great job with not carbing up. Maybe the week we will be better, but I have been craving Ethiopian food as well as sloppy joes so we'll see how that goes! Now if you order vegan items from the menu wouldn't you think that maybe the waitress would ask if you would like soy milk with your coffee or margarine with your pancakes? Apparently not. And apparently "veggie" does mean vegetarian and not vegan because bacon at swingers is morning star.. how sad. Now I know never bother ordering something from a vegan friendly restaurant unless its clearly stated vegan. The cob was great like always and the pancakes would have been even better if they had margarine and more syrup. But I can't complain too much because it was pretty busy and I did get to stuff my face with yummy food on a beautiful blustery sunday afternoon.

Road Trip to Arizona!

Road trips are known for eating horribly and we did not shy away from that! Del taco for br/lunch, many bags of bbq chips and cans of rock stars to keep us alive. Luckily we actually found some good eats here and there so it wasn't all bad!
First day on the road we stopped to stuff our face at the Happy Family Chinese vegetarian restaurant over in Monterey Park. Heres just some of what we ordered:
lunch special side of soup and rice and tea

one of the dishes sliced sausages in sweet cabbage

Then its off to AZ!
We ate at this amazing place Green in Tempe. We ordered crab cakes buffalo wings the Argentine po-boy and a rocky road soft serve! YUMMY!




Our last day in Mesa we just headed over to the mall for some veg burgers with grilled mushrooms and onions with a side of fires and a cherry coke!

Down in Tucson we went to the Lovin Spoonful. That too was delicious!
Beer battered brats with honey mustard sauce

Route 66 bacon cheese burger with a side of potato salad and baggy of chips

Jeff ordered the non-tuna melt and subbed for a side of broccoli cheese soup

Friday was a long hiking day and luckily there was a Whole Foods on the way so we just ate from the deli. And the last day we just grabbed some Green Burrito with cris cut fries for the road home.


All and all it was a great eating trip! Who knew there was so much yummies in AZ? A lot of the time it was fast food and beers before bed. At least there was Whole Foods and Greens mini market to hold us over in the in between meals snack department!

Flore and more!

We finally went to Flore Cafe's vegan brunch today!


Also for a drunken lazy din we did the 5x5x5 thin crust from Dominos with olives, mushrooms and onions and added our own FYH cheese

Yesterday my friend and I went to Vegan Joint for lunch heres a pic of the No Udder Coconut cake we ate before our meal.. we were so hungry unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of the hot wings, fish wrap and chicken wrap we also ordered! Rookie mistake I'll be more careful not to pig out the next time!