vegetarian/vegan Archives - Page 2 of 3

Heirloom Vegetarian & Vegan Restaurant

January 29, 2017 5 Comments

Ahhh, vegetarian/vegan food. How are we have come, how much our relationship as improved. Heirloom Vegetarian Restaurant is one of the most popular vegetarian/vegan eateries in Vancouver, so I knew I had to come in and try their vegan food.

It was my Vegan Buddy’s birthday in October, so we decided to come here for a birthday brunch! Yes, this post is super late… I actually forgot about writing it until I was deleting stuff off my phone (Curse you, iPhone storage) and found these pictures.

Tbh, the food wasn’t that good and left lots to be desired- that’s why I forgot about blogging because it was so meh.

Heirloom Vegetarian Restaurant is located on the west side of Vancouver. There’s West Vancouver, the west side, and the west end… Heirloom is on the west side, just off South Granville. It’s located in a busy area, but luckily we found free parking right outside the restaurant.

If there’s one thing to give props to, it’s the decor. The restaurant is very clean, comfortable and spacious, with high ceilings.

This place is heaven to the stereotypical rich, healthy, yoga-doing, organic-only, Vancouver girl. This is a restaurant I imagine Lululemon lovers flock to. Since I am not rich, only semi-healthy, and don’t do yoga on a daily basis, I did not fit their clientele. If you are not dainty and soft spoken, you probably won’t fit in here (like moi).

Perhaps the servers could tell I was a fraud that didn’t meet the clientele criteria, but service was pretty cold and slow that day.

Tofu Rancheros, $19.95: Since I can’t have dairy, we tried the vegan menu only. The tofu rancheros was a tofu scramble, with spicy chilli, served on grilled corn tortillas, topped with guacamole, pico de gallo, ranchero sauce, fresh cilantro and green onion.

We thought this was pretty decent, but definitely overpriced. The tomatoes and green onions tasted fresh on the tofu scramble, but the greens for the house salad weren’t that fresh.
Banana French Toast, $16.95: This sounded good on the menu, but it was really disappointing. The french toast was made with an almond milk and banana infused batter. It was very bland and we could only taste burnt toast that had a soft and moist texture.

We found ourselves trying to salvage this dish by dipping it in the cashew cream drizzle, but there wasn’t enough drizzle to drown out the bland and burnt taste. In addition, the bananas were cut VERY thinly.
Field Roast Sausage, $5.00: Vegan Buddy and I were both curious as to what the sausage would taste like, so we ordered this as a side. It was decent and resembled the texture of sausage, although it wasn’t as juicy.

Overall, we thought Heirloom was just ‘meh’ and thinking back, it was definitely overpriced. Perhaps their vegetarian menu would have tasted better, but we were there specifically to try the vegan menu since I can’t have dairy. Actually, I have full confidence their vegetarian menu would be better because cheese.

Their vegan food is probably meant for full vegans who have acquired the taste of vegan eating. Not those who like to eat vegan food sometimes like us. And definitely not for people who enjoy eating meat and dairy!

The overall atmosphere did not feel welcoming or friendly. Coupled with mediocre vegan food and high prices, I don’t think I would come back here. I’ll stick to my other vegan places like Virtuous Pie or Vegan Pizza House instead.

Nay.

Virtuous Pie (Vegan Pizza Joint)

January 8, 2017 1 Comment

Vegan eating has been something that I thought was disgusting, but now I have grown an inkling towards it. Well, it started with cutting out ALL dairy from my diet due to health issues. Lately, I’ve been thinking about sustainable and conscious eating as well.

After much thought, I don’t think I could become 100% vegan for many reasons, but I do appreciate vegan eating and am open to it. I love going into a restaurant and not having to worry about dairy products, or getting social anxiety from asking a bunch of questions and being judged (although this second reason I don’t really care about anymore, I do what I want ok).

Virtuous Pie is a new vegan pizza/ice cream parlour that opened up in Chinatown. One thing I’ve really missed is pizza, so I knew I had to come here!

It is conveniently located in the middle of Chinatown on Main Street, Vegan Buddy and I took the 22 bus from downtown and walked a few steps over. I was in love with their design, minimal yet sophisticated. It was also bright and spacious!
After placing your order and paying, you can see the pizza being assembled in front of you. Each pizza is made fresh to order, and baked in the oven.
Fennel & sausage, $12: I really wanted to try this because of the faux sausage! I am a big meat lover, and other meat alternatives like seitan just do not cut it for me. With that said, the sausage tasted really legit and I was really impressed!

This was my favourite pizza because I liked the generous portion of sausage, and it was nice and garlicky.

I do wish there would have been more cashew mozzarella though. The cashew mozzarella had a very light taste to it so I didn’t taste much, but the cheesy texture was there.
Stranger Wings, $12: Stranger Wings was the most raved about on Yelp, so we had to try it. It is a vegan take on buffalo chicken, where they use cauliflower as a substitute.

Because I am not a fan of barbeque sauce, this was my least favourite. As well, cauliflower just does not replace chicken but the buffalo flavour was definitely there!

I liked how creamy the blue cheese drizzle was.
Superfunghi, $12: I really liked this pizza! It was a bit different than I was used to because they use a mashed potato sauce in place of your standard tomato sauce. The potato was nice and garlicky, and so delicious!

There was a generous amount of juicy mushrooms as well! The two of us ordered so much that we ended up packing a lot back home, but we were glad we got to try three flavours. My only complaint would be that their cheese lacks the regular cheese taste so I didn’t get that part of my craving satisfied. =(

Overall, I really enjoyed my visit to Virtuous Pie. Their pizzas are like a healthier, non-oily/greasy, lighter version of Pizza Hut or Dominos. You can really see and taste the quality of their ingredients, and you won’t leave feeling guilty or greasy.

I am already thinking of my next visit back and ordering the fennel & sausage pizza!
Yay!

Nice Vice 0% Dairy Creamery

July 3, 2016 Leave a Comment

This review is long overdue, especially since I went to Nice Vice in May! Nice Vice has been buzzing around town for being Vancouver’s first ever 0% dairy creamery shop. To me, this is like heaven and especially important because I can’t have dairy anymore.

I was really excited to try this place out and see if it would satisfy my ice cream cravings!
Nice Vice is located in Yaletown, a quick walk from the Canada Line station. It is pretty small, so it is easy to miss.

Inside, the store is pretty bare and basic, and there are also no washrooms for customers. It is an open space, with bar seats on one side of the wall but I found the seating to not be that comfortable. I would recommend grabbing your dessert to go and walking around Yaletown instead.
Vegan Buddy and I came on a Tuesday evening. It was cloudy, but not cold or rainy that day. Due to the weather and seeing how it was a weekday, the store was empty except for us! Luckily, this meant we could sample more flavours.
I wasn’t particularly in love with any of the flavours, but they weren’t bad either. In the end, I ordered strawberry fiends forever and mango. I ordered the one scoop for $5.00, but you can get two flavours for an additional price – I don’t remember exactly, but it was either 50 cents or $1.00 extra.

Both tasted like sorbet, and weren’t that creamy. They both had a very sweet fruity taste, which was good! The mango reminded me of exactly of the Asian mango pudding.
VB ordered one scoop of the matcha and vanilla strawberry swirl. The matcha had a medium matcha taste, not too strong or subtle. I didn’t really like the vanilla strawberry swirl because I found it a bit bland and just icy.
They also have a bunch of assorted salts that you can top off your dessert with! We tried a bunch of salt flavours. Some went well and brought the flavour out, while some did not pair well at all. I recommend you sprinkle a super, tiny bit of salt – I’m talking about like 4 or 5 grains tiny, because we found that even just a pinch was too much!

Overall, I don’t think Nice Vice compares to real dairy ice cream at all, it was just okay. I was a bit disappointed because I had heard such great things about this place. Or maybe, my expectations were too high.

Their desserts taste more like sorbets and aren’t super creamy. I prefer the vegan ice creams at Earnest and Rain or Shine because they are richer and creamier. But if you like sorbets, you would like this place!

Meh…

Candle 79, New York City

May 18, 2016 Leave a Comment

While looking up places to eat in New York, I came across Candle 79. Even though I am not vegan, I wanted to try a vegan place because it’s really nice and relaxing to walk in to a restaurant and not have to stress over whether something contains dairy in it or not. As well, Candle 79 had really great reviews, so how could I pass it up?
So, after an afternoon of exploring Central Park and The Met museum, we explored the Upper East Side and went to Candle 79!

As mentioned above, Candle 79 is a completely vegan restaurant. None of their menus or signage advertise this, but I had found it under the vegan section on Yelp and the server confirmed that everything here is vegan. Don’t get me wrong, I am a huge meat lover, so vegan or vegetarian food takes a lot to impress me. Let’s see how they did!
We were still pretty full from our lunch at Blue Dog, but didn’t want to pass up the opportunity to try this place. Since we already had plans for the rest of the trip and wouldn’t be in this area of NYC again, we decided on just having a small snack to at least try something!

Angel’s nachos, $16: Made with corn chips, ‘mozarella’, chili beans, tofu sour cream, and guacamole. The mozarella is the dairy & soy alternative from Daiya, which you may have seen in grocery stores. For nachos that don’t have real cheese, this was delicious. The tofu sour cream tasted like real sour cream, while there was a very generous portion of guacamole. The corn chips were really crunchy and thick as well.

The one thing I didn’t really like was the chipotle seitan. Seitan is a vegetarian meat alternative, made from wheat. I found it have the texture of tofu puffs, and didn’t really match the taste or texture of meat to me. So, I ate everything else which was delicious!
Housemade ice cream sampler, $9: The nachos were already really filling considering we weren’t hungry to begin with, but I couldn’t pass up the chance to have ICE CREAM. I was already sold when our server told us it was made with rich coconut milk. I’ve been deprived of ice cream for soooo long.

The chef’s selection that day was the strawberry coconut soy, mango, and vanilla chocolate. THEY WERE SO GOOD. Seriously guys, it was soo creamy from the coconut milk that you can’t even tell it’s dairy free. To this day, I am still thinking and wishing that I had Candle 79’s ice cream again.

My favourite was the strawberry, and I found myself savouring every creamy bite. The mango, although it was called a ‘sorbet’, was really creamy and tasted deliciously creamy as well. I found the vanilla chocolate to be too sweet, and that one melted quite fast, while the other two didn’t melt.

Whether you are vegan or not, Candle 79 is a delicious restaurant and worth trying out. I will continue to think about their vegan ice cream over and over again, especially since the weather is getting hotter now.

Thanks for reading!

Carmen

The Green Moustache (Mini Rant)

March 19, 2016 2 Comments

Warning- Mini angry rant below! =(

What is with this place and having so many of their items unavailable? Are they not running a business? What do they expect customers to order? Not impressed at all.

The Green Moustache offers healthy, alternative eats but the thing that sold me to visit was their dairy free cheesecake, since I can’t eat dairy anymore but want my cheesecake!

For starters, after driving to their West side location (they also have one in Whistler) and meeting up with Vegan Buddy and another friend, I was so disappointed when I was told they didn’t have any cheesecake that day. Since we made the trip here already, we figured we might as well share some other items.

‘Hook’ smoothie, 12 oz $6.50: Cocoa, mint, goji berries, honey, banana and almond milk. They were out of the honey so they told us they substituted maple syrup instead. Not a big deal, but how do you run out of honey when that is one of the main ingredients in ALL your drinks, and you pride your smoothies on not using sugar?

This basically tasted like a dark chocolate banana smoothie, with hints of mint to it. I liked that it wasn’t too sweet.
Buddha bowl, $9.50: An assortment of healthy greens, quinoa, and rice. AGAIN, they didn’t have ripe avocado on hand so they gave us hummus instead. That was another disappointment since we both love avocado.

This bowl was filled with an abundance of fresh ingredients, and was really filling due to the brown rice. It had a combination of both sweet and savoury, and soft/crunchy textures.

Just to re-cap, each item we ordered so far has had an ingredient unavailable, or just the dish was entirely unavailable itself. Not impressed….
Raw chili, $9.95: The chili is served a bit chilled/room temperature, something that I found a bit odd. Unfortunately, we found a rubber band piece in our dish. When we asked about it, the staff apologized and said that this was their last bowl of chili so they wouldn’t be able to make us a new one. We came at 12:30 pm and it wasn’t even busy, yet this was your last bowl?

To add to the disappointment, the chili was incredibly salty. It was hard to eat more than 2-3 spoonfuls at once because it was just too salty, even with the brown rice. We were glad that had the refreshing buddha bowl, and would alternate.

Eventually, we just gave up on eating this and packed it up – my friend came up with the idea to eat this with tortilla chips instead, which would probably taste better.
Chocolate walnut fudge brownie, $3.50: To make up for the rubber band and having so many items unavailable, we were offered a complementary brownie as an apology. We enjoyed the brownie, and I liked how it wasn’t that sweet and probably made with dark chocolate. It was sweetened with dates as well.

Although service was very friendly and knowledgeable, I’m not sure if I’ll return or recommend this place as I left disappointed at how many items were missing from our dish. It’s definitely not worth driving out to this area if you aren’t already here.

I understand that occasionally, restaurants will run out of certain items, which is totally understandable and fair. But judging from how many items were unavailable just shows disorganization from the establishment.

Thanks for reading,

Carmen