Once in awhile, I discover new places that I completely fall in love with. Although I have many restaurant drafts ready to be posted, I am too excited to share The Workshop and had to post it first!
I stumbled on this place from fellow beauty blogger, Cosmetic Proof. When I saw it, I knew Avocado and I had to go for our vegan adventures. The cafe hours and location weren’t exactly convenient for us (Daytime only Mon-Sat) but we managed to squeeze a visit one afternoon!
The Workshop Vegetarian Cafe is a Japanese-style cafe. Think of pastries that you would get at Basho (which has since been replaced by Yama), but with vegan ramen and other noodle dishes instead. It is cute, Instagrammable, and so tasty.
It is in a very random and unique location, away from any foodie hotspots. The Workshop is tucked inside North Vancouver, along a stretch of quiet road that is mostly outdated car repair shops. I’m not too familiar with North Van transit other than the Seabus and Phibbs Exchange, so not sure how transit-friendly this place is.
The upside to being in this industrial and quiet area was that parking was free. But, we did walk pass some weird looking store with a creepy mannequin holding a broken sign that scared us because she looked like a real person from farther away.
But walking in, everything was dramatically different! I would describe the decor as hipster chic with a hint of modern flair. Aka perfect for those people who want the perfect Instagram-worthy photo.
There was a small nook on the side of the cafe where you can buy healthy and vegan to-go treats.
The small table also has a wooden dollhouse connected to it for kids. I loved the little details that they thought of!
Organic spicy tan tan ramen, $12.95: The first ramen dish that Avocado and I shared was the spicy tan tan ramen. It was made with a butternut sesame broth. It was very creamy and well executed. There was a nice, round balance of flavour and the sesame oil added that extra touch.
At first, I was worried that the broth would be too thick and fatty for my sensitive stomach, but I actually had no problems. Probably because it was just made with butternut and not fatty meat.
It was very delicious and we didn’t find it to be that spicy or oily, even though it looks oily in the picture. The ramen noodles were cooked perfectly and had a nice bounce to it. You can really taste the quality!
Organic nama shoyu ramen, $12.99: I am a big fan of truffle oil so naturally, I was curious to see if this would deliver. And boyyyy, did it deliver.
The truffle oil made the ramen so incredibly aromatic and gave the already delicious mushroom broth an added level of flavour.
The only thing I would have changed about this was to have cooked mushrooms and veggies instead of raw. The toppings felt like it belonged more to a salad, rather than a comforting bowl of ramen noodles. But I ended up just mixing the veggies and mushrooms to the bottom of the bowl to soak the broth.
Since both pictures above didn’t include their bouncy noodles, here is a picture of them! I believe you might be able to change your noodles to either rice noodles or udon if you wanted. I overheard another customer saying that.
Avocado and I wanted to sit and chat more, but the place was getting busier and a line was forming so we each just got a pastry to go.
Matcha mochi, $2.95: Avocado thought that it was a bit expensive for one mochi, but she really wanted to try it so she got it anyways. I didn’t try it, but she said it was really good!
Sweet matcha and adzuki swirl: The matcha was very earthy tasting, which means that they probably used pure matcha powder instead of the Western way of drowning matcha powder with sugar (I’m looking at you, Starbucks). The loaf had a dense and chewy texture to it. The adzuki bean swirl was sweet, which balanced the earthy taste of matcha perfectly.
I saved half for the boyfriend, and he really enjoyed it. I didn’t tell him it was vegan until after he ate it, because he tends to have a bias that vegan food will never be as good as non-vegan food. Muahahaha, yet he enjoyed it. That is saying something because he is the biggest dairy lover out there.
A million times yay!
Come check out this place before it becomes hugely popular and impossible to get a spot! Because I have a feeling it will blow up all over Instagram this summer 😉
False lashes are all the rage right now, and I wish I didn’t have to wear glasses so I could wear them more. Ardell is a staple in the falsies game, and it is no surprise that the releases this season look great! I love how they are so affordable too.
There was only one Bliss product featured that day, which was their rubber mask, the mask-a-peel. I was first introduced to this at the previous ACI Beauty event, and was very intrigued. It comes in a powder form, and when mixed with water, it dries on your face into a rubber texture.
The last brand we were shown was Korres! Korres has easily fallen into one of my favourite skincare brands. Their products work very well with my skin!
We started off with Stila. Take a guess what the product above is. It looks like lip gloss or some sort of lip product, right? That’s what I thought at least. But, it is actually part of their new mermaid inspired line, Magnificent Metals, and they are actually eyeshadows!
The next brand we were brought to was Paul & Joe. Paul & Joe are always super creative and detailed in their packaging, so I’m always excited to see what they come up with next. Just when I thought their cat lipsticks from previous seasons were cool, they did it again with their cat shaped lipsticks!
Another picture of the cat lipstick because it is just too cute.
Continuing along the cat trend, the brushes in the back are actually cat paws! How cute! They were so incredible soft as well. I believe the box contains a blush, but I was too distracted by the soft and fluffy cat paw to be 100% sure.
Paul & Joe usually house their products in paper boxes, that have very cute and detailed designs. These are the new blush and bronzer releases.
Perhaps one of the only Paul and Joe products that weren’t cat themed? I was given a sample of one of their nail polishes here and will be writing a review for that this week as well!
You’re probably tired of me gushing over how cute and girly Paul & Joe’s products are, so we will move on to CLEAN. CLEAN is a perfume brand that I haven’t seen around much apart from in the blogosphere, but they do deserve more attention and love.
I’ve never been one to try self tanners or even go to the tanning salon, and have never done both. Does that make me a bad beauty blogger? =P
I called to make a reservation but unfortunately was told that they don’t accept reservations. I waited about 15 minutes and took the time to read over the menu options, which was perfect as Avocado had just arrived. And I tried to save her the meter parking in front of the restaurant that had 49 minutes remaining… Success!
Mac n’ cheese, $10.75: I haven’t had the regular version of this dish for so long because it’s dairy death. But this one is vegan so yay!
Sweet chili cauliflower, $9.75: Most Yelp reviews and my coworker raved about this, so we had to try it. The cauliflower pieces were bigger than I expected and fully cooked.
Hot chiggin’ things, $9.75: This was their take on vegan buffalo chicken! The first bite had the texture of real chicken and I had to do a double take. But after a few more bites, it had a denser texture than chicken.
Chili cheez fries, $10.75: This was our least touched and we ended up packing most of it back home. Although it was good, I don’t think the both of us were in the mood for fries as a main course, and my stomach wasn’t feeling good from before so I didn’t want to aggravate it with oily fries.
Warm raspberry crumble with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, $8.50: Even though we were both already full, I rarely get the chance to have dessert since it’s usually always dairy (sorbet is boring) so we had to!
Chongqing Noodle House is located in a large plaza, with plenty of parking. Right next door, there was a restaurant with the similar colours and branding as Chongqing which we thought was amusing.
We like to eat dinner early because a) I don’t understand how people aren’t hungry after a long day at work, and b) we hate waiting in lines. The restaurant wasn’t full when we arrived, but it filled up throughout out meal.
Spicy beef noodle soup: My go-to! I ordered this half spicy due to my stomach problems. Even though I love my spice, I gotta make sacrifices for health. The initial first bites were delicious, and then it sorta went downhill from there. The soup was very salty and did not have much depth to it. It tasted like MSG water with a ton of spice.
Don’t remember what the boyfriend ordered, but he did not enjoy his noodles either. He also found the soup to be very flat and salty only. I guess you can already tell from the broth and how clear it is, although yes, I know that sometimes clear broth could be tasty.
Remember the numbing tongue feeling I got? Well, it was double the unpleasantness for him because he ordered full spice! But we were both troopers and finished our bowls. At the end of it, our mouths were just very parched from all the salt, and also tingly from the Sichuan peppercorns.