vegetarian Archives - Curiously Carmen

Nice Vice 0% Dairy Creamery

July 3, 2016

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

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

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 Avocado 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

Amie Morning Clear Facial Wash

November 26, 2014

After being introduced to a few Amie products in September, I have quite liked all the products in the line so far. If you haven’t read my previous post on Amie products, Amie is a UK-based skincare company that has recently launched products in Canada. For now, Amie products are exclusively available at Shoppers Drug Mart locations, but I haven’t been able to find any of the Shoppers locations that I go to. I think maybe because they have just recently launched, they are slowly bringing it to all the stores? Also, am I the only one that finds the Shoppers website hard to use? I tried to search up which locations sell Amie products but it was giving me a difficult time like always… I guess I’ll just try my luck by visiting the stores in person, hopefully each Shoppers will carry Amie products soon!

Amie’s morning clear purifying facial wash claims to be a “moisturising facial wash that removes all dirt, oil, and makeup leaving skin beautifully soft and refreshed. Mayblossom and elderflower help control oiliness and prevent blemishes while orange blossom and raspberry tone and refresh. Natural moisturisers ensure skin is not dried out.”

unnamed (4) — Looks the same as the facial wash, amirite?!

First impression: The packaging and design of the bottle was the same as the previous Amie products I tried, so nothing new there. The colours of this tube are also the exact same as their hydrating daily moisturizer which added to the confusion. It may not seem that confusing but trust me, when you are half awake at 7 am on a Monday morning, things can get tricky (that or I need more sleep).

Compared to Amie’s exfoliating daily wash, this facial wash had a very creamy texture. In fact, the first couple of times using this was a bit strange to me because the texture was exactly like moisturizer, and I felt like I should just be applying this on my face as a cream rather than washing it off with water.

My favourite part of this facial wash, and what made it stand out for me was the scent! My goodness, if Amie ever came out with a perfume that smelled like this facial wash, I would be their first customer. The facial wash had a very flowery and girly scent to it. After washing my face, the scent stayed on for awhile and was quite noticeable, the boyfriend could smell it as well.

This product was also purposely sent to me in the upcoming winter season, as it is supposed to protect your skin against the cold. After a few days of usage, I noticed that my skin was a bit softer. I’ve been suffering from very dry skin lately, which was very surprising because my skin tends to be the opposite- very oily!! I’m pretty sure this facial wash played a vital role in moisturizing my skin, it doesn’t feel as dry and look as flaky anymore. One of the main ingredients in this face wash is cacao seed butter (no, I don’t mean cocoa) which contains a very high amount of antioxidants and is really moisturizing as well. I probably wouldn’t use this when it starts to get warm again because it’ll just make my face extra oily. But in the current weather, it brings a good balance to my skin. Yay!

unnamed — My Amie haul from September- Click to read!

Another great thing about this product is that it is free from parabens, sulphates, mineral oils, petrochemicals, products that have been genetically modified, and animal extracts. Amie also does not test on animals. All products are suitable for vegetarians and vegans, and their formulas contain high-quality plant and botanical ingredients. No, they did not pay me to write that! 🙂 It is also 100% soap free but to be honest, I’m not sure what kind of pros are involved in that so I’ll have to contact Amie and get back to you LOL. If you know, please leave a comment and enlighten us all.

Well, another great and moisturizing product from Amie! Have you seen any Amie products in your local Shoppers Drug Mart? Please let me know in the comments down below!

Thanks for reading!
-Carmen

This product was sent free of charge in exchange for a product review. Opinions are my own and are not altered by the requests of Amie.

Update (12/2/2014): After asking Amie what the benefits of a soap-free product are, it means that the ingredients in soap (Sodium Laureth Sulphate and Sodium Lauryl Sulphate) have a high pH level since it is an alkaline/base (remember your high school chemistry? haha). Therefore, it can disrupt your skin’s natural acid balance due to it’s high alkalinity, which can leave skin feeling dry and taught (I personally hate that feeling). In case you didn’t know, acid and base are opposites. For example, Tums stomach pills are high in alkalinity because when you have a stomachache or heartburn, the acid in your stomach increases, so the Tums balances out the acidity. Hm, the things you learn beauty blogging!

Lush Comestic Warrior (Fresh Face Mask)

May 22, 2014

I have had a slight addiction with Lush skincare products this past month, it’s all I’ve been using! I recently went back to Lush to look around, and was drawn to their fresh face mask section. After reading the ingredients in the masks, I wanted to try them and asked for a sample first. Unfortunately, I was told that they do not give samples of the fresh face masks as they expire in 3 weeks, and use only the freshest ingredients. Fair enough!

I ended up purchasing the cosmetic warrior ($7 CA) after reading the ingredients, here’s how it went.
The cosmetic warrior face mask is made with kaoline, fresh green grapes, fresh free range eggs, honey, cornstarch, glycerine, fresh garlic, tea tree oil, limonene, and perfume. Because of those ingredients, I can tell why the mask has to be kept in the fridge and expires in 3 weeks.
When I first opened the tub, I noticed that it was only 3/4 full of product. A lot of reviews warned people about the smell of this product due to the garlic and tea tree oil.

However, when I put it on, I didn’t find the smell to be unbearable. I didn’t really smell the garlic, but the tea tree oil scent was strong.I slathered a generous amount on my face. I figured that since it expires so quickly, I might as well use it up faster, and while the ingredients are at its freshest. I left it on my face for about 10 minutes.
After 10 minutes, the mask had hardened slightly. I washed it off with warm water, which took a few tries as the areas that I put more product on was harder to wash off. I noticed that the mask turned into a soapy, creamy lather after washing my face with it. Now, the best part: the results? After drying my face, the first thing I noticed was how soft and clean my face felt. It also felt really moisturized, more radiant, and healthier.

Pros:
-Leaves skin feeling really soft, clean, moisturized, refreshed
-Non messy
-Made with all natural ingredients and vegetarian (as it says on the label)

Cons:
-Have to use within 3 weeks
-Have to keep it in the fridge all the time
-Can be seen as “pricey”, you don’t get that much product for $7

-Carmen