Results tagged “vegan”

       

Tucked up in a remote corner of the Santa Clarita Valley is something quite unusual. A large swath of near-high desert land is home to 35 gibbons (a newborn is expected to make it 36 this weekend) from 15 difference species.

It's dineLA week, are you checking out new restaurants? Some vegans felt their options were limited, but the bloggers and readers at Quarrygirl are calling all the restaurants, asking if they'll accommodate vegans. Most restaurants so far are agreeable, but two are not. There's nothing surprising about Chaya Downtown not offering vegan food, but La Grande Orange, the restaurant that promotes dishes made from fresh, organic and seasonal ingredients? That's just disappointing.

          

Yesterday not only marked the last day of September, but also the last event at a vegan festival (of sorts) called 30 Days of Celebrating Being Vegan. Bakers and those with a sweet tooth gathered at 2 Headed Horse Production/Art Studio on Glendale Boulevard for the event last night, which benefited Compassion Over Killing.

              

If a vegan restaurant can open in Orange County and not only survive, but expand within the same city (Irvine), then it must be doing something right. And that's why the Veggie Grill, which opens in Hollywood today at 11 a.m. at the Sunset Plaza, is welcomed with praise.

       

As part of the 30 days of vegan event, two vegan women took a parking space in Studio City today in honor of Park[ing] Day, offering some vegan baked goods and ice cream sandwiches.

For Emily Zaiden, her popsicle business started with how all delicious things should begin: with an undaunting passion for the food she loves, in this case, desserts. "I've always been a frozen dessert fanatic," the Echo Park resident, Laurel Canyon native, explained over the phone from her company kitchen. "In elementary school for the inventions convention, I invented an ice cream flavor," she said with a laugh.

Prabhat Gautam, owner of Positive Television and a local vegan gadfly (also, a former LAist contributor), is a very energetic guy. This month, he set out to accomplish the goal of 30 straight days of vegan events. "A lot of people said it could never be done, but lots of people stepped up," he wrote in an e-mail. And so it began last Tuesday night at SunPower Natural Cafe and continue throughout September.

       

After 16 years as a raw and vegan chef, producing meals in containers found in places like Whole Foods, catering and traveling, Chef Rawsheed launched his very own storefront last May. Ultra vegan bloggers tried it out early and gave their thumbs up. It left Quarrygirl dying to go back and Foodeater is glad the Valley is "no longer the dreaded no-mans land that it used to be" because SunPower does raw food the way it's supposed to be done.

The folks at DineLA take us on a quick look at the close-to-home vibe of Locali, the convenience store in Franklin Village that emphasizes consumer consciousness, locally-sourced products and ingredients, the spirit of community and environmentalism. Soon after they opened in January we were happy to report they carry vegan condoms, and with the mobile food trend and summer temps on the rise, we're even more happy they've put their unique frozen treats-mobile, the Icycle, on the street.

The two anonymous bloggers at the popular vegan blog, Quarrygirl, went all out and published a large investigative report today, finding that a handful of vegan restaurants, mostly Thai in nature, are in fact not vegan.

"Just look at that picture. Look at how that cheese is melting, you know it belongs in your fucking face." That's vegan blogger Quarrygirl for you on her above photo from Chango in Echo Park. The coffeeshop is now offering grilled cheeses with that new vegan cheese that some pizzerias have started to use. Is this a trend that we'll see continue across the city? Is this Daiya vegan cheese so good that chefs are actually willing to put it on their menus? We'll see...

A new trend for Los Angeles? After learning that Cruzer Pizza in Los Feliz began offering a vegan-heralded brand of very realistic cheese, Daiya, Purgatory Pizza chimes in via Twitter to us saying, "Someone told me they read on LAist that only one place in LA has Daiya. Not true. We have it at Purgatory Pizza too." For vegan blogger Quarrygirl, her favorite pizza place just got a lot better (added bonus: she notes that you can bring your own beer or wine).

Cruzer Pizza in Los Feliz started offering vegan pizza yesterday with a new cheese that vegans are calling "revolutionary." Yes, it's vegan cheese, from Daiya Foods, that apparently melts and stretches like real cheese, says vegan blogger Quarrygirl. "It beats all other vegan cheeses, by far," she wrote in an e-mail to LAist. She also noted that it isn't available anywhere else on the West Coast.

Rejoice! The Valley will soon have a dedicated vegan ice cream shop. Spotted on Cahuenga Blvd. at Regal Place, Nice Cream is a few storefronts down from recent vegan newcomer, SunPower Natural Cafe, which is from local veteran Chef Rawsheed.

Over the past few years, WorldFest has consistently been a useful, fun and conscious festival chock full of vegetarian restaurants, eco-minded speakers and do gooding exhibiters. And making it even more impact-less to the planet, the solar powered fest is located right off the Metro Orange Line at Woodley Park in Encino.

Franklin Village's Locali is prepping to go mobile. Later this month the "Conscious Convenience" store (you know, where you buy your vegan condoms) launches The Icycyle, a roaming vending tricycle that will be offering up a selection of frozen treats made with diabetic-friendly, handmade vegan, gluten-free, and organic products. "By combining the idea of environmentally conscious living with the element of convenience, Owners Melissa Rosen and Greg Horos are making Locali’s regionally and sustainably sourced, organic, vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free, sugar-free, and other eco-friendly products easily accessible to people in their everyday lives," we're told. The Icycle begins serving on wheels May 25th, making for a summer-long treat trek lasting Memorial Day to Labor Day. Follow them on Twitter to see where they'll be stopping.

             

Keven Tran has no customers, just friends. And for over six years, he's had hundreds of friends who visit him everyday at his restaurant and tofu factory in Reseda called Vinh Loi Tofu. "I'm a tofu lover," he explained of the restaurant's beginnings. "One day my wife came up with an idea, 'honey, let's open a tofu factory, we can eat tofu everyday.'" And so they did. In 2002, they opened a the factory only for a year later to turn part of it into a restaurant, which is now one of Los Angeles' best vegan restaurants (the staff of Los Angeles Magazine are huge fans and Discovery Channel visited the restaurant to show people how Tofu is made, that video is below).

       

We were offered a hosted lunch at Venice's Seed Kitchen, the newish Japanese-American fusion vegan macrobiotic restaurant brought to you by Sanae Suzuki and her husband Eric Lechasseur (formerly of M Cafe de Chaya). So we thought, why the heck not? By the way, this review is completely from the standpoint of a non-veggie. But here's a review of Seed by an actual vegan from Quarrygirl.com to give you that perspective, too.

Instead of throwing all the unused food away, Doomie of Chinatown's about-to-be-closed vegan restaurant eponymously named after him will have a $10 all you can eat grub fest this weekend. But there's one catch, it's not going to be in Chinatown, it will be in... South Gate. The money raised will go towards them opening a new restaurant sometime in the near future, but many are hoping it's going to be much closer than... South Gate. More about the restaurant can be read here.

Doomie's Home Cookin', which just opened last October, has shut its doors in search of a more permanent home. "I don’t know what to say, I am completely and utterly shocked and saddened by this news. they were one of my favorite spots in los angeles, no doubt," vegan blogger Quarrygirl lamented this weekend. Doomie's opened when the dance club in the space temporarily shut down--it was a product of "hey, let's use the space for at least something while the doors are shut on the club." The restaurant became known as one a hot vegan junkfood spot, serving up amazing vegan chili cheese nachos, cookies and other homemade meals. They expect to open somewhere by the end of the year. to Quarrygirl, that's far off: "Unfortunately, on the first day of february, the end of the year is a long, long way away."

Late last week brought the opening of Locali, a small convenience store on Franklin catering to consumers' need for all animal-free products. For some, like blogger Quarrygirl, this store is a godsend, who says "seriously, this place is too good to be true, and exactly what this city needed."

Back in October, The Vegan Spot on Sunset Blvd. put up an ad on Craigslist. It was a "quick sale." You could have your own vegan restaurant for $75,000.

She's single, plays flag football in Valley parks weekly and her book was on the New York Times bestselling list for a year. In fact, the vegan activist author of Skinny Bitch (LAist Review) has penned two guest posts for LAist. In the just released December issue of VegNews, writer Rory Freedman earned the top prize in the 2008 Veggie Awards--Person of the Year. In an interview with the magazine, Freedman, who has convinced thousands of women to turn vegetarian in her book, announces that a major network TV sitcom is in development and that Skinny Bastard (watch out meat eatin' guys) is due in bookstores in June (she says she's in search of a skinny bastard herself).

       

What do you do when the club you DJ at closes down temporarily? You can either get a new job, do nothing or follow a dream you've always wanted to do--open a restaurant. And that's exactly what Chef Doomie (some may know him as DJ Doomie) did when Roberto's closed down and the owners gave the "ok" to use the kitchen to start a comfort food (yes, not Thai) vegan restaurant in the space.

Naturewell will host their grand opening next week, but they're offering free samples this afternoon, they said earlier today as they prepped their signs and storefront.

The Vegan Collection just officially launched their online vegan shoe store this week. Currently only selling one type of business shoe (in two colors), we had a chance to buy a pair of test ones back in April. In fact, it was the very first pair of shoes they sold.

     

I live on the Westside. I like it pretty well. It's cooler (temperature-wise) and a little less...precious than the Eastside. I like the Eastside -- it attracts a higher number of cooler (and less expensive) bars, restaurants and boutiques. It's just a fact. Sometimes, I take a 'staycation' and spend the day over there. But when I want a little of that without circling the whole city on the freeway to get there, I go to the Double Dutch Dinette. It was a nice balance to the wonderful, but most assuredly bourgeois places popping up all over Culver City.

Around 1:30 a.m. on Saturday morning as staff at Pure Luck were closing the Bicycle District/HelMel vegan restaurant down, a truck rammed through a window. Local vegan blogger, quarrygirl, visited for a meal later on Saturday only to find the restaurant closed. "Why does this shit have to strike at the best vegan restaurant in town. boooooo," she blogged. According to one server, as luck would have it, no one was hurt and the restaurant is still open for business during regular hours as they work to fix the window and damage.

"For the best farm-fresh sandwiches in downtown Los Angeles, it is Mendocino Farms. Amazing sandwiches," wrote hinducow in the caption of his Vegan Shawarma ($9.25) photo.

    

While ordering tacos this past weekend, Pat at Eating L.A. noticed that Cardone's Deli on Sunset had been replaced by a new place called The Vegan Spot. "There are seriously a lot of vegan places in Silver Lake and Echo Park already. (Cru, Flore Cafe, Elf, at least four Thai places, etc.) So we're just wondering, are there really that many vegans on the near-Eastside?"