To Live and Eat in L.A. – A Vegan Food Photo Blog

The FlavourSpot truly does bring the flavah! This small foodcart located in a video store parking lot is all the rage for their vegan waffles and fillings, so I knew I had to try it out.

Foodcarts are very popular in Portland, and I highly approve. We just don’t have this sort of thing here in Los Angeles aside from the occasional harassed street food vendors and taco trucks or the food stalls that come and go at our farmers markets. In Portland they’re all over the place and all the time, serving an amazing array of all sorts of ethnic foods as well as the usual stand-by’s, like hot dogs, pizza, etc… The other cool thing is that a lot of them also cater to vegetarians and vegans. Duh, it’s Portland.

Back to the waffles. What drew me here was the allure of the Vegan Maple Sausage Waffle. What a dreamy combination of flavors to have been veganized, right? I placed my order but unfortunately the girl told me they were out of their vegan sausage. Eee gads! They did however have the vegetarian patty available, so I got that. I didn’t come this far to try this thing only to walk away empty-bellied because of a microscopic bit of whey. I know, shame on me.

Here we have a not-so-stunning picture of the piece-de-resistance. Don’t let the simplicity of what your eyes are taking in fool you… this was gobsmackingly good! The waffle as you can see is a little on the thin side, which is nice because it doesn’t overwhelm whatever it happens to be stuffed with. To me it tasted exactly like a waffle-cone (for ice cream) that would usually be thinner and crispy, only here it was puffy, soft and delicious. The sausage patty was your typical fake meat variety, but what hits this one way out of the park is the incredible maple butter, made from 100% organic maple. This stuff is the nectar of the gods I tell you, with a texture like melted caramel and the taste of velvety, liquid love. Put it all together with waffle, sausage and this… and you’ve got a sweetly, salty foodgasm in the making.

They’ve got a number of other vegan choices too. I also tried one with mallow fluff, which while not as transcendental as the maple/sausage orgy, was still rather tasty in it’s own gelatin-free marshmellowy way. I think by the time I got to it I was already all sweet-toothed out. There’s also a peanut butter & jelly combo, fresh fruits and various other options that come and go. They’ve also got many enticing options for your meat & cheese eating friends and many coffee drinks, cold and hot. The iced soy latte that I had with my waffle hit the spot.

Loved it, and I’d go back far too often if I lived there. They’ve got a second cart going now too, so visit their website for hours and locations the next time you’re in PDX and owe your tastebuds a flavor favor®. Expect a bit of a wait, the waffles are made fresh as you order them and when we were there they were very busy. Now I know why!
www.flavorspot.com

Stayed tuned for ‘Foodeater Does Vegan Portland’, Pt. 3!

(Update) Nutshell has closed.

I’m back from sampling Portland’s multitudinous vegan offerings, and have returned rejuvenated, inspired and over-fed satiated. I can totally see why Portland has earned the reputation of being a vegan town. For a city that felt tiny in comparison to the megalopolis I call home, they’ve packed in a hell of a lot of vegan and vegan-friendly restaurants into a small (yet lush) space.

I ate so much awesome food in fact that there’s no way I can get it all into one blog post without it being crazy long. Instead I’m going to break this up into sections, basically giving you a report on each place I ate at. Shall we being?

Hot off the plane, my fabulous and gracious hosts took me straight to my first food destination, Nutshell. This place gets mixed reviews but it was high up on my list of vegan places I had to try. I’m so glad I did because I loved every single thing here that made it’s way into mouth… and there was a lot of it!

Our first appetizer was the “Crispy rice fritters with avocado puree & chili sauce”. These were so great! They were made with a highly fragrant jasmine rice and seemed like they had been lightly fried in coconut oil… finger lickin’ good. Both of the dipping sauces were equally yummy in their own ways.

Appetizer two: “Bigfoot’s bamboo fries with kung foo sauce”. I don’t know what kung-foo sauce is all about but I can tell you that I like it. And I loved the bamboo fries. They had a firmer texture than fried potato, I really enjoyed the bite and chewiness they had going on. The flavor was good, not mindblowing but more on a simpler scale, something I could easily and happily stuff my face with alongside a burger or beer (if I was a beer drinker these would totally be the fries I’d be craving). They were cut thinner than regular fries and were slightly oily too, in an enjoyable “wow, these sure are some good, greasy fries” sort of way.

My friends ordered the “Fuji apple salad with beets, preserved marionberries, micro greens & muscatel vinaigrette” which they kindly allowed me to have my way with. Everything here tasted so fresh, both bold and subtle at the same time. The taste was surprising, not really what you would expect from looking at it, and I mean that in a good way. They’d also mixed in some finely chopped peppermint which woke up and brought together all the different flavors. I could eat this every day if someone would be nice to enough to make it for me. Thanks in advance.

For my main dish I had the “Fried quinoa & polenta. Tandoori roasted summer squash, quinoa greens, Romesco sauce & summer savory”. So delicious, and very hearty. This was a gourmet version of comfort food, the flavors leaning just slightly towards Italian, with the nice sweet twist of corn from the polenta and the refreshingly bitter bite from the earthy greens. It was excellent, and I left hardly a drop or crumble behind on my plate.

…which certainly didn’t stop us from ordering dessert: “Fresh local raspberries with coconut custard, brown sugar sauce, pistachios & phyllo cookies“. Yeah, the picture looks a bit of a mess, and it kind of was, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t taste great. It had a really nice mix of sweet and tart, the phyllo and sugar reminding me of baklava, and the coconut custard reminding me of very decadent Thai desserts.

Overall all, an excellent meal. The service is often complained about in various online reviews that I’ve read, but our waiter was friendly, informative and attentive. There was no wait, we walked right in and were seated and served immediately, which apparently isn’t usually the case either.

Now one controversy which does not sit well with me at all is that Nutshell is owned by the same person who owns another popular Portland restaurant, Ten-01, which serves foie gras (foie gras is a “delicacy” of fattened duck liver acquired by inhumanely force-feeding the birds until their livers are diseased and swollen well beyond normal… one of the most vile, unnatural and cruel things anyone could ever consider eating). So on the one hand, I am guilty of putting money directly into the pockets of a man who’s got disgusting foie gras on one of his menus, and on the other hand, I just ate one of the most unique & delicious, locally grown, vegan meals I’ve ever tried. Oh the irony and moral dilemma of it all! Knowing what I know now I probably wouldn’t go back and support this place if I lived there despite the amazing food, but I don’t live there, so I will leave it up to you to sort out your own ethics on the matter (to clarify: Nutshell is all vegan, the foie gras is on the menu at another restaurant by the same owner). I’ve done my part in giving you the facts. I’d love to be able to whole-heartedly recommend Nutshell to you based on the great food alone, but doing so without providing the above background info would be remiss. Maybe if enough people make a stink about this, something will eventually change. If not, at least you’ve got my pictures to show you what you’re deliberately not eating for a good cause.
www.nutshellpdx.com

Stayed tuned for ‘Foodeater Does Vegan Portland’, Pt. 2!

I’d like to thank all of you who took the time to send me your very helpful Portland food suggestions… as you’ll soon see I took you up on many of them! Special shout-outs are in order for both Stumptown Vegans and Veganazi, both being Portland based vegan restaurant blogs, and both being indispensable in my research of veg places to visit while putting together my itinerary. Your city rules and so do you.

Thank you also of course to OrganicGirl and The WolfMan for your steadfast and admirable foodeating abilities. I could not have accomplished this indulgent feat of feasting without you.

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UPDATE- August 2008: Word on the streets is that Nutshell has now bowed into the wrong kind of pressure… rather than the owner removing foie gras from his other menu, he’s changed the menu at Nutshell from being all vegan to now being only vegetarian… eggs and dairy are on the new menu. True, at least it’s still a vegetarian place, but I seriously doubt this new menu is going to do much to help their business, and will only add to the controversy of why some people just won’t go there.

UPDATE- Novmber 2008: Nutshell has closed.