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

Macaroni & Cheese. It’s was one of the few dishes, along with pizza, that most vegans long for nostalgically from their cheese eating days. Thankfully for us and the animals we abstain from eating, vegan cheese has come a long way in recent times and there’s literally nothing left that we can’t have anymore, even pizza is back on the menu. Vegan food has truly arrived with wonderful substitutes that rival, or even in some circumstances surpass the originals they seek to imitate.

At the top of the vegan simulated foods chain sits Daiya Cheese, a marvel of taste and ingenuity. Daiya Cheese is the sort of stuff that’s going to start a revolution. The cheese flavor is dead on and even more remarkably, Daiya melts just like real cheese. No joke, this stuff is the real deal, a true cheese substitute that melts and stretches and actually makes you want to eat it. No one can complain anymore that it’s too hard to go vegan because they’d die without pizza… because vegan pizza is out there and is as good as the “real” stuff. And now I’m here to tell you, so is Macaroni & Cheese.

I scoured the internet reading over dozens of baked mac & cheese recipes, and borrowed shamelessly from many various sources (including Veggywood and Alton Brown’s recipes) to come up with my version that seemed both easy enough to pull off as well as incredibly delicious. Guess what? It was both!

Here’s what I did:
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I told you The Valley was rad. It just got that much radder with the opening of yet another all-vegan establishment, this time on the far west end of Woodland Hills. Juice Ladies, an organic, vegan sandwich/salad/juice & smoothie shop is located on Ventura Blvd., way out past Topanga Canyon, just off the 101 Schoup exit. Now everyone from Chatsworth to Canoga Park to Tarzana and into the no-mans land beyond has tasty & healthy vegan goodness practically right at their doorsteps.

The shop livens up an otherwise forgettable strip mall which is anchored by Starbucks (what strip mall isn’t?). They don’t have a lot of seating inside but there’s plenty of it outside under umbrellas. The foods they offer are a fresh and exciting alternative in this part of town where vegetarian & vegan options are few in between (aka, it’s a nice change of pace from Follow Your Heart). They offer a variety of excellent sounding salad and sandwich options, as well as a giant list of juices and smoothies, ranging from yummy berry, chocolate and coconut drinks to green drinks to some pretty hardcore immunity boosting drinks involving stuff like garlic and onions. Ewww!

Let us banish the thought of drinks with onions in them and move on to the stuff I did like…

First I tried the Nori Rollup, because how could I possibly not? Grated jicama, pine nuts, garlic, purple cabbage, red bell pepper, miso, hummus, nori sheet (I love garlic when not in the form of a drink). They use the jicama instead of rice… how clever is that? Not only clever, but also cool and delicious. The pine nut paste stuff was awesome and I scarfed these beauties down in no time flat.
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[Update 10/12/09] Sadly That’s Amore is closing it’s doors this week and is no more :(

That’s Amore. Actually, it’s an anomaly. That’s Amore is an all vegetarian / vegan Italian restaurant in Cerritos. In a strip mail. No really, think about that for minute. Cerritos is one of the last places you’d think to find a vegan friendly restaurant, not to mention an Italian one. After all Italian food is all about the cheese, right? Sure, but did you really think that would stop us vegans from enjoying it? No way, Jose.

The fine folks at That’s Amore, a pleasant family run operation, have mastered the art of making vegan cheese indistinguishable from the real thing. They’re using Follow Your Heart cheese, which, unless you posses the secret magic power that enables you to get it to melt properly, you already know can be tricky to work with. Well the chef at That’s Amore has that power and this faux cheese melts at their command. They’ve got it down to a science… a breakthrough if you will.

But first we need to discuss the Bruschetta.

Straight up, That’s Amore makes a mean bruschetta. While bruschetta is a pretty simple concept, crusty bread with tomatoes, garlic, capers, basil, olive oil, they’ve managed to make it into an art form here. This bruschetta was 100% scrumptious! By some kind of precise combination of ingredients they’ve concocted a perfectly delicious appetizer that had my companians and I all greedily eying the last piece, quite ready to fight for it if necessary. Guess who won?
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UPDATE: Sad news, The Vegan Spot has closed :( – read on to see what you missed!
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I was never big into giant meaty sandwiches even when I still ate flesh. There’s just something about a bunch of thinly sliced, dripping pink meat smothered in oil and onions that’s always been repulsive to me. Pastrami sandwiches, Reubens, Roast Beef and Philly Cheesesteaks were just never the stuff my foodie dreams were made off… not the real versions of them anyway.

Now, we’ve already discussed just how much I love me a good faux Reuben sandwich, but how about some other variety of previously disgusting cuisine made lovable? That’s where The Vegan Spot in Silver Lake comes to the rescue with their remarkable all-vegan Philly Cheesesteak.

I’d previously read some good reviews of this place over at the Your Vegan Mom and Quarrygirl blogs and I couldn’t wait to try it out for myself. The Vegan Spot was started by one of the women who also opened Flore right up the street, so I figured it had to be good. And good it was!

Alright, so I’ve never had a real Philly Cheesesteak and the one time I visited Philidelphia I got dumped and had a miserable time. What I can tell you about this sandwich though, without having anything to compare it to, was that it was fantastic! They make their own meaty stuffing and cheese sauce there, and while I have no idea what they’re doing back there in that kitchen, it’s nothing short of pure vegan genius. The meat I believe is some sort of seitan concoction, thinly sliced and to me reminiscent in flavor and texture to a Greek style gyro. It tastes and feels incredibly realistic… real enough to fool my meat-loving dad into thinking it’s the real thing, and real enough to probably freak-out the vegetarians out there who can’t hang with faux-meats. Me, I love the faux… so I say bring it.

The cheese sauce was some of the best pretend cheese I’ve had anywhere. It was supposed to be like cheddar, and I’ll be damned if it didn’t have that sharp note to it that cheddar is known for. I could tell it had mustard in it, and most likely (totally guessing here) it had nutritional yeast as well. Amazing how they got the flavor and texture so close. Would a bonafide real-cheese eating connoisseur think it was real cheddar cheese? No, mostly likely not, but they probably wouldn’t consider that crap that’s kept in heated buckets at the local 7-11 for nachos to be real cheese either, and apparently it is. Unless someone went in there with a “I’m going to hate everything vegan just because it’s vegan” stick up their butt (you know the type), they’d be hard pressed not to admit this stuff is the bomb.

Here’s a close-up so that those of you out in the middle of nowhere can partake in the fantasy, imagining yourselves about to bite into this miracle of decadent indulgence smothered in cruelty-free melted delight…

The sandwich came served on a thick and fresh French roll along with an equally fresh side salad. It would normally also come with grilled onions, but… ewwwwww.

I absolutely loved this beast of a meal and can’t wait to go back and try everything else on The Vegan Spot menu. Los Angeles has been all abuzz about the vegan Twinkies that they serve as well, created by the lovely JennShaggy. The only problem is that they are so good and so popular that they’re selling out faster than the poor girl can bake them! Every time I’ve been there in search of a Twinkie they were out, but I sure hope the stars will align for me one of these days so that I’ll end up there at the right time and get to try one.

They don’t seem to have a website yet so I have no choice but to point you to the very mixed reviews over at Yelp:
http://www.yelp.com/biz/the-vegan-spot-los-angeles.

The reviews range from those who fanatically love the place to those who judge it based on the fact that they don’t like being served by hipsters and/or hippies or who’d rather complain about the murals on the walls than talk about the actual food. Whatever… don’t go into the heart of the most hipsterfied neighborhood in town if you’ve got a problem with “hip” people serving you, problem solved. The food was awesome, the place was clean and the people working there were all friendly and helpful… what more do you need? Try the place out and make up your own mind, I’m willing to bet you’ll leave happy and stuffed. If you do manage to snag a couple of Twinkies while you’re there, please save one for me!