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

Earlier this year I introduced you to the outstanding Homegirl Cafe, the restaurant downtown that’s run by reformed L.A. gang members. At that time they were only open for breakfast and lunch, but they’ve recently expanded their hours and their menu, and now we get to enjoy their unique take on authentic Mexican & Latin American food for dinner! Care to join me?

While Homegirl is not exclusively a vegetarian restaurant, they are very vegan friendly and have created specialty items for their menu which are clearly marked as vegan… and they’re wonderful.

The few times I’ve been there they’ve always brought over an appetizer as soon as seating me. Last time it was freshly made tortilla chips & salsa, on my recent dinner visit it was these scrumptious spicy roasted chickpeas with lime. Crunchy and warm, they totally do the trick of getting your appetite rip, roaring & ready to go.
Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been holding out on you. Even though I’ve been letting you in on all my favorite vegan & vegetarian foods in L.A for a few years now, I’ve neglected to tell you about one of my most treasured of all dishes. I haven’t exactly been keeping it a secret, but it’s about time you know… it’s about time for what I’m about to let you in on to officially be known as one of the tastiest things you’ll ever eat. Since you are the best blog readers in the world, consider this information my gift to you and your taste buds.

Atch-Kotch is an unassuming Japanese food restaurant centrally located in Hollywood at Fountain & Vine, in the middle of a strip mall of popular ethnic foods. It’s not a vegetarian restaurant but there’s an abundance of vegetarian options and plenty for vegans to enjoy.

None of the many other things they offer matter right now for the sake of this discussion, that’s not what we’re here to discuss. But I’m still not there yet, let’s not rush things… first some appetizers to whet our appetites.
Read the rest of this entry »

Hello friends! It’s been a long and introspective one month plus since you last heard from me, the time away was much needed. I’d like to thank you all once again for your kind words and thoughts during what was a whopper of an ordeal for me… and I’m so glad you’ve stuck around because I’ve got a ton of food tales and photos to get you caught up on. I have a feeling that some of my groupies out there are at the edge of their seats in anticipation of some drool-worthy vegan food porn, so how about we just dispense with the niceties and get to the heart of the matter? In this particular case, the heart of the matter equals breakfast.

One of the upsides of personal calamities is that they tend to make me forget all about being on a diet… which brings me back to breakfast. This is one of the fabulous vegan tofu scrambles at Real Food Daily. I can’t remember the exact name and try as I might I cannot find their breakfast menu online anywhere, but whatever it’s called just know that it’s divine. From what I recall it involved avocado, tomatoes and spinach topped with their yummy cashew cheese sauce which comes in regular or jalepeno. I, being a devotee of spice chose the later. This came served with hemp bread, vegan butter and choice of fruit or hash browns (I already mentioned throwing diets and giving a shit about carbs to the wind, right?).

Here we have yet another scrumdidliumptious breakfast at Real Food Daily, which you might have figured it out by now is one of my favorite places for a delicious and comforting morning meal (not that I would turn down a visit for lunch or dinner either). This time around it was the omelet with avocado, spinach, spicy cashew cheese along with tempeh bacon. Their tempeh bacon is to die for… a perfect texture and smoky flavor that to someone like me who hasn’t eaten bacon in many years, tastes awfully baconish (in a good way). The omelet itself is a thing of beauty… far surpassing anything that would come from an egg. It was crispy on the outside with a well-cooked eggy feel on the inside… both chewy and flaky at the same time. I absolutely loved it and ate up every last crumb of the stuff. I had the hemp toast again but this time opted for fruit instead of potatoes.

As far as I’m concerned, you can’t go wrong with breakfast at Real Food Daily. FYI, I’m talking about the West Hollywood location, I have not been to the one in Santa Monica yet. Despite the not cheap prices (come on, it’s all organic, kosher & rad) and regardless of the occasionally hard-to-find parking and often über-hipster/celebrity patrons, the food at this place truly is good: real, healthy and unpretentious. The next time you’re feeling like crap and are up and mobile before 3pm (on a Sunday… just found out this is the only day they do brunch), head on over there and set yourself up with a plate full of anything on their breakfast/brunch menu and you’re sure to leave feeling a lot more positive about the day ahead of you.

On that note, here’s to moving forward and feeling good. See you all soon with more gastronomic indulgences!

This is a very tasty seasonal item currently on the specials menu at Hugo’s in Studio City.

The “Blood Orange Salad” is made with “a blend of Napa cabbage, organic mixed greens, strawberries, slivered fennel, roasted baby beets, blood oranges and California pistachio nuts. Accented with a dressing made from balsamic vinegar and blood orange juice reduction”. It comes with a choice of protein, I had their grilled tofu which is always reliably good.

The salad was great, what with all it’s different flavors going on… it’s got your sweetness coming from the blood oranges, strawberries and beets, and it’s also got the unexpected licorice flavor of the crunchy, raw fennel (and carrots too), and all this is backup by the powerful underhanded punch coming from the balsamic vinegar. It makes for a unique and delightful (and not cheap) combination.

Stopping by Vinh Loi Tofu for lunch on a chilly day, I figured it was the perfect opportunity to try out one of their many soups. I couldn’t help but notice their incoming delivery of soybeans at the front door. What makes this a beautiful sight is that Vinh Loi uses only certified non-GMO soybeans. I knew this already (it’s printed on their menu), but seeing the bags stacked up like that at the entrance just made me feel even that much better about having a Vinh Loi addiction. It’s little things like this (well, being dedicated to using only non-GMO foods is not a little thing at all really) that make all the difference.

Of course I had to take a picture, and once I told owner Kevin what a nice thing it was to see that, he got in on the action as well and struck a pose… check out Kevin and his beans!

Now back to the soup, which I know is what you’re really here for. I ordered the #2, “Cari Chay”, which involves: rice noodles in curry broth with soy chicken. Sounds simple but don’t be deceived… this soup is rich, complex and magically delicious. You can’t really see it all in the photo, but there was all kinds of action going on inside the soup. Along with the expected soy chicken there were also some darker faux-meaty bits floating around which I think was the soy-beef. There was also chunks of tofu, carrots and other veggies and the topping of fresh cilantro.

Served on the side were the rice noodles, bean sprouts and lime to put in the soup. The curried soup flavor was thick and pungent and amazing. Not too spicy but not too mild. All the many flavors and spices were soaked up nicely by the noodles. This is one of those two-fisted meals where you’ll want to go at it with a spoon in one hand and chopsticks in the other. You see, we take eating seriously around here. Proper tools are essential.

I’ve shown you a previous version of the “Vegan Feast” I had at HealthyCA before… grilled tofu trio (teriyaki, tomato and ginger olive oil) on a bed of red and white cabbage… here it is again, I order this often because it’s delicious.

You get two sides with it so this time around I got the quinoa (the greatest tabouli style quinoa in all the land) and the coconut curried vegetables. It’s vegan love on a plate I tell you.

I always leave here full, satisfied and grateful that this awesome little oasis of healthy, delicious food exists in my neighborhood. I also like that they’re usually playing stuff like The Who, The Clash, The Ramones, Dead Kennedys, Motorhead and Metallica… What more could I ask for? Ok, I could ask for them to be open on weekends too, but I’m trying not to push it.

I’ve been wanting to attend the tofu festival since I’d first heard of it years ago and last weekend I got my chance. I can’t say that I was overwhelmed by it’s greatness, I was expecting something better. My favorite point was getting to catch about 5 minutes of the Taiko group playing their amazing drums.

It was super hot and sunny out and there is nowhere along the few festival blocks to get away from the sun and into the shade. Couple this with the fact that the festival was packed, and closed off on both sides so that everyone is stuffed into the middle of a narrow street filled with booths on both sides.

For a festival all about tofu I expected more… uh, tofu. And food in general. But the focus didn’t seem to be on the food, with just as many vendor stalls as there was food. Many of the booths had nothing for vegans or even vegetarians, and some of those that did only had unappetizing options. A lot of what I saw just didn’t look tasty or in any way unique. On the other hand, there were a few places that did have stuff that looked really good, but all of those places had super long lines, where you would get stuck standing in the middle of everyone’s walk way on this packed street, with the sun beating down on you. Not my idea of fun. Even though it wasn’t chaotic and everyone (including myself) seemed to be having a pleasant enough time, I still felt that it wasn’t laid out well from a space planning perspective (it felt quite claustrophobic in there), and it wasn’t well organized either in regards to the food options and ways of getting it.

That said, here are some pictures of what I did get to try:

This was the “Vegan Sweet Potato Pie with Tofu Cream” from A New Way of Life Cafe. This was my favorite of everything I tasted at the festival, it was quite delicious. I want more.

House Foods of America were one of the sponsors of the event, this one above came from their booth. First off was the “Honey Orange Tofu”. It was pretty good but nothing special. Generic Chinese food restaurant sort of flavor. Next to this dish you’ll see the (non-alcoholic) “Mock Tofu Margarita”. I tell you, this was one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever tasted, and trust me, I’ve eaten some weird shit in my time. It was so gross! You’ve all seen the sorts of things I eat, you know I have eclectic tastes and appetites and am open minded when it comes to food. This though… this was just wrong. I took two sips of it and threw the thing away with disdain. They basically took Margarita mix and blended some plain soft tofu into it, at least that’s what it tasted like to me. I don’t know if there was anything else in there such as soy milk maybe, but whatever was or wasn’t in it, that was just a bad idea that should have never seen the light of day.

This was the last thing I got to try, anything else that looked good had at least a half-hour line in front of it. From Curry House this is the “Tofu Keema Curry Rice”. It was very tasty, a thick Japanese style curry over tofu, vegetables and white rice. Came served with hardboiled egg which I declined. They also had iced barley tea which I love and theirs was very good. I should learn to make it at home.

So yeah, ate some tofu and got a bit too much sun. Oh, and I also walked over to Olvera Street and had a fresh sweet corn tamale filled with pineapple (not pictured) which was way better than anything at the Tofu Festival. I probably wouldn’t go to this event again but it was nice to get out of the house. I just read on LAist website that this may have been the last year for the festival because they didn’t bring in enough money.

The “Power of Green” salad currently on the Hugo’s specials menu pretty much rocked my world.

Check it out: “Chopped spinach, green chard, broccoli, green beans, asparagus, organic dried cherries and avocado. Served with toasted sunflower seeds and a Matcha green tea honey herb dressing”. I had it with their fantastic grilled tofu. Note that honey is not vegan so if you don’t eat it you’ll want to have this with a different dressing.

The vegetables all had a perfect texture, still crispy but not tough or woody. The star of the salad was the amazing Matcha dressing which was both very flavorful and yet still subtle and light, letting the flavors of the individual vegetables and the tart-sweet cherries to come through.

This was so great, tastier than it looks in the picture actually. I was riding a nice green chlorophyll rush for the rest of the day.