Hippie Vegan Bull$#!*

This morning finds me sitting at Austin Bergstrom having one last taco before I get on a plane to New York. I’m tired! I’m not sure if I spelled Bergstrom right and I’m so tired that I’m not even willing to double check so laugh at me if you must. If I wasn’t going out of town I would definitely be up for some hippie vegan bullshit and you should all check it out, Jake Rich clued us in on the details:

Hippie Vegan Bull$#!* is a free, family-friendly event on Saturday, May 25 from 12pm-7pm, celebrating everything peaceful, organic, and weird in Austin. From food vendors and artists to yoga classes and drum spheres, the Empire Control Room & Garage will give Austinites young and old something to vibe out to.
The Empire parking lot will be home to a local vegan marketplace featuring food trucks by Roaming Hunger, a farmers market, and vendors selling miscellaneous hippie bull$#!* including custom t-shirt screen printing and professional tie-dying. The garage will serve as our bicycle & skateboard valet as well as the home of our massive group finger painting mural.

The patio will host a yoga class by Wanderlust with musical accompaniment by Jeff Liffman, drum sphere by Xandali, slack line demos by Keep Austin Slacklining, hackeysack and frisbee. The Control Room will transform into the Crash Pad where music-lovers can enjoy positive music & vibes courtesy of DJ Edica + and participate in an improvised jam on-stage (so bring your instruments!) Those who want to chill can enjoy the show from the comfort of bean bag chairs, all while surrounded by 300 degrees of trippy, psychedelic projections.

Here’s the facebook event – http://hippieveganbs.com

Another One Bites the Dust: This is the last week for the Longhorn Food Court

You know what I think would be awesome? What if we tore down every single thing that makes living in Austin great and replaced it with condos and hotels. That way we could have even more people and more traffic, we are only 4th on the list of worse traffic in the US, we can make this happen people!!!

I understand that trailers are by their nature somewhat mobile and that trailer parks are owned by developers just waiting to turn their land into something more profitable because this is America goddammit. I sighed when I read a couple weeks ago that the landmark south congress trailers are this time really really closing. But I was beyond PISSED when I heard the vegetarian friendly trailer park that is five blocks from my office is closing to make room for condos. I’m the freaking mayor for godsakes. There aren’t that many walkable happy places to eat in this hood. I can get tacos at a place called Bacon. I can get a nine dollar smoothie at a gym. I can get a shitty bagel from a corporate behemoth or I can brave the crowds and mobs of babies at Whole Foods if I want to go somewhere for lunch without hopping in my car to the Wheatsville promise land. The Longhorn food court was like a dream come true.

I can clearly remember the first time I went to conscious cravings and soon after got my whole office hooked on the spicy chickpea wrap and the chimmichurri seitan. My coworkers even all ask for the vegan cheese! It fills my vegan heart with glee. We all make bad jokes about how we are consciously craving it.

And then when Capital City Bakery opened up I was able to turn everyone on to the wonder that can be vegan baked goods from the best in the biz. I think I also gained 10 pounds but it was all worth it! Whatever, I’m going to be glad I have it when the collapse of civilization comes and you all are regretting those juice cleanses.

And Moses Falafel is the only place I know of in the world that will substitute FRENCH FRIES in your falafel if you don’t like lettuce. And they even have falafel tacos. It’s so good.

The people that “own” the land, the people that these trailers pay money to every month, didn’t even bother to give the trailer owners 30 days notice. They were told they had to get out in a week. When I went yesterday none of the trailers knew what to do yet. They guy at Moses told me that hearing the news and having his credit card machine break down on the same day made it the worst day of his life. He said he is going to have to close for a while and reassess.  Cap City and Conscious Cravings are both looking for new spots. Probably east. URGH. I’m so depressed. I vowed to eat there all week. Some vegans are even getting together for a last Hurrah this Friday. And meanwhile Republicans are out there trying to get rid of the weekend. What a world.

UPDATE: Conscious Cravings will be moving north to 5715 Burnet Rd (right next to the Mister Car Wash)

Austin’s Worldwide Vegan Bake sale was a great success!

Every year our worldwide vegan bake sale gets a little bigger. This time we spread to two locations and raised money for two sanctuaries. I was really worried we wouldn’t have enough baked goods but Capital City Bakery, Red Rabbit Cooperative, Sugar Mama’s, Mr. Natural, and Happy Vegan Baker along with others all pitched in so I knew we’d have quality! We ended up having tons of volunteer made baked goods too. Sinfull Bakery even shipped us some goodies all the way from Houston! I made pretzel dogs and they sold out super fast! I will definitely make them again!

Here’s some shots from the Counter Culture sale, I wish I could have made it to Monkeywrench. 

Thanks to everyone that helped especially Brittany my co-organizer, everyone that helped sell stuff all day, and of course everyone that donated!!!

Here is a post from The Horn about the Monkeywrench sale!

Austin Bakes for West is this weekend so please consider donating to their humanitarian aid for our neighbors as well.

Texas VegFest 2013: a resounding success

If you look at my tweet cloud of the words I say the most “excited” is by far the number one. I’m usually excited about something. If I’m not, I get completely melancholy about how I have nothing to look forward to. For Texas Vegfest I think I might have just been too excited, I missed it last year because it was my bff’s wedding and thought that was one of the best events of my life, missing vegfest and hearing all about it just built up the anticipation even more for this year’s fest..  The night before I went to ATX Vegan Drinks with my friends from North Austin Vegans and had a fun time playing trivia even though my team abandoned me for the final round. Saturday was a freaking gorgeous day and by the time I finally got to the fest I’d already missed some events and sat down to see Dr. Montgomery talk about cardiology.

He was a great speaker, he talked a lot about how preventable heart disease is just by cutting back meat and that a lot of people know that and just replace beef with chicken. It’s not enough! He was dressed in his surgeons gear just in case any meat eaters showed up. I wanted to pay close attention but I just couldn’t sit still. I really wanted to get a shirt from Herbivore before they sold out. Then I got distracted by tacos.

Good Karma Kitchen had rolled in from Fort Worth to bring us their delicious tacos and noodle dishes. I got the barbecued Korean tacos with jalapeno cream sauce, sliced vegetables, and ginger pickles and they were amazing, and my favorite thing I ate all day.

I couldn’t believe the line for Arlo’s next door was a million times longer since Arlo’s is usually parked just down the street. They do have my favorite veggie burger in the world and people were waiting over an hour! I went looking for the Herbivore booth after trying some tempeh on a stick and then I ran into friends who wanted something sweet. We headed to Sinfull Bakery, I was stoked to finally try their Kolache after not being able to find one on a recent trip to Houston. I also tried one of their dark chocolate cookies and both were fabulous.

There were 5,000 people there and I saw so many folks that I have met over the years. It was sweet to see so many kids.

Actually, my favorite story of the whole day was hearing about a teacher that brought a group of her school children to volunteer for the day. Apparently she takes them to different places every other weekend to help out in the community and they had never even heard the word vegetarian before. They were really excited to see Omowale talk about boxing and wanted to try some of the food, but the teacher didn’t have the money buy them all expensive festival food and mentioned she would have to take them somewhere cheap like KFC. The Texas Vegfest staff heard about this and pitched in to buy them awesome local food from the vendors and they loved it! Meanwhile I was spending tons and tons of money gorging myself and Dan. I got him a plate from Aster’s Ethiopian because we don’t get up there enough and we love it.

We got to watch a very happy young lady dance for a while before she was joined by others,

But then I remembered I wanted to hear Colleen Patrick-Goudreau speak about how we are all taught to have compassion for animals but then we are taught to eat them too. She such an inspiring speaker. If you are considering trying to go veg I recommend checking out her 30 day program and her cookbooks. Halfway through the talk I remembered that I still hadn’t gotten my Herbivore T-shirt and by that time they had ran out of the one I wanted! Damnit! At least I’ll be in Portland soon enough. I drowned my sorrows in funnel cake.

and I got completely covered in powdered sugar.

The funnel cake completely did me in and I bought more treats for later.

And I missed so many other places I wanted to try. Mostly Unity Vegan Kitchen which I head everyone raving about. And the Happy Vegan Baker’s Mac & Cheese. And Capital City’s Cheesecake. And Counter Culture’s Sweet Potato Salad. And Sweet Ritual’s Salted Carmel ice cream in a Waffle Cone. There was a lot of food. I was so sunburned and exhausted I had to go home. It was all too much. As we were walking out Dan said, “you know the only vegan I didn’t see was Wes” and then there he was, waving to us goodbye Big Tex style.

It was that kind of a day.

Interview with Texas VegFest Vendor Amelia Raley

Texas VegFest is tomorrow April 6 at Fiesta Gardens and people have already started celebrating, I’ve been enjoying watching photos from Herbivore Clothing, Food Fight Grocery, and Vegan Houston as they populate my instagram with Austin’s vegan goodness. Tonight is the Texas VegFest edition of Vegan Drinks and they are even going to have vegan trivia so bet there at Cheer Up Charlies! If you are curious about the festival details check out my interview with board member Molly to learn about the bands, speakers, children’s activities, and more and go to the official website. And join the facebook event. And follow on twitter. Earlier this week I interviewed speaker Christy Morgan and today we are getting the vendor perspective from local ice cream proprietress extraordinaire Amelia.

I’m so excited that Sweet Ritual is going to be one of the vendors at this year’s Texas VegFest, first can you tell us what kind of treats we can expect?

We’ll bringing several flavors of scooped ice cream, including dark chocolate, salted caramel (which is soy free!) and a few other flavors. We’ll have cups, cones, sundaes, caramel by the jar, and t-shirts to sell.

Oh that sounds so good, is this your first vegfest?

We were there last year with Salted Caramel soft serve

What was your favorite part about last year’s event?

As a vendor, I didn’t really get a chance go see the lay of the lend or participate in the fest because we were so busy serving ice cream. When we sold out early, I brought out my hand-cranked phonograph and played music for passerbys.

Serving ice cream kind of sounds like the best job ever but I bet it is actually really difficult. What is the most trying aspect of participating in something like this since you all aren’t usually very mobile.

We have to contend with ice cream melting at outdoor events. We’re bringing an arsenal of waffle cone bowls, so, if it gets too hot, everyone will have delicious ice cream soup!

I love waffle cones. I think I have even dreamed about them. OK last question, if you get the chance to trade ice cream for a snack from any other vendor what would you be most excited to try.

We are super-duper excited about Atkinson Candies from Lufkin, Texas being at the show with our favorite candy – Chick-o-Stick!

Oh, wow, I just looked at that list for the first time in a few months – I can’t believe how many vegan bakeries we have in Austin. That’s so amazing!

It’s going to be a great fest! Thanks so much for answering my questions and I will see you there!

Texas VegFest is coming April 6!

I still haven’t caught up with sleep and chores from South by Southwest last week and now, here we are gearing up for another festival Texas VegFest! We just never stop celebrating in Austin Texas. I think it will be a little bit more chill than last week but a great time with all sorts of food and speakers to entertain and educate us. I am so excited that I caught up with my pal, board member and fellow blogger Molly of the Lonestar Plate to learn some details. 

So Molly, can you tell me a little about your role in the festival this year?

This year, in addition to my role as a board member of Texas Veg Foundation (the group that organizes the festival), I’m in charge of social media. As a board member I have a really macro view of the festival, looking at the overall schedule, content, reach, advertising strategy, and so on. But I’m also the person tweeting at everyone to come volunteer. (Really, sign up to volunteer. It will be fun!)

What are some of the differences between this year’s festival and last one, (besides that I will get to go to this one?)

This one is bigger, in terms of expected attendees, number of vendors, and the kinds of activities we can provide. We have almost a hundred vendors, six bands, and a ton more kids’ activities (tennis! yoga! cooking demos!).  This year’s festival is more local. Due to some logistical issues last year, many of Austin’s vegan and vegetarian restaurants and food carts couldn’t attend. This year just about all of our food vendors are small, local businesses. And of course, our Premier Sponsor is Wheatsville Co-op. I also think this year’s group of speakers is a bit more diverse, which was a big goal for us this year. The vegan demographic is white, female, and young-to-middle age. And that’s not because that’s what it takes to be vegan; it’s because we’re not doing a good enough job reaching out to other demographics.

 So tell me about the speakers that I as a white, young-to-middle age female might not know about.

We have six fantastic speakers this year. Omowale Adewale is a champion vegetarian boxer from NYC.  In his free time, he works with kids who might be struggling, both bullies and the bullied. He teaches them how to work through their emotions with boxing, exercise, and other healthy habits. His presentation will be really interactive.

Ayinde Howell is an actor, entrepreneur, and executive chef. He started his first restaurant, Hillside Quickies Vegan Sandwich Shop when he was only 20 years old. He blasted hip hop music and made food that *he* wanted to eat. And that turned out to be really successful. His sandwich shop became a gathering spot for artists and traveling musicians like Erykah Badu and Common. The shop eventually turned into a local group of restaurants (Plum Bistro et al.) that his sister now runs.  He’ll be cooking comfort food, including Broccoli Cheddar Soup, Texas BBQ Rubbed Seitan, and Mini Sloppy Joes.

Dr. Baxter Montomgery is a cardiologist from Houston who works with chronically ill patients, showing them how to improve their health through a healthy diet. There are some big names in the healthy vegan community, but one of the people who has been working at this for more than ten years is right here in Texas.

Christy Morgan, The Blissful Chef, is an Austinite who trained in macrobiotic cooking at the Natural Epicurean. She’s made a reputation for herself cooking healthy food that doesn’t taste “healthy.” Christy has teamed up with PlantFusion to show us how to make healthy, protein-packed snacks that everyone will love.

Vegan superstar Isa Chandra Moskowitz (you might have heard of her!) was kind enough to come back for a second year. She’ll be making cashew-based cheesecake. And, yes, there will be samples!

And finally, we’re really excited to have Colleen Patrick-Goudreau come this year to give a presentation she calls “From Excuse-itarian to Vegan.” If you think you could be vegan, except for cheese! Or that it’s too expensive/hard/limiting to be vegan, Colleen will guide you through whatever’s keeping you back. She’s that wise, funny friend you wish you had.

Omowale Adewale is a boxer and his presentation is going to be interactive? Does that mean he is going to hit me? 

Are you going to insult his mother?

I do make a lot of “your mom” jokes so I’m kind of worried. How do I force people to attend Colleen’s lecture? 

>>see below

Will there be tacos?

Arlo’s is serving tacos. And there will be also be nachos, donuts, funnel cake (from two vendors!), cannolis, and lots of ice cream.

Are there going to bands and other entertainment, like maybe interpretive dance? I’d love to express my rutabaga love.

We’ll have six bands:

·       Edison Chair

·       Ray Prim

·       Mighty Mountain

·       Silver Ships

·       The Asteroid Shop

·       Technicolor Hearts

There will be guided mediation by the lake. We should have the schedule for the bands, speakers, cooking demos, kids’ activities, and mediation up within the next few days.

What logistical info do I need to know, is there parking? Will I need cash? Can I bring my dogs? Are you annoyed that I’m not just looking at the FAQ section of your website?

There are a few parking lots near Fiesta Gardens and street parking to the west of the park. But everyone knows that biking, car pooling, and taking public transportation are way cooler than driving a car all by yourself, so we recommend people do that. In theory, you could even canoe up to the event, though I don’t think I know anyone *that* cool.

Bringing cash is a pretty good idea. A lot of our vendors will have Four Square or other ways to take credit cards out in the world now, but cash is a lot more dependable. You never know when you’ll need to buy a Vitamix or a shirt from Herbivore Clothing. (Psst. Someone buy me a Vitamix!) We will have an ATM though if you’re like me and can’t ever remember to carry cash.

Please leave your dogs at home. We love animals, but with all the crowds and food, it’s just not a dog-friendly environment. To be clear: dogs will not be admitted into the park.

Canoeing to the event sure sounds like a challenge…hmm. OK, last question, what do you think people will be most to eat and do at the fest? Predictions?

I think funnel cake will be popular, because, well, it’s funnel cake. Unity Vegan Kitchen will be busy since this is their first appearance. They’re a new Austin food truck that serves comfort food. And everybody loves something new. Good Karma Kitchen should be popular, too, since they’re from out of town and serve gluten-free food. I’m hoping the Atkinson candy booth will draw a crowd, mostly because I love Chick-O-Stick, and they make it. And it’ll be a crying shame if there’s not a swarm of families at the kids’ area because there are some really great kids’ activities this year. (Don’t worry, Lazy Smurf, you can easily avoid that area.)

Ouch! I like kids, my street is full of them happily screaming their lungs out 24 hours a day.

 

Thanks for answering my questions Molly!

SXSW VEGAN HAPS

It’s all happening.

There are a billion people here and it’s about to get even crazier when the music fest starts tomorrow.

Here’s what you need to know:

Vegan food can be found in every part of the city, I have a comprehensive list of every option I know of in Austin, a vegan Austin tour if you want to explore our many food options, a sxsw guide and a brand new late night guide in case you don’t want to be bothered and just need to eat now (or later). Don’t try and subsist on free beer you are bound to regret it.

Counter Culture will be open until midnight during the music fest, it’s an all vegan full service restaurant on the Eastside on Caesar Chavez. They are going to have music on friday and a St. Patricks day party Sunday.

Cheer Up Charlie’s is going to have day parties every day, this vegan bar also on the Eastside is home of Arlo’s which has the best veggie burger and tons of other treats at their adjoining trailer park.

Music Promoter Brooklyn Vegan will also have day parties every day with free vegan breakfast tacos from Pink Avocado Catering Company and free food for lover’s nachos!! and on Friday Mr. Natural will be giving away Food for Lovers Queso as well!

If you can’t make it out of downtown you can now try Sweet Ritual‘s ice cream at Counter Culture and in milkshakes at the Hideout right on congress. But if you are in Hyde Park they are going to have caramelized banana splits on special!

Most exciting to me is the Beagle Freedom Project’s benefit showcase. This is a cause that is very close to my heart because I live with two beagles and learned that they are the most common dog used in animal testing because they are so sweet. If that doesn’t break your heart I don’t know what will! The BFP rescues dogs that would have otherwise been killed when the experiment was over and finds them homes to live out the rest of their lives instead. Seeing these videos of beagles seeing the grass for the first time will make you want adopt beagles and give the project all of your money, and you should! They are going to have free parties every day at the Free Now Showcase so go and have fun!

I have been having a blast at the interactive and film conference so far. Highlights have included being inspired by the 100 year starship project, seeing Marcon Maron ask James Franco about General Hospital and then later seeing my friend chase the latter down an ally at 4am yelling “MR. FRANCO”, #tacos, getting my picture with LeVar Burton, and seeing a gigantic decal of grumpy cat glaring over the 6th street revelers. I learned that smiling almost instantly makes you happier physiologically from a scientist and that we don’t tell our children “the future can be better” anymore from an astronaut. I went to a panel about universal love where we were all instructed to concentrate on loving the person next to us and while i was doing that the person next to me left! Harsh! Right now I’m sucking down a free sweet tea vodka and writing this post on my phone (so south by) so i hope you were able to bear with me.

Dumpling Happiness – vegan friendly love for your tummy

If “wrapped in dough” is a food group, it’s probably my favorite one; empanadas, ravioli, zelijanitza, shoot, even the sandwich and the almighty taco fits the definition. Wrapping some tasty morsels in a blanket of carby goodness is the gastronomic version of cuddling with your favorite beagle on a rainy day. When I heard Dumpling Happiness was opening in Austin and that they would have some vegan options it was pushed pretty far into my “must try” queue.

At sxsw so far I haven’t been too impressed with any food, lines for free food aren’t usually worth it for me and the hardcore buzzed Paul Qui trailer park was pretty limp in the vegan department. I decided to venture all the way down to south IH-35 & almost the river to a trailer park I had never even been too on a beautiful spring day. It seemed so far I almost gave up but actually if you were on Rainey street or traveling by motor car, or even on the hike and bike trail in that area, it would be quite convenient. I ordered the scallion pancake and the kale & sweet potato dumplings and waited for my dumplings to be made to order. The pancakes came out first. They were perfectly crispy and delicious without being greasy and they had a few condiments to top them with. I kind of loved the peanut chili oil and sriracha and put a lot more on after this photo.

When my dumplings came out I was very excited, they were served on a bed of stir fried vegetables and came with a cup of coconut curry sauce for dipping. The combination of sweet potato and coconut is always a winner and in this case seemed to explode with flavor but the real highlight was the dumpling wrapper. It was so silky and beautiful. I’ve never had such a well made dumpling in my life and I’ve certainly not come close to that level in my own attempts! The only minor criticism is that I would have liked a little more kale, I am a vegan after all.

All in all a wonderful experience, go now before it gets super popular.

ATXFBA City Guide: Austin’s Late Night Vegan Food

I’ve tried to write this post a zillion times. The first post, years ago, spawned into my Austin Vegan Guide, I keep updating it and now it contains almost a hundred vegan friendly places in town. I also wrote a SXSW vegan guide last year that was supposed to have late night options too, but I started writing all sorts of other festival related stuff. The thing is, when it comes to Austin, I can’t just STFU. I have so much to recommend! This post is part of the Austin Food Blogger’s Alliance’s city guide so check it out and especially see my fellow vegans work, Lizz Delicious on Date Night, and soon Red Hot Vegans on Desserts, and The Little Red Journal on Healthy Eats. There are tons of categories from gluten free breakfast to vegetarian trailers to cocktails so it’s really super cool and comprehensive. I’m going to try and keep this late night list mostly to favorites because that’ll be plenty and if you just need a reference about the town you can check out the main guide where I try to mention when places are open late or if you are visiting try The Vegan Tour it has maps!

Downtown 6th Street and Red River is kind of the epicenter of bar life in Austin. Usually Friday and Saturdays find 6th street closed down to cars as a million students, tourists, frat boys, locals, yokels, cops and every other kind of night owl converge as a drunken hungry horde. Red River still has a lot of music venues keeping people dancing….or, more often, occasionally nodding to the beat and taking pictures of the band with their cellphones. 

Hoboken Pizza- open until 2:30am Red River & 7th. Vegan Pizza on Red River with Daiya.

Be More Pacific- 5th & Colordao. This Filipino truck moves around every day but seems to end up here most late nights. Check the schedule. The Adobo Tofu and the fried rice can both be made vegan. Open until 2am

Wok Around Austin 529 Brazos St At this trailer you pick jasmine rice, brown rice, or noodles, then a sauce and then a protein.

El Sol y La Luna 600 East 6th Street. This tex-mex restaurant has tons of different options like veggie chorizo, tofu tacos, and spinach and mushroom enchiladas. Open 11 on weekdays and 1 am on the weekend. Closed early sunday.

Chi’Lantro BBQ, Korean BBQ trailer, has a fab tofu taco for 2 dollars. And spicy fries. Location changes daily, you can also follow them on twitter cause they have two trailers that usually end up downtown. Will probably be open until at least 2am during the weekend. This is where I usually go after the bars if I’m downtown.

Rainey Street  If you go a couple of streets down towards the river you will find the Rainey Street area which is all super trendy bars and hotspots with maybe a slightly older crowd. 

G’raj Mahal 91 Red River An Indian trailer with table service under a tent. Very vegan friendly and open until 2am on the weekend.

Bangers This bar has a zillion beers on tap, a little dog park, and a full sausage oriented menu but they make a vegan sausage! Also boiled peanuts, fries, a veggie plate, a fruit plate, and even a jar of pickles.

Eastside If you keep walking down sixth street under the highway you will soon find yourself on the eastside which is so hip you can find kombucha on tap and heavy late night bicycle traffic.

Arlo’s Austin- 1104 E. 6th on the Cheer Up Charlies patio. An all vegan trailer with the best Bac’n Cheeze Burger in town or maybe the world. Plus, a BBQ burger, Chili Dogs, Chick’n Tacos, and Chip & Guac. Open 8pm to 2am Thursday, Friday and Saturday. My review

Miso Hungry- Pan Asian trailer next to Cheer Up Charlies and Arlo’s. Vegan Bahn Mi open until 2am on the weekend.

Via 313 - 6th & Waller. Trailer with Detroit Style Pizza with follow your heart cheese. Open til 2am on the weekends.

Fire and Soul 1104 East 6th Spicy vegan corn dog, deep fried avocado balls and sweet potato fries. Open until midnight on weekdays 2am on weekends. Closed Sunday

Handshakes 1104 East 6th Creative milkshake stand with many vegan options. Open til 2am Friday & Saturday. Closed Sunday.

Everywhere Else If you are in a car you will want to pretty much avoid the areas above and hit up a place where you can park..and actually drive.

Bouldin Creek Coffeehouse- 1900 South 1st. The tofu scramble is next level. You can get it in anything on the menu including the omelette which are fabulous. Also try with the vegan queso, the homemade veggie chorizo and the potato hash cake. The breakfast tacos are really good. Ask for the special tea menu. They also have fantastic baked goods from Happy Vegan Baker and Red Rabbit Doughnuts. The kitchen is open until 11:45pm and I love that you can order breakfast at night but they have entrees too like the delicious BLT.

Black Sheep Lodge- 2108 Lamar, I love the sweet potato fries, they also have veggie burgers and a portabella sandwich and fried jalapeño strips breaded in cornmeal that are delicious. And tater tots. And really good beer. Serves food til midnight and 1 on Saturday but open later.

Gueros- South Congress. Special vegan part on the menu. Get a margarita (or several) while you wait. Also chips and salsa that you get yourself the best Vegan Queso in the world. Mmm vegan meat. I like the taco salad and the tostada.  Open until 11 Thur-Sun

Habana- 2728 South Congress. vegetarian friendly Cuban food and delicious tropical cocktails. I love this place! You can even sit in a little cabana hut. Here is a list of of what is vegan. I love the monfongo and the quinbombo and tons of plantains. And the servers have always seemed very knowledgeable. Open until 11 Fri & Sat

Curra’s- 614 E. Oltorf St. Great Mexican food and amazing avocado margaritas. They have a veggie taco plate with homemade chorizo and super fat tamales, both bean and veggie. The rice is not vegan but they let you double up on the beans. Also Food For Lovers queso. Make sure you say no cheese. Open until 11 on Fri & Sat.

The Hole in the Wall East Side King- Beet fries, Brussels sprouts stir fry. It is a trailer behind the Hole in the Wall and one of my top faves.

Thai Kitchen- multiple locations. Open til midnight on the weekend at the Guadalupe location but the others close earlier. Typical thai. Green Curry is popular.

The Parlor- 4301 Guadalupe St has vegan pizza with follow your heart cheese and veg sausage My favorite pizza in town. m-f open til midnight. 1am sat

24 hour places 

24 Diner- Across the street from Whole Foods next to Waterloo music is this diner that is open around the clock. Veggie Po’Boy and a Veggie Burger on the menu.

Kerbey Lane- Multiple locations in every part of town. 24 hour diner. Vegan pancakes. Tacos. Sweet potato fries and all sorts of other stuff. I am not a fan of their homemade ”soysauge” but almost everything else is pretty good and I especially love that they bring vegan butter with the pancakes. Your best bet for 4 am.

Bennu Coffee- 2001 E. MLK Blvd 24 hours Daiya Pizza from Hoboken, tacos, green cart wraps and cupcakes from Happy Vegan Baker

Star Seeds has a couple vegan items and it’s 24 hours so I am adding it but I wouldn’t really recommend it.

Magnolia is another 24 hour diner that just isn’t very vegan friendly even though it’s very vegetarian friendly. They love their butter and cheese so I don’t recommend even trying but I thought I’d mention it so you know to stay away if you can because it is really popular.

The Buzz Mill- 1505 Town Creek (off Riverside) 24 bar and coffee shop with vegan pastries from Sugar Circus. I haven’t even been there but it’s the only late night vegan option I know of on East Riverside. I’m sure by the time I hit “post” 10 new places will have opened up.

If you have a favorite that I didn’t add please put it in the comments!

vegan cream PUFFS OF DOOM

A while back one of my oldest friends told me she was starting a small cream puff business in Chicago called Puffs of Doom. When she told me she was going to have vegan cream puffs I was really excited and thought there would be a token puff I would one day get to try on a trip to my home state. I followed her new company on twitter and on the facebook and I watched her business grow and get recognition from all kinds of fancy foodie press, even the Today Show covered them! The many different kinds of vegan puffs all sounded unique and delicious, she has creamy chocolate ones and noochy savory ones like potato curry. Seeing the puffs filled me with longing but it wasn’t until last spring when my other friend was having a bridal shower that I finally got to try them.

I was blown away.

So was Amanda who ended up having them at her wedding (along with a cake from Capital City Bakery)

I started begging Becky to ship some out to me but she was only selling them at farmer’s markets and coffee shops in Chicago. Finally, this Valentine’s day it happened, I got a giant package of puffs in the mail.

I wanted to save them to eat with Dan when he got out of work late but I had to take photos while it was still light out… and then I couldn’t resist. I tried the Salted Caramel Chocolate Espresso and I had to close my eyes and let the world just stop. It was kind of like a cross between a Boston cream pie doughnut and a rich flaky croissant. The best of both worlds.

I thought, “I should really bring some to Kristen she would love these” quickly followed by “That would mean less puffs for me” and “I wonder how many I could eat before Dan noticed some were missing”. And they were his Valentine’s Day surprise!

The puffs brought out the worst in me!

And in Dan too. He tried them late when he got home from work and then, the next day told me to leave work early so we could eat them together. I mentioned our friend was coming for the weekend and he said “hide them!”. When I got home he told me I would love the chocolate peanut butter…and I did.

He said, “I didn’t think I’d like the Strawberry Champagne but it is amazing and has, like, a whole strawberry in there”… it does…

And the Oreo…oh the Oreo

and, oh yeah, Espresso Chocolate

We talked about joining the “puff of the month” club and knew that would never be enough. Maybe a Puff of the week club? We talked about moving to Chicago. Dan said they were the best dessert he ever had. And this kid loves his dessert more than just about anything.

I recommend you try them.

Or, maybe be better off for never having known true puffed out bliss.

I’d rather have the perfect moment.

Chicago, you win this round.