Well, this is definitely the prettiest food picture I have ever put on collegevegan, which is too bad because it’s going to be one of the few times when I feel relatively negative about something that involves food. When I was in San Francisco my friend took me out to Cafe Gratitude, as it’s known to be a good, all vegan place in town.

The place has a very nice atmosphere, I won’t debate that, but I felt overly silly ordering “I am elated” even though it seemed like it would be very delicious. There’s something to be said for a pleasant demeanor and nice service, but it’s another thing to spend money to tell yourself good things. It just seems stuck up and while I get that a lot of vegans (and other people that believe in things) can get pretty stuck up about it, it’s still a turn off.

When the food came, it was undeniably pretty:

However, and I hate to say this because I hear it so much about vegan food, the food was pretty bland. For $15 bucks or so I felt like the best thing on my plate was the quinoa. What’s worse is that in the end I wasn’t even full.

Grr. There were some things on the menu that really looked good, so I might give it another chance, but it’ll be hard to get over the stupid menu, :).

Firstly, I feel like the world’s worst food blogger right now. I could’ve sworn that place with the great falafels was called the Blue Moon Cafe, but when I looked it up I found out that was the name of an Asian fusion restaurant all the way on the other side of town. So right now, I really have no idea what this place is called, I just know that it’s somewhere on Haight street, where all the hipsters and people with bad fashion like to hang out (it’s actually less than a block from Coffee to the People).

Anyway, I have nothing but good things to say about this nameless place. I’d heard about falafels for a long time, but honestly, I didn’t know anyone who was into Mediterranean food so I had never eaten one. That certainly changed with a band. Not only was this avocado, rice, burrito, falafel thing the first of its kind that I had ever eaten, but it was delicious. Even though the hummus was much to spicy and just about killed me before I realized I shouldn’t put more on my falafel, it was great.

Like Coffee to the People, I was lucky enough to return a second time to get a falafel for the plane. For about 8 bucks you can get a foot long, foot around falafel that stuffs even me, with my ability to enhale an entire 14″ pizza without much concern for my health. Definitely worthwhile. I wonder if you can get half orders but even if you can’t I think it’s totally worth it since the falafels keep well and you can just toss the second half in the fridge for another time.

Anyway, if I can remember what it’s called I swear I’ll update the post!

EDIT: Thanks to Sharon for jogging my memory on the name of the place!

I’m not a Christian, but my mother is so I celebrate Christmas with her. However, this year I didn’t really think about what to cook. Call me stupid for not thinking in advance, but I suppose nothing interesting will come of Christmas dinner.

So, I ask you: what do you vegans usually do for Christmas dinner? Feel free to share recipes and advice, :). Thanks!

You’ll have to excuse the horrible camera phone picture, but we make do with what we have. You’ll also have to excuse how late all of my San Francisco reviews are, but you know how life gets in the way sometimes. As long as I have time to eat, I think it’s okay if I run out of time to talk about it.

Anyway, one of the nights I spent in San Francisco involved a rather lovely dinner at Pizza Orgasmica. I absolutely love pizza, so even though I was slightly turned off by the name (I don’t want to know what they do in the backroom!) I figured it could be pretty good, and I wasn’t let down. It was a little pricey, but hey, it’s not Papa John’s so what do you expect.

My friend and I had a large sicilian pie with tomatoes, black olives, and mushrooms, and, of course, no cheese. Sadly, there was no medium sicilian option, but I thought we could finish it. Even though I managed to eat 3/4s of the pizza by myself, even I ended up stuffed and couldn’t go on. She, on the other hand was full after the first piece. I don’t know what it was, but the pizza was incredibly filling.

I guess I should mention now that besides being incredibly filling, it was also incredibly good. Probably some of the best pizza I’ve ever had, and I highly reccommend it. Pizza Orgasmica has a few cheeseless speciality pizzas and they even have soy cheese, though I don’t know if it’s tasty since I don’t really like soy cheese in general.

Anyone else been there?

Recently (though not too recently, these posts are a little backed up), I spent some time with a dear friend in San Francisco. She wasn’t a vegan, but that’s okay. She seemed to know where everything was so I had a relatively lovely time in San Francisco as far as food is concerned (she’s nice too)!

Anyway, just near her house was a very lovely coffee shop called Coffee to the People. Personally, I think the name is much too cheesey, but the coffee was rather good and above that they had some delicious vegan pastries. I was only in town for a short period of time so I could only patronize this fine establishment twice. However, they were well worth it.

The first time I went I had a very tasty cranberry scone. Now, I’m not the biggest cranberry fan in the world, but I do go crazy for scones, so I decided to give it a try. It was so worth it. It was incredibly satisfying, and even made me think about giving cranberries another chance.

When I returned the next time I was even more pleased to see that they had vegan cornbread. It’s not like cornbread is that special, since I eat it all the time, but this cornbread looked particularly moist. And it was! It was incredibly delicious and well worth the visit. I hope to make it back if only for this cornbread…except some experimental recipes in the future.

Anyone else been there?

The other day I talked about having to get some new cookware to use with the induction cooker, and finally I’ve gotten around to talking about the induction cooker! I won’t blab on and on about it here in these pages, but if you want to know more you can pop on over to my review at EcoRenovator. Definitely something I use very often.

Rice had been a staple of my diet for a long time. Not only is it the perfect side dish for almost anything, but it’s relatively inexpensive in terms of caloric content and when it’s cooked just right it’s super tasty. As I’m sure you know, the problem is always making sure it’s cooked just right. That’s hard enough by itself, but when you’re cooking a few other things all at once it becomes nearly impossible to make sure it’s cooked to perfection.

That’s why I picked up this Zojirushi NS-ZCC with Neuro Fuzzy Logic. I’ve messed around with standard, one button rice cookers in the past and never been very happy, but I heard great things about Zojirushi and thought I’d give it a try. Now, I must warn you, it is expensive. Like all things there are more and less expensive models, and this one is towards the lower end of the higher end, but it was definitely worth it. Check Amazon for a deal on the NS-ZCC and other models.

The Review

Now that I’ve said it’s worth the money, it’s time to tell you why. The first, and most important reason is that the NS-ZCC can handle all kinds of different rice. Never again will you need to worry about the difference between brown, white, sushi, washed, un-washed, and any other sort of rice. The rice cooker will do it all for you. This may seem like a relatively small feat, but when you can simplify 11 or so different tasks into a few buttons and no worries, it really changes the way you cook.

The second reason is that this rice maker is incredibly portable. It may seem strange to think about a rice cooker as portable, but in fact, the NS-ZCC is so portable that it make you just want to haul it around. Not only is it compact, but it has a very useful and well-designed handle with a retractable cord that means you can just cook your rice, toss it in your car, and plug it in at your destination to reheat, which makes it very convenient for potlucks or dinner at a friend’s.

Thirdly, the NS-ZCC makes delicious rice. Just plain old delicious rice. It’s hard to compare, but the rice I’ve had since I’ve been using this cooker has been better than any rice I’ve had in the U.S. outside of fancy restaurants. I’m definitely eating a lot more rice now, and cooking meals with the anticipation of using the Zojirushi.

Overall Impressions

The thing is expensive, but it works amazingly well and the brand has a great reputation. I don’t see any reason why it shouldn’t last for years to come. If you have the money (or are thinking about holiday gifts, wink wink), it’s definitely worth it and it will change the way you look at rice. Happy cooking!

Last week I was at the LA Auto Show press days as a journalist for my other life at EcoModder.com, and before going I really thought I was going to hit the town and get some good eats while I was there. Little did I know I would be waking up at 6:30, jetlagged, and completely unprepared to walk around a show room floor for 9 hours without eating or drinking!

So, needless to say, after the days events were over I tended to walk home to my hotel and fall into bed. Luckily, the Sheraton room service people were incredibly accomodating with my vegan requests, and both days I ended up with some pretty good food. The first night I had the pizza you see above, and the second I had this delicious pasta dish with a name I forget:

On the whole, I’d have to say the Sheraton was a pretty nice place for food for such a lazy person like me, but next time I’m going to brave the haze and eat in some nice restaurants!

One of the most annoying things about traveling for me is the need to eat. Sure, eating is a luxury that really only needs to be done every couple of days (har har har), but it’s especially hard to make that happen when your only options can be found in the crappy food court at some crowded, overpriced airport.

Luckily, when I wound up in LAX before my flight to San Francisco, I had no trouble finding something tasty and familiar. That something was Baja Fresh. Baja Fresh is a national chain of Mexican food. I’m tempted to call it fast food because it is both fast and food, but it doesn’t have that same horrid taste and sense of impending, greasy doom that most fast food would give you.

Anyway, my usual fare at the baja fresh is one burrito with black beans and rice. The ingredient are always great and the burritos are made fresh and toasted to a crispy perfection while you wait. To top it off they always come with chips and a great variety of salsas from which you can choose.

I forget how much I ended up forking over at the airport, but usually I can get a burrito like this for about 4 bucks and by the time I’m done I’m positively stuff, so Baja Fresh is a great value. It’s also someplace I enjoy going to more than I feel forced to by convenience.

I haven’t tried much else at BF yet, but I’m sure there are some other vegan options (and tons of vegetarian ones). Does anyone eat there?

The other day I rediscovered one of the best things in life: frozen waffles. It’s been a long time since the eggo waffle days of my youth, but I certainly feel a little nostalgia when I slap one on the George Foreman grille and dress it up with some maple syrup.

Now, for years I had assumed that frozen waffles were just one of those things you had to accept wouldn’t become vegan because they were “too mainstream” or something like that. On the contrary, Van’s is available all over the place and very tasty. The waffles are about 3 bucks for a pack of 8, and most of the flavours are pretty delicious, especially the whole wheat variety.

Are there any other good brands running around out there?