Monday, January 3, 2011

Its a vegan-palooza in Toronto

 Dino at the ROM
I am in Toronto, missing home very much. I have always been a bit of a house bug. It figures that I get a flu while traveling... However I have been loving the city life, there are so many restaurants that I have got to try out. First place we went to was the Buddha's Vegetarian, which in my option was a little greasy, and too much food. I read a bunch of reviews, and thought it would be a good place to start my Toronto vegan food-a-palooza. It was really cheap, but I was not crazy about it.

Rancho Relaxo Decor

The next place we went to was Rancho Relaxo, a Mexican style restaurant. When we got into the restaurant J was not feeling that great. Our waitress was super nice and brought Leeluu a little dish of rice, beans and guacamole. The place had a traditional American-Mexican decor, the kind with a blanket table cloth, and hats pinned to the walls. The best part about this place was that they offered faux-meats, with soy cheese and sour cream! This was a huge plus for me. There are not enough restaurants that offer this. Although ended up taking our order to go, I would definitely go back here for another taste.

After spending some time at the ROM we hit up Fresh, we waited 35 minutes for a table but figured it must be worth it because of how busy it was. I ordered the BBQ burger, it was huge I loved the quinoa crusted onion rings, but I found the burger a little dry. My daughter wanted dessert after and ordered 3 of they cupcakes to share with everyone at home. My thoughts....honestly not my favorite.  The juice I had was really good!  I had the oompla loompa. I think I would be into trying out a rice bowl next time.

view from the loft

New year eve we went to Kings Cafe Vegetarian Restaurant in the Kensington market. The menu was huge. We ordered the soy drumstick, spring rolls and dumplings for appetizers. Which were all pretty tasty, I ordered the Tom yang soup, it was decent. 

The best buys (so far) have been at essence of life, which is a health food store. We are lucky and are only 1 block away. This store has such a huge selection of vegan food items. I finally got to try out the Go Max Go Foods vegan chocolate bars! OMG, these are SO delicious! The jokerz is by far my favorite.

 Urban Herbivore

We also have tried the Urban Herbivore...one word. YUM! I had the gluten sandwich with sprouts, spinach and marinated tomatoes. We also tried a Mocha cookie, but I never got to taste it. My daughter gobbled it up! I think the words that she used were `I am in love`.

As you can see I did not bring the camera with me, so I have been using the Iphone. I still have a few more days of taste testing out new places. and if you have any recommendations that would be great!

Happy New Year!

6 comments:

  1. go to rawlicious!!! it's the tastiest freshest vegan food i've tasted. omg, i'm so jealous!

    sorry you're not feeling well, though. there's so many juice bars in toronto - maybe a nice immune-boosting juice will speed up your healing process!

    xoxo

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  2. Hey there, hope your loving Toronto! Some of my favourites places to eat in the city are One Love for really good Jamaican, Fressen- Casual fine dining, utopia- awesome faux crispy chicken wraps and quesadilla and Sadies Diner for really good huevos rancheros and other hangover specialties!

    Im glad you made it to Kings Cafe and Urban Herbivore are some of my favourites and Fresh, I work in the kitchen at the Queen and Crawford location. It sure is nice drinking "fresh" juices everyday at work:) If you ever come back I suggest you try either a powerhouse bowl with crispy tofu cubes or a green goddess bowl!

    I really hope you get better and enjoy the rest of your visit!

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  3. seconding the vote for Sadies - it's not that far from kensington, totally walkable - at Adelaide and Portland.

    Also there is the brand new Loving Hut at Richmond and Spadina. I have yet to go but it just opened a few weeks ago so there is the novelty factor...

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  4. Kelli, your right there are a lot of juice bars in Toronto! I will check out rawlicious. Thanks:)

    Brittany. Wow thanks for all the recommendations:)
    We went sadies new years day for breakfast, it's pretty cool so many restaurants offer vegan options. We are going to fressen tomorrow.

    Anony, thanks I am thinking about trying out the loving hut for dinner tonight:)

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  5. i think this comes too late, but i second the call for fressen - loved my visit there last time i was in the city! also tortillaria toronto has great over the counter tacos: fresh off the press corn tortillas filled with spinach, potatoes, squash & beans!

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  6. Thanks Jess, when I get back to Toronto I will definitely try those. :)

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