The Wynn creates a vegan oasis in the desert

Tofu and Eggplant

It's an old cliche - a billionaire creates an epic hotel, hires some of the world's finest chefs, goes vegan and then makes all the world famous chefs create vegan menus.

Well, it's not a cliche at all, but it should be.

Tracy and I sat down together to see if there were any good reasons to get out of town for the weekend. The idea of Vegas came up. It was probably a joke at first, but the idea became a real possibility when we remembered some old vegan news clippings that fell through our google news filters about an eccentric rich guy, Steve Wynn, who was doing something crazy: veganizing his restaurants. ( read about his veganism )

A City in Food: Chicago

So, months ago, in the tail end of winter, Andrew and I went to Chicago. And for whatever reason, I never posted about it. But we went to Cleveland this last weekend [[for Andrew's second Sanshou fight]], and now I feel like I'm backed up on vacation talk. So here's Chicago.

Karyn's Cooked

Karyn's Cooked is a beautiful restaurant located in downtown Chicago, moderately priced with an extensive menu [[click map for more info]]. And it's all pretty much vegan. There are few items labeled with honey, and an appetizer pizza [[dedicated to her husband]] that has cheese on it. Andrew got the jerk tofu sandwich with slaw and potatoes. I got the "cheese" flautas with black beans and guacamole. We also got the pizza appetizer with "cheese" and seitan. And for dessert, the tiramisu cake. Everything was delicious, the wait staff was tremendously helpful. We had a great time.

If you're visiting Chicago, I'd recommend hitting up the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art and then walking a few blocks over to Karyn's Cooked.

Chicago Diner

Chicago Diner... what can I say. If we lived in Chicago, we'd move across the street from it, eat there every day, and gain about a zillion pounds. EVERYthing on that menu is delicious. We ate there 3 times while we visited Chicago. Unfortunately, all those times I didn't bring a decent camera. So, you get shitty iPhone pictures. What you see on the left is me on our last day before hitting the road back to Columbus with 3 breakfasts. I got their biscuits and gravy, tofu scramble plate, and pancakes. ALL amazing. Andrew got their gyro sandwich-- absolutely amazing. They'll tell you their Reuben is their signature item, but I think their gyro is even better. And in the right picture he's eating their peanut butter cookie dough shake, which I would eat every day if I could. I also tried their sweet potato quesadilla, their twice baked potatoes, and their seitan hot wings w/ ranch. I can't really say anything bad about this place, except get in there early for Sunday brunch. But that's how it is at most brunch places, anyway. The servers were really cool and super helpful with lots of a suggestions. It has a nice, casual atmosphere-- like a hip diner.

I would recommend hitting up Chicago Diner for dinner, and then walking a few blocks over to see the Blue Man Group.

Vacation Part 2: NYC

I had bigger expectations for NYC. I'm not sure what exactly I expected, but it was something more. Like those movies where you see people step out of a cab with all their luggage and look around like a crazy person and say "ahh" like they've made it or something? I guess I was hoping I'd feel like I made it. Instantly.

The reality is less sexy. Driving is like being at a roller derby. It smells like ass half the time. Summers are not designed for al fresco dining. Times Square is mostly foreign tourists and d-bag business people. Subways are the closest to hell you'll ever get. Carrie Bradshaw was on crack: Brooklyn is not the new Manhattan -- unless you think young, depressed-looking hipsters living in the near-ghetto is your scene. Hotel rooms are glorified closets. Cafe food costs the same as fine dining.

But I don't think any of that is the point.

I won't bore you with details, but during my stay there, I was presented with the rare opportunity to work in Candle 79's kitchen. It's still surreal to me. Most restaurants want people with years of experience or culinary degrees of some sort, and as a vegan, that's almost impossible. I could have been food-neanderthal for all they know. But they let me cut things. They asked me if I thought things tasted right. They let me make nori rolls! And those are hard!

Me and Andrew eating breakfast at 7 am in Times Square before my first day of work. The most peaceful it looked the whole trip. Don't mind the hat -- it was part of the uniform.

It was an amazing experience and probably one I'll carry with me for life. And it seems I may have the opportunity to carry on this experience. The head chef told me to call him if we move out there. For now, I'm still Columbus Vegan. But, perhaps New York Vegan . . .

Either way, I understand. You don't go to NYC because it's a great place to live. You go there for the opportunity. And you won't step out of a cab in some amazing movie scene and feel the opportunity overwhelm you. You'll pay your cabby. Get out of the cab as fast as you can to avoid getting honked at. Walk the couple blocks to your dream. And work.

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[[Cafe Blossom]]
All organic, vegan, kosher... etc. It's awesome. Visit their website.

Our first day here, we just wanted to grab dinner and go to bed-- I know, we're party people. But it was Sunday night, and that's when we watch HBO.

Cafe Blossom was great. They had a lot of options and convinced Andy and I that olives aren't that bad. Their menu was all vegan with a few raw options. It was pretty reasonably priced, too, considering how fancy looking it was in there. Their waiters were very attentive and our waiter knew a lot about raw food. He was very helpful. We also got a really good carrot cake for dessert that is not depicted here. We brought it back to the hotel and devoured it before I had the chance to photograph it. Sorry!

We bought a bottle of wine. I believe it was a shiraz. Or it could have been a pinot noir. It was tasty. And got me pretty tipsy. I don't drink much. heh.

The bruschetta. We were so hungry, we ate the pesto one before I could take a picture, but if you look closely there's a drop of it on the plate. Now just imagine that drop on a big piece of crusty bread -- and that's what it looked like. My favorite was the hummus with the olives on it. And I hate olives. Or at least I thought I did. The standard bruschetta was great, too.

Andrew's raw pasta. Before his stunt and during it, we're switching him to a raw diet. So, for this reason, he tried out some raw pasta! It was zucchini cut into noodle shapes with a pesto. Very tasty!

A cashew-based fettuccine alfredo with breaded "chicken" and vegetables. Not raw, but vegan and amazing.

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[[Pukk]]
CHEAP, tasty, and vegan/vegetarian. Visit their website.

This was Andrew's second spicy throw-down. After that amazing Thai curry from Philly, we decided to go to Pukk and see if their curry was any good. They were by far the cheapest restaurant we'd been to in NYC, and I think we were near a campus. But I can't be sure. The area was slightly younger looking.

Pukk was neat. The bathroom was almost too modern to use. The sink was a giant boulder and the water would drain from the sides of it. Very strange. In a review someone said the restaurant looked like a giant bathroom, and I think it's because [[and you can see a little in my pictures]] the tables and chairs were made of little tile. Like a bathroom.

The service was great, as was the food. I officially love Thai curry.

We had some sort of Thai pancake appetizer. It was a curry with little pieces of fake meat and spinach. Does anyone know what that Thai flat, delicious bread is?? It's amazing!

Thai red curry with "duck", bamboo, and pineapple. It's like nothing I'd ever make, but I really enjoyed it.

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[[Lula's Sweet Apothacary]]
Ice cream! All vegan. Some gluten free. All delicious. Website.

This place was SO cute. It was like an old time ice cream shop. They had old ads up from the 50's [[you can see them behind me]], and a little bar where you can eat sundaes in non-disposable cups. The people were super nice, and after trying about a dozen flavors, I got the cookies n cream. I wan't feeling daring, I suppose. Andrew got soft serve cake batter flavored ice cream. His was melting, so we had to get a cup.




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The next day, we had to take the long drive back home. We didn't get to see many sites, but we tried some of the best vegan food I've ever had. We did try to get on Fallon, but we missed the cut off by one person. It didn't matter -- for my 21st birthday, I got to cook in a vegan kitchen. I can always remember that much.

Vacation Part 1: Philadelphia

Pennsylvania is laden with tolls and shitty government-run bathroom/gas stops that I dubbed "Roy Rogers stops". Once we actually got into Philly, it was under construction. So, our last 10 minutes of driving took about an hour and a half. In the actual city, they have strangely narrow streets that are pretty uncomfortable to drive on. Not to mention the obstacle course we had to park in. People also park in the center divides of the street? What is that?!

It's a very cute city, though. Every other building had giant murals, and their capital building is a gorgeous piece of architecture. Their streets are a little strange and confusing, but it seemed the farther east we went, the more complicated everything was. I'd go back there.

We were only there a day and a half with the sole purpose of seeing UFC 101, so we hit a couple vegan spots to pass the time. UFC 101 was amazing by the way -- the Wachovia Center was awesome. Our far away cheap seats ended up being great seats and we sat next to two very large [[in size, not dedication]] BJ Penn fans waving a Hawaiian flag. Those guys could eat . . .

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[[Govinda's-- Gourmet To Go]]
Govinda's is vegan and vegetarian. They also have vegan ice cream and cakes. During the day they have a to-go counter. At night, it's a fancier restaurant.

waiting around with our starbucks

The first restaurant we went to was a bit of a disappointment. Happy cow reviewers seemed to love the food and detest the service, while we didn't mind the service and sort of detested the food. Andrew got a seafood wrap with entirely too much vegenaise for one sitting. I got a very average philly cheese steak. We also got a side of fried chicken nuggets. I think I'm getting sick of gummy fake meat products.

The cheese steak. Truth be told I was starving and this was really delicious at first. Got old fast though.

The seafood wrap. It tasted like seafood. A gallon of vegenaise. If Andrew was a stickler, we would have sent this back.

The gummy nuggets.

That's all I really have to say about this place. Cheap food, cheap quality.


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[[Mi Lah]]
Mi Lah is an all vegan restaurant.

I can only say amazing things about Mi Lah's. Before we went to the UFC event, we popped into Mi Lah's for a quick dinner. After Govinda's, we weren't expecting much. This place was amazing, though. We liked it so much, we got brunch there the next day.

Andrew had one of his spicy throw downs. Any time we go to an Asian restaurant, he'll ask the waiter to make it spicy -- but not white people spicy, really spicy. And he'll actually say that. And the waiter will look at him like are you sure you can handle our shit? Then, Andrew will ask them to bring it. I'm sure I'm making this sound much cheesier than it actually is, but you catch my drift. He asked them to bring it... and they did.

As we walked out we saw the chef hanging out at the hostess stand. He's not much older than us and he was wearing a baseball cap with hipster, black glasses and a button up flannel [[I thought that was hilarious]]. Andrew shook his hand and told him it was the best Thai curry he ever had. I think that made his day, because when we came in for brunch the next day, he remembered us.

The regular menu was kind of pricey, about 17 dollars per plate. Our brunch was a flat 20 dollars per person. They gave you a muffin and fruit plate and some amazing house made juices to start. And then you can choose from several menu items. Andrew and I are seriously considering moving to Philly just to be near this restaurant. The service was fast and good, and the food was excellent. If you ever find yourself in Philly, go here!

The amazing Thai yellow curry. Not too much heat either, even though Andrew threw down.

Potato Gratin with brussels sprouts and mangos and a cashew cheese. Really tasty!

Cheesecake! It was good. . . not as good as mine. ;)

My brunch! An amazing vegan omelet. SO good.With a pancake, toast, home fries, and tempeh bacon. I started eating before I took the picture. Sorry!

Andrew's brunch. An English muffin topped with sausage, guacamole, and gravy. Some coconut crusted mushrooms and sweet potato fries.

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Anyway, that's a mini-vegan tour of Philly. It's a blip in my mind really. I'm actually excited to tell you all about NYC . . . . . . .

I'm alive . . .

with much to share from NYC and Philly. I'll be posting tonight!

Happy Birthday to Me (I need your advice!)

To the left, compliments of a crappy camera phone, is my birthday cake from Pattycake, Columbus' own all vegan bakery. We frequently pick up their whole wheat peanut butter cookies or whole wheat oatmeal from Cup O Joe's, but this is our first experience with their cakes. It was excellent, moist, and well received by all. We even convinced a couple of the relatives to get in on the soy ice cream-- my dad wasn't fooled, though.

My birthday isn't actually until Thursday. The big 2-1! But since Andrew's parents are going out of town over my birthday, we celebrated it early. They finally got to meet my dad, too!

Sorry about the infrequent posting as of late. It's a once in a lifetime thing that my dad comes into Ohio. We usually go out to California to visit everyone. We've been eating out and stuff so there hasn't been too many opportunities to cook and take photos and all that. This Friday we're leaving for Philadelphia and NYC. We're checking out UFC 101 in Philly and then just kicking around in NYC. I hope I'll have some time to post, but it's not likely.

For now, I'm just curious if anyone has any recommendations. NYC has so many vegan places, it'd be impossible to hit them all in the short time we're there. We're definitely visiting Candle Cafe, but beyond that. . . And I have no clue what kind of restaurants you can find in Philly. Anyone have any favorites?

Bay Area Vegan -- Tacos, Sandwiches, & Cookies!

Andrew and I took a day trip to the bay area to visit my former home, Berkeley, and to hit up the SF MOMA. We went to our old spot, Herbivore, and got an old favorite-- the grilled "chicken" sandwich, with some healthier alterations. We used to do it with a side of macaroni salad and with the sandwich on focaccia bread. But this time we got a side of seasoned potatoes [[to avoid the white flour in the noodles]] and on whole wheat bread. Then, as an appetizer we got their TVP tacos with guacamole and sour cream. All extremely delicious.


It was sort of surreal to hang out in the town I used to live in while I went to UC Berkeley. We sat in the same seat where we had our first official date, too.

After we ate, we took the BART over to San Francisco and saw some amazing art at the SF MOMA. The whole time I was in Berkeley, I never managed to get over there and check it out. I was glad we finally did. Then, we went to Peet's Coffee. I think it's only in the west coast, because I've never seen it outside Cali, but they often have vegan pastries [[It was founded in Berkeley, too!]]. So, we got a couple vegan oatmeal cookies [[definitely not regiment approved, but like Andrew's mom likes to say, "It's vacation!"]] and a big ass glass of soy milk.


I love the bay area for the art and vegan food. The weather is generally awesome, and the people are laid back. Going back there after living in Ohio, though, makes see how hard everyone tries. Everyone tries really hard to be fashionable, and they all probably struggle to make ends meet in one of the most expensive places to live in the world. Our shitty two bedroom was over $1,700 a month when we lived there. And the people who can afford to live there are wealthy snobs in my opinion. They add no culture. In spite of it all, at the end of the day, I love it there.

Grassroots and the Holiday Inn Express

We went to Grassroots last night. If you've read any of the reviews on happycow, they're completely accurate.

It's hidden in this pretty sketch neighborhood that looks abandoned. It's pretty nice inside though-- almost too nice. Sort of stuffy and quiet with spa-like water fountains and easy listening playing. However, regardless of how nice it looked, they lost MAJOR points on service. I was prepared for it after reading the reviews on happycow, but man, that waiter was bad. I asked if their pasta was whole wheat and he became frazzled and said "uhh yeah I think it's wheat or something". He seemed so stressed out by the question, I didn't proceed further like I normally would. Andrew wanted to get the raw spaghetti and treat balls, but they were out of treat balls. So we both just got the parmesan. That wouldn't have been a big deal, but last time Andrew went there, they were out of a bunch of stuff. The parmesan was really good, except the pasta WAS white pasta, in spite of his frazzled assurance that it was whole wheat. It set us back in the regiment a bit, but we weren't going to waste food. We also got some appetizers, sprout wraps, that came out AFTER our dinner. It was just a bunch of veggies and live sprouts stuffed into rice papers with this sesame dipping sauce. Nothing to write home about.

An interesting thing we noticed is their salt and pepper is actually salt and a hot chili powder. It's not labeled and no one told us this. I couldn't help but think that some poor shlub was going to burn his mouth in the worst way. The only reason I noticed was because it looked funny so I dared Andrew to try it on his salad. I also noticed they charged for tap water. Wtf?

We ordered four chili dogs for the next day since we were going to be on a 9 hours flight where I'm sure we'd have nothing to eat. Those were pretty delicious if you like mayo on your chili dogs. That was a bit strange for us. Delicious nonetheless. I have some pictures of those I'll have to upload once we land in California. And alas, those were on white buns, and not their standard sprouted wheat buns. At least it was all organic, right?

We stayed in the Holiday Inn Express last night so we wouldn't be rushed for our flight today. I was stoked to find out they had treadmills so Andrew and I got a run in last night. One of them was broken, so we had to take turns. That kind of sucked. And of course, the complimentary breakfast offered us nothing but maybe a crappy cup of coffee and some juice. The only fruit they had was partially opened bananas. Didn't touch those though-- we just had our standard clif bars.

I'll be posting the chili dog pictures when we land.

Vegan Shopping in Fort Myers, FL

Right now Andrew and I are with his parents in Florida. The weather is nice, not too hot, and the beach isn't too populated, which I like. We're sort of taking a break from working out- a forced one. We briefly considered running on the sand, but I think we decided that'd be rougher on our legs than concrete.

We're sort of surviving on packaged vegan food. We found this natural food store and deli called Ada's on happy cow. When we got there though, it was closed even though it was supposed to be open. The deli was enticing, maybe we'll make it over there later this week. Instead we went to Mother Earth- a slightly barren natural food store slightly reminiscent of our co-op. We found a few Amy's meals -- they only had the tamales, though. We also discovered some vegan "chicken" wings made by Health is Wealth. Those are amazing, and battered with whole wheat flour, making them completely regiment approved. We also found some whole wheat wrapped vegan "beef" and veggie burritos made by Helen's Kitchen which taste like barf to me. Peas and carrots just don't work in a Mexican food situation. Andrew seems to like them alright, though. I miss our Amy's burritos.

Mother Earth also had some Ezekiel products and vegenaise. All great news. Limited produce, but enough to make some killer guacamole later. I have some avocados in a bag now, hoping they get soft enough.

And since I have no food pictures for you today, here's some from our parasailing adventure today:

Before lift off...


After...

Black Bean Soup = Amazing

In accordance with my plan to not spam with the same old recipes, I thought I'd post something of my own. It's snowy and cold [[for most of us]] and just plain ugly out-- but I think this soup is enough to brighten your day. Or at least it brightened mine. Ok, that was unbelievably corny, but you know what I mean.

When Andy and I went to Yellow Springs [[I haven't quite gotten to writing about our trip, but I will]], we went to this cafe/restaurant-- The Winds Cafe. At night, it's this slightly expensive fine dining experience, and during the day, it's upscale still yet not as unaffordable of a place to eat. Which was cool for us, because we got to go without cleaning ourselves out for the weekend. We were really going there for this tofu sandwich they offered, but as it turns out, there was honey in the sauce. So, we went for the black bean chili and some other delicious, Indian-inspire dish that escapes me [[and the online menu]] now. Both top notch. The coolest part was that when we double checked to make sure that the tofu sandwich was vegan, the cook was informed enough about vegan food to know that honey is in fact not vegan. [[Which sort of ties into my blog about how no one knows the difference between vegetarian and organic-- how refreshing that moment was!]]

Anyways, back to the soup. My point was, that awesome black bean chili from The Winds inspired me. So, my soup is wonderful, delicious, yada-yada-yada-- try it.



The Recipe
Cook Time: about 30 Minutes
Serves: 6-8 people [[or two meals for two people in our case]]

* 2 Tbs. olive oil
* 10 slices Smart Bacon, chopped up into little pieces
* 1 1/2 medium white onions, chopped
* 6 garlic cloves, pressed
* 14 1/2 ounces No-Chicken Broth
* 2 cups canned diced tomatoes
* 2 tablespoons ketchup
* 1 tablespoon chili powder [[this and all spices to taste really-- this is a guess really, I honestly don't know how much i put it. I just dump a whole bunch in til it tastes awesome]]
* 2-3 teaspoons paprika
* 2-3 teaspoons red pepper
* 2-3 teaspoons cayenne pepper
* splash in some Worcestershire sauce
* 2 25 oz. cans of black beans, drained
* 1 small can of black beans, smashed
* Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
* 1 bunch cilantro


* Tofutti Sour cream, for garnish
* Some left over white onions and cilantro for garnish

First, you want to take a large pot, heat some oil. Test it with a small chunk of smart bacon, make sure it sizzles and bubbles around it, but not too much or you'll burn your smart bacon! Then, put all the bacon in, cook for about 4 minutes. Add the onions, cook for another 4 minutes. Add the garlic, cook for another minutes. Then, add the No-chicken Broth, ketchup, and tomatoes. Add the spices. Then, add the two large cans of drained black beans. Cook for about 10 minutes. Add the smashed black beans, cook for another 5 minutes, until desired thickness. Add your salt, pepper, chopped cilantro, stir. Serve with a dollop of Tofutti Sour Cream and white onions.


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Yellow Springs, OH

This weekend Andrew and I are going to Yellow Springs, OH. We're staying at this bed and breakfast, the Aurthur Morgan House. It's pretty exciting for us, because, well, firstly, they know what vegan means and, secondly, they are graciously accommodating-- of course they can provide vegan food options. So, we're staying in the Owl's Nest room, which has a chemical free organic mattress with oxygen pillows [[I thought it was something nifty and green, but it turns out it's just like memory foam pillows]]. The town is home of Antioch, a grade-free [[ie: pass/no pass]] college specializing in community education. It's pretty small over all-- it's just a nice community of progressive thought and great vegan eating options. More to come on it after this weekend.

Also, I have my photos of my sugar cookies [[yes, the pink one says 'i love andy']]-- I'll post further with the recipe and some advice later.




And Andy's 'cheesy steak' with my jalapeno poppers of death!

Traveling as a vegan

I came across this article in the NY Times about the trials and tribulations of a vegan in an airport, and it made me think of mine and Andy's three day cross country voyage on the greyhound. Lays potato chips are no way for a vegan to live for three days! And hourly stops at McDonald's -- and only McDonald's-- is no way for ANY one to live.

I still can't believe we were the only ones who seemed to care. I know we couldn't eat anything there, until we, too, made a stop at a decked-out gas station for some PB and bread, but wouldn't a non-vegan hate only eating McNuggets for three days? I know I would.

Oh, the dregs of society.

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