vegan doughnuts and a baby!

First, I'd like to present you with the best thing I ever made:

A baby! His name is Ezra and he is exactly one month old today. My work schedule leading up to the end of pregnancy picked up more than I thought it would, so blogging didn't really happen much during my pregnancy, but it was an easy pregnancy overall. We've had no problems or pushback regarding our veganism from any of our healthcare professionals. And this baby is awesome!

He loves to eat, just like his mother, and has many strong opinions. (We don't know what the opinions are, since they all come out as wailing, but still.)

I am ambitiously hoping I will actually update more often now that I have a baby, in part because we spend a lot of time sitting down to nurse and/or nap, but also because I am done working! While I loved my job (teaching English at BFIT, a local college), I've always known that I wanted to be a stay-at-home mother, and (with years of saving and planning, mind you) I am able to realize that dream!

But let's talk about doughnuts. I love doughnuts! Growing up in Cooperstown NY, my favorite doughnuts were from Schneider's bakery. They make old fashioned doughnuts there: they're cake doughnuts, but still fried (as they should be) and have a dense inside with a crispy, barely sweet outside. You can get them glazed but then you don't get the same crispy outside. To me, these will always be the world's most perfect doughnuts. But they're not vegan.

It has, until recent years, been really hard to find vegan doughnuts... especially if you can't have potato starch (which is in most powdered egg replacers and is used in many vegan doughnuts, like DunWell doughnuts in NYC). I've been hoarding doughnut recipes to veganize for when I have the time and ambition to deep fry. But in the last year or so, Boston has kicked up its vegan doughnut scene!

For those who like cake doughnuts, Sabertooth Vegan Bakery, which operates out of Taco Party's (also vegan and delicious) restaurant location, has a staggering number of options. The flavor combinations are always on point--tasty and interesting: Matcha and Macadamia, Peanut Butter and Jelly, Cookies and Cream, etc. There are often at least a couple gluten-free (and I think soy free?) varieties as well.

The doughnuts are better than the picture quality would suggest.

 For me, there are a few down sides. First, they're baked, not fried. Which yes, is healthier, but I like traditional (fried) doughnuts. Second--this is minor--the base is the same to every doughnut. The flavors are all in the icing. It's a good, simple base, but if you get a sampling (like we did above) it is easy to get tired of it, Finally, for my taste, they're too sweet. The base is sweet, and the icing is almost entirely sugar. But I think most people go for that sort of thing when they want dessert anyway!

If I can't have vegan old fashioned doughnuts, I'll still happily eat yeasted (i.e., the Dunkin/Krispy Kreme type) doughnuts. Union Square Donuts has the best in town.

They used to only have vegan doughnuts on weekends, but now you can get them any day of the week. There are usually two kinds: cinnamon sugar and a seasonal flavor. Above, a coworker happened to hit the on a day when there were two seasonal flavors. They also have vegan doughnut holes!!! I hadn't realized I missed these until I was able to eat them again.

Obviously Union Square Donuts' doughnuts are heavy (because they are fried), but other than that, I have no complaints. They are delicious!

I don't have pictures, but Veggie Galaxy also has vegan doughnuts on Saturday (possibly also Sundays soon). They're the yeasted kind, with basic or chocolate icing. They sometimes do jelly-filled, too!

Have any of you tried making your own doughnuts at home? How did it go? What recipe(s) did you use?

Restaurant Thursday: Root (Now closed)

Edit: Root has closed since the writing of this post. Another vegan restaurant has opened in its place, but I have not yet been there.

Root is an all-vegan restaurant in Allston, a Boston neighborhood that is very close to my heart (and used to be close to my home, when I first moved out to Boston). It had big shoes to fill when it opened: its location was previously home to Peace o'Pie and before that, to TJ Scallywaggles, both vegan pizza places that almost all of us Boston vegans were sorry to see go.

Root has healthy, surprisingly inexpensive meals with a cafe feel. Kevin and I have been for dinner twice and brunch once. Dinner there was great!

Kevin got the sweet corn and jalapeno hush puppies with the Thai peanut salad (in the back), and I went with the sweet potato quesadillas and warm kale salad. The employees were transparent and accommodating when it came to my unusual food allergies.

While we were underwhelmed by the brunch (not a lot of flavor in the tofu scramble or the breakfast burrito), we'd be willing to try again, considering how good (and enormous) the pancakes looked.

A couple notes: for lunches/dinners, you order at the counter and choose your own seat, but brunch is a be-seated-and-waited-on affair. Also, Root doesn't offer desserts, but is conveniently located two doors down from Fomu, Boston's vegan ice cream shop. (The two businesses even share a bathroom.) If you don't want something as upscale as True Bistro, but want something a little less dingy than Grasshopper, I strongly recommend Root.

Restaurant Thursday: The Dining Car food truck

I'm trying to give myself a few theme days of the week, just to help me come up with some ideas for posts. Thursdays this month will be posts about restaurants!

...but this first Restaurant Thursday post is kind of sneaky, because it's about a food truck. Like most major cities these days, Boston has a great food truck scene, for vegans too! I've already written about the Taco Party vegan taco truck, and I've had some things from Clover Food Lab (vegetarian, trucks and storefronts); there are certainly many more options around the Boston area.

Kevin is a beer guy. Like the way there are people who are really into wines, Kevin is into beers. One way I try to get this across to people is to explain what I call his "Beer CSAs." There are a lot of great small craft breweries in the greater Boston area, and a few of them do series where they try an experimental style of beer, which "members" can pay for up front, and then only the "members" get to try the beer. It's a cool way to fund small breweries' new ventures, and, for a beer snob guy like Kevin, it's also a way to be able to try beers that will never be released to the greater public--and may never exist outside of that one limited bottling. Among the breweries we love that do this in the area are Night Shift brewing, Mystic brewing, and Idle Hands brewing.

Night Shift doesn't serve food, but they encourage people to bring food to their bar/pouring room so you can stick around a while. To that end, they have a food truck there many nights of the week. When we've been in the past, it was usually a grilled cheese truck (sigh), but the last time we were there, it was the Dining Car! They don't have vegan meal options, but their signature side dish is Crispy Cauliflower, which is gluten free and vegan without the aioli.

Crispy Cauliflower and Kevin's "beer CSA" pickup

IT WAS DELICIOUS. We split this one little tray but could easily have each had one (or two) to ourselves. The cauliflower is breaded with corn flour, seasoned with salt and pepper, and fried to the perfect level of crispy-but-not-greasy-ness. I didn't miss the aioli at all.

Oh, and for those interested: Night Shift, Mystic, and Idle Hands are all vegan friendly. Sometimes Night Shift will make beers with honey (or oyster shells?!) in them, but they is always clearly labeled as a special beer, so it's easy to tell. Their process itself is vegan.

taco party taco truck!

There are some good food trucks in Boston, but as a vegan with nightshade allergies, I often can't eat at any of them. So when earlier this week a coworker told me about plans to go to the Taco Party vegan taco truck today, I assumed I wouldn't be able to eat there, either. My coworker suggested I message them on facebook, since they're very active there, to see if there was anything for me... so I gave it a shot. They got back to me on the same day to inform me that the Seitan tacos (without the chipotle crema) and guacamole were safe for me.

So! To the vegan taco truck!

Awful/awesome puns in all the food names? YES PLEASE.

Tacos are $4 each and sides are $3, but you can get a "meal" of any 2 tacos and 1 side for $10. I got 2 Seitanthony tacos and a side of guacamole.

For 50 cents extra, you can get Daiya cheese on a taco--I tried one with and one without. I actually liked the one without Daiya better (less salty), but they were both good. Note that everything the taco truck makes is vegan, but in addition to Daiya, they do have the option of adding dairy cheese to a taco. (So there's some dairy on board, but you would have to specifically request it.)

My coworkers and I are talking about making the taco truck trip a weekly venture. If you live in the Boston area, I recommend doing the same!

True Bistro, my favorite vegan place in Boston

Back in my (now out of date, I know) "Vegan Eating in Boston" post, I wrote this about True Bistro:

Tasty upscale vegan food, and they offer vegan cocktails and wine pairings. While there aren’t a lot of nightshade free options, they do have some, and the waitstaff has been really helpful when it comes figuring out what I could have. Dinners are quite pricy, but they charge average prices for lunch and brunch. (Website here.)

True Bistro is one of my favorite restaurants in Boston, and definitely my favorite veg*n place. The servers are really friendly (though there are always, at MOST, 2, so if things get busy, service can be slow), and the food is consistently great. Kevin and I have been there dozens of times, and of all those times, only once were we not impressed with the food (and it was stuff we'd had before and liked, so it must have been a rare off day for them).

They are incredibly helpful about food allergies, and list gluten- and nut-free menus on their website. As I said above, dinners are pricy, but not overpriced. I don't normally like to order salads when I go out, but I've loved every salad I've had here, which makes me inclined to order them more often!

But my absolute favorite thing to eat at True Bistro is the Cornmeal-crusted oyster mushrooms. I actually think that of the dozens of times I've been here, there have only been one or two dinners where I didn't order these.

They come with a chipotle sauce that is usually on the plate, but because I am allergic, we ask for it on the side so Kevin can still enjoy it. The other sauce is a horseradish-dill aioli that I sometimes just want to eat with a spoon. The mushrooms are always perfectly fried, never overly greasy. They remind me of fried clams, which was my favorite seafood dish as a kid.

The entrees can be a little limited if you're allergic to nightshades, but there is always an option. The menu changes by season, but there are a few regulars like the mushrooms and the Vietnamese Crepe in the back of the picture below. (Gluten free, and nightshade free without the dipping sauce.)

The front dish is a pasta dish with spring peas that I had last spring.

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of their desserts for you, but the desserts are great. I especially love the Napoleon with white chocolate mousse. I've always loved white chocolate, and haven't found a satisfying replacement in all my years as a vegan; their mousse is the best vegan white chocolate I've had.

Have you been to True Bistro? If you've been to the Boston area, what's your favorite veg*n restaurant around here?

vegan sorbet at Picco

Last week I started a new job: I am an English instructor at a college here in Boston. I'd been applying for positions like this for a while now, and finally got this job, which is EXACTLY what I wanted. I love my colleagues, I love the school and its mission, I love the students I met during our orientation sessions--I am so happy to be starting this job! It makes doing VeganMofo kind of tricky, since it takes a lot of my time, but I'm hoping I'll be able to keep it up.

Anyway, as you may remember from my Vegan Eating in Boston post a couple years ago (which, I now notice, has since gone out of date--a few of those restaurants have closed! I'll update it again sometime soon), Picco is a a surprisingly vegan-friendly restaurant, and is home to some of my favorite ice cream since going vegan: their dark chocolate sorbet. It's so rich it tastes like ice cream, not sorbet. And the place is right around the corner from my new job! So when I received the job offer, to celebrate, I just walked around the corner, plunked down in a booth, and bought myself two scoops of sorbet: dark chocolate and strawberry.

Celebratory ice cream is the best kind of ice cream!

Today is my first day of teaching classes. Wish me luck!

our vegan honeymoon in New Orleans!

My month of wedding posts is over, but I've got one more wedding-related post for you: our honeymoon in New Orleans! I've wanted to visit NOLA since I was 13 or 14, and while the husband has been there a couple times and enjoyed it, we wanted to go together! We had a really lovely five-day trip over Halloween weekend, and I'm sharing it with you... just in time for mardi gras!

We stayed at a hotel with a classy little balcony from which we could see Bourbon street.

We got a suite with a little kitchenette, so we brought and bought breakfasty food and had all of our breakfasts in our room--mostly on our balcony.

During the day, we ventured around the French Quarter and beyond to see the sights--the botanical gardens, the museums, the cemeteries, etc. At night we checked out live music and the city's active night life.

I even convinced Kevin to go on a ghost tour with me! It was fun and cheesy and not at all ghosty, but I learned a bit about New Orleans's history.

But everyone knows that New Orleans is full of things to do. What you may not know is that it's pretty easy to get good vegan food there, especially if you know where to look! I had done a lot of research beforehand; I'd been nervous that even if we found vegan stuff, I wouldn't be able to eat it (cajun vegetables and spices are almost entirely nightshades). But no! We ate really well in New Orleans. Let me show you!

First, if you want to get food for your hotel room or to carry around with you, GO TO THE NEW ORLEANS FOOD CO-OP. It had just opened when we went, and the husband and I couldn't believe how big and full it was, with all the vegan staples we could think of. The workers were friendly and lovely (as were all the people we met in NOLA, actually), and they told us it was the only co-op in Louisianna! Go there, support them, get awesome food. While there, we stocked up on breakfast foods and hotel room snacks.

Another necessity for breakfast: coffee! We mostly had some in our room, but we also had some good coffee out:

La Boucherie is more vegan-friendly than the name suggsts. They had soymilk for the drinks!

We had a really great lunch at Cafe Carmo. Almost everything on their menu can be made vegan--they have daiya and some vegan "meats." They also have vegan baked goods!

I got a "plain" banquette bread with daiya and a Carmo salad. (I had it without veggie ham, since some fake meats have nightshades). The husband ordered the Vegan Rico--under the greens is vegan pulled pork and melty daiya over a grilled plantain patty. Both of our orders were deeelicious.

13 Monaghan had a tasty Baked Tofu and Herb sandwich that was nightshade free without the tomato.

I was so hungry I ate half before remembering to take a picture. They have more options if you can have nightshades--including Tachos--TATER TOT NACHOS (vegan without the cheese and sour cream). Seriously, people, if you are able to eat nightshades, can you go order this and report back to me on how AWESOME it must be?

Out near the New Orleans Food Co-op, there's a vegan Korean pop-up restaurant called The Wandering Buddha.

They operate out of the back of a bar (the Hi Ho Lounge), and you can either sit in the bar or on their patio out back.

Though all vegan, the menu isn't too flexible for nightshade-free people--the staff was a little apologetic about only having one option for me for an appetizer, and one option for me for an entree--but I was happy with what they gave me. My appetizer was gimbap (sushi), and Kevin ordered dumplings.

My entree was japchae--noodles with a sweet peanutty sauce. It looked boring when it arrived at the table, but it was flavorful and awesome. The husband got an AMAZING-looking braised tofu dish.

Because it was our honeymoon, we wanted to go out for one big, fancy, expensive dinner, so we went to Restaurant August. I'd read a yelp review that said they were able to accommodate vegans upon request. They were really attentive and great about my allergies. They modified their farmers' market tasting menu to be all vegan, and made us a delicious meal.

This bread looks like normal bread, but is some of the TASTIEST HOMEMADE BREAD I have ever had. Sorry the light is really dim in these pictures; blame it on fancy dinner mood lighting!

Our amuse-bouche was a pickled radish over... some other vegetable, with microgreens and a cilantro pesto.

Our first course: a nice salad for Kevin (in the back) with a spicy vinaigrette, and for me, a delicious sweet chilled pear consomme, with pomegranate seeds, walnuts, saffron, and edible flowers.

This picture is terrible, but our entrees were AWESOME: Kevin got spicy broccoli with fire roasted peppers, and I had fried brussel sprouts with a pecan pesto. I like brussel sprouts okay, but these were the best brussel sprouts I've ever had, hands down. They were garlicky and fried till they were crispy but not heavy.

Dessert was a fruit plate, with mango sorbet and coconut milk tapioca. And a chocolate "congratulations!" Awww.

What do you call dessert after dessert? They also gave us complimentary champagne and these little raspberry-and-coconut jelly squares. So nice!

As delicious as our meal at Restaurant August was, you may notice it was almost all vegetables. In a few hours, we were hungry again.

So we went to Bennachin for some snacks:

Plantains and black-eyed pea fritters! Nightshade free as long as you ask for the sauce on the side. While we were there for just a snack at that time, we'd gone there earlier in our visit for a really good dinner. Bennachin serves West African food, and all their vegetarian dishes are also vegan. I could get nightshade-free versions of two of the entrees on the menu. Going without spiciness made the food a little plain, but their rolls were so good it didn't matter. Also, they have a really great ginger juice drink, and a hibiscus iced tea. But the fritters were the star for me.

The husband thought it was kind of funny that we didn't eat any "traditional" New Orleans cuisine. As I said above, nothing cajun is nightshade-allergy friendly, so I wasn't looking for any, but those of you without nightshade allergies will be happy to know there are vegan po'boys and gumbos in the city. Another thing I didn't mention is Lola's. We wanted to go, but they aren't open for lunch and we were only out in that area during the day. People on the PPK forum said that their almond/garlic soup, their paella, and their aioli are vegan. We'll have to go next time. And there will be a next time! I had such a blast, I can't wait to go back!

(Even our layover in Miami was pretty good--the airport had a sushi place!)

Vegan Eating in Boston

I love the idea of going out to eat. It is such a treat to have a meal I didn't make myself, and I'm always intrigued to see what dishes professionals come up with. I don’t even think eating out while vegan is all that difficult, especially not in Boston. But the nightshade allergies make going out to restaurants really tricky; if it isn’t a vegan restaurant, non-vegan chefs and servers are dumbfounded by all my limitations (much more so than if I were "just" vegan) and at vegan restaurants, sauces, spice mixes, egg replacers, and fake meats/cheeses are still problematic. I’m always anxious about accidentally being poisoned because I wasn’t clear enough or because the server forgot to show my list to the cook or because the cook forgot that paprika comes from red peppers.

BUT because I like going out to eat in theory, and because the boyfriend likes it both in theory and in practice, we go out at least a couple times a month. I have two entries devoted to vegan, nightshade-free dining in NYC, but none for Boston, so I think it’s about time to do justice to my fair city.

There are plenty of great Asian, Ethiopian, Mexican, Middle Eastern, and Southeast Asian places in Boston that are great for vegans, and this list contains almost none of them; it’s just some personal highlights and lowlights. Each category is in approximate order of my favorite to least favorite.

All Vegan:

• True Bistro--Tasty upscale vegan food, and they offer vegan cocktails and wine pairings. While there aren’t a lot of nightshade free options, they do have some, and the waitstaff has been really helpful when it comes figuring out what I could have. Dinners are quite pricy, but they charge average prices for lunch and brunch. (Website here.)
• Pulse Cafe--Medium-range pricing for hearty, home-style food. The Pulse Café sources as many organic ingredients as possible. They used to change their menu every couple of weeks, but they’ve settled into a diner-style menu that’s been up for about 3 months now. The boyfriend and I considered this "our place" for a while--we were there when they first opened in their old location, there when they first opened in this new location, and for a while there we went almost once a week. But the new diner menu doesn’t have very many nightshade-free options. They used to be really accommodating with their old menus; they would customize almost everything--for example, they were able to make the nachos nightshade free and awesome. With their new menu, a lot of the ingredients are prepared in advance, and most of them have nightshades. Nightshade-free eaters are pretty much reduced to salad and grilled cheese, and there’s only so many times a person can eat a huge chunk of Daiya before her intestines start to hate her (TMI?). I like supporting this place, but we’re taking a break until the menu changes. If you can eat nightshades and like comfort food, it’s great. (Website here)
• My Thai--Vegan Thai food in Chinatown. It’s okay. Their fake meats are apparently good, but I'm too wary of fake meats' ingredients to try--so much processing has to mean nightshades somewhere, right? They have some good basics, and I especially like the appetizers. The food is greasy, but the portions are large and the prices are low. Also, the desserts are AMAZING. (They may use powdered egg replacer, which is not nightshade free; I never asked and never had a reaction, but I haven't eaten any desserts there since a couple years ago, when I had a slightly higher tolerance.) (Menu here.)
• Peace o' Pie--Boston’s best vegan pizza. If you can eat nightshades, I recommend Peace o' Pie. If you can't eat nightshades, they do have a white pizza, and they do allow you to build your own pizzas and calzones, but most of their yummier-sounding toppings have nightshades, and it would be cheaper to make a white veggie pizza at home. I also had a problem once with contamination; even though I made it very clear that I am allergic to tomatoes, they used a tomato-sauce-covered pizza cutter to cut my white pizza... which meant every piece had tomato sauce on the edges. (Website here.)
• Grasshopper--Greasy vegan Chinese food. It's cheap, and the portions are enormous. They have some delicious signature dishes, but unfortunately most of them feature their sweet and sour sauce, which is not nightshade free. Nightshade free eaters are limited to simpler entrees, which are mostly stir-fried vegetables, so it's not that exciting a destination for me. Their appetizers are greasy, delicious, and mostly nightshade free, though. (Website here.)

Vegetarian:

• Life Alive--Healthy, mostly macrobiotic salads, bowls, wraps, and smoothies. I find them a little pricy for their portions, but the food is always good, and GOOD NEWS: because they keep things macrobiotic, there are (almost) no nightshades! The only nightshades in the whole place are sun-dried tomatoes, which are in one dish, clearly labeled, and a jar of hot sauce on the condiment stand. I feel very safe here. Website here.
• Veggie Planet--Flatbread pizzas, tasty salads, good brunch options. Everything on the menu can be made vegan. The food is good and the prices are reasonable, but it's really hard for someone with food allergies; they have a tiny kitchen and cross-contamination seems almost unavoidable. I've had tiny chunks of tomato in dishes that aren’t even supposed to contain tomato, drizzles of sauce on the edge of my plate from where they were putting sauce on someone else's plate, etc. If you can eat nightshades, it is a great place for lunch; if you can't, proceed with caution. (Website here.)
• Red Lentil--I have heard good things about this place, but the two times I went were bad, so I don't like it. If you are nightshade free, you are going to have some problems. The first time we went was a couple weeks after they opened, and our server recommended a seitan appetizer that, while delicious, turned out not to be nightshade free (I only found this out later, when I had a reaction to it). At the time there was nothing nightshade free there but salad, but the server said I could customize one of the entrees. So I did that; when my entree came out, it had red pepper sauce on it. The server took it back to have another one made for me. The second one came back with tomato sauce on it, but I couldn’t return it because our server never returned. She was there, in the restaurant, but she ignored us. We sat for an hour, me unable to eat my entree, with a stomachache that I thought was from nerves but turned out to be from the appetizer, until we finally flagged another waitress to bring us the check. It was a disaster. We figured it was just bad luck, so we tried again a couple months later. I called ahead of time and spoke to the chef, who said he’d make something special for me. He made vegan nightshade-free quesadillas and grilled some vegetables for me for dinner, which was fine but not exciting. Later that night both the boyfriend and I had terrible, awful stomachaches. And the boyfriend doesn't even have weird food allergies! I am never going back. (Website here.)

Omni restaurants with good vegan options:

• Genki Ya--Organic sushi! They have some of the most interesting veggie rolls I’ve ever seen, including a tasty "fruit roll:" banana, mango, avocado. Some of their veggie rolls have cream cheese, but I assure you they are all still incredibly tasty if you ask to leave the cream cheese out. You can sub in brown or multi-grain rice on any roll. Omnivore friends we've brought here say that the non-veggie sushi is good, too, so this is a good place to go if you’re eating with one of those people who can't have a fleshless meal. (Website here.)
• Elephant Walk--Upscale Cambodian/French cuisine. They have a very limited number of vegan options, and the nightshade-free options are even more limited (you're pretty much stuck with the lemongrass tofu entree), but the food is so good it doesn’t really matter. (Website here.)
• The Middle East--A great music venue, an okay restaurant, and a cruddy bar, wrapped up in one. All the vegetarian options here are vegan. (Some have a side of yogurt, which you can request to leave off or replace with tahini sauce.) Their whipped garlic is seriously addicting; it's so good you won’t mind having the longest-lasting garlic breath of your life. Also, I have two words for you: vegan baklava. (Website here.
)
• Koreana--Good Korean food. Specify that you don't eat fish, because some of the condiments can have fish flakes. The Tofu Bi Bim Bop here is great, and the ginger-persimmon-cinnamon tea that they give you at the end of each meal is THE BEST. (Website here.)
• Chinatown--Okay, so "Chinatown" isn't unto itself a restaurant, but Boston’s Chinatown has a fantastic selection of surprisingly vegan-friendly places. The only caveat is that at basically every place you have to let them know before you order or while you're ordering that you’re vegetarian and don't eat fish. There’s a fantastic shabu place called Shabu-Zen, where they only have one veggie plate but it’s humungous and they will make any of their broths vegan if you specify no fish broth, a Korean place called Suishaya that has great food and service, a couple good Vietnamese places, and I hear there's a sandwich shop on Washington that offers vegan banh mi. Also My Thai, which I mentioned above, is here.
• The Other Side--Decent prices, decent food, loud music, hipster crowd. Everyone there knows what "vegan" is. The boyfriend and I like to head down there for brunch on summer weekends, because our place is too hot to cook and they have nice outdoor seating. You can get $50 in gift cards for this place for only $25 through the Weekly Dig's Dig Deals. (Website here.)
• Moody's Falafel Palace-- Moody's is open until 3am on weekends and has the best falafel sandwich I've ever had. They also have hummus and a platter of middle-easterny things, but a lot of those things aren’t nightshade free. The men who work there are awesome; super efficient when it's really busy, and apt to joke around with you if there's no one there. Once the boyfriend and I went on a slow afternoon and they gave us extra falafel because they liked us. Nightshade-free people: you have to specify no tomatoes, and I think they change up the recipe sometimes, because once in a while I have a reaction to the falafel. But it’s maaaaybe 1/3 times I go, and I love the falafel so much and we go so rarely that for me it’s worth the risk. (Website here.)
• Dado Tea--Vegan Bubble Tea! Everyone always praises My Thai's bubble tea, but that kind is blended flavor powder, coconut milk, and ice, so it's really rich and thick and cloying. At Dado, almost all of their bubble tea flavors are from house-made ice tea, not from powders (except their cucumber and taro teas), and you can opt for straight bubble tea or bubble tea with soymilk. I also like that you can specify not to add sugar. I’ve never actually eaten here, but they have some pre-made vegan salads and sandwiches behind the counter; I don’t know if they’re nightshade free. (Website here.)
• Picco--"PICCO" stands for "Pizza and Ice Cream CO." It does not SOUND like it would be vegan-friendly, I know, but you can build your own pizzas or calzones, and they have high-quality ingredients. If you get roasted garlic, for example, it is mashed up to a creamy cheese-like texture that works well inside calzones. Their homemade sorbets are all vegan, including the dark chocolate sorbet, which is the best ice cream I have had since going vegan. A warning for nightshade free people: they use one big oven for their baking, so cross-contamination can happen. For example, I once found some tomato sauce baked onto the bottom of my calzone. I scraped it off and it was fine, but be warned. (Website here.)
• Cafe Pamplona--This place looks like a cramped hole in the wall, but has fantastic coffee and teas, always has soymilk as an option, and has vegan-friendly sandwiches, entrees and snacks. It's Spanish food, though, which means none of it is nightshade free. Still, the iced soy lattes alone are worth going for. (Wikipedia page here.)
• The Friendly Toast-- All-day brunch, with kitschy thrift-store figurines and paintings everywhere. I wanted to like this place, but the vegan options are limited to tofu scramble and bagels (none of their famous homemade bread is vegan), both of which are pretty lackluster. Also, when we went there, I told my server that I am allergic to potatoes, so please leave off the hash browns (they are a standard side). When my plate came, a couple bites into my meal I discovered that someone had originally put hash browns on my plate and scraped them off, then tried to cover up the tiny leftover pieces of potato with the tofu. Which meant my entire tofu scrambled was touching potato scrapings. Poisoned! That’s enough to stop me from going back, but the food also wasn’t worth giving them a second chance. (Website here.)

Just Outside of Boston:

• Julian's--(Providence, RI). We’ve been here twice for brunch, but they have a bunch of different vegan brunch options, and appear to be vegan-friendly for all other meals. Prices were decent, food was tasty, and our servers have been really nice about talking with the kitchen to figure out what I can't have. (Website here.)
• Rawbert's Organic Garden--(Beverly, MA). Not 100% raw, as they also serve hot soups, teas, and hot cocoa/carob (I am an avowed chocolate lover, but their hot carob is so good!). They do raw comfort food really well; their "pasta" dishes and sprouted pizzas are great. It's a little expensive, but you will leave totally stuffed. Go with a group so you can try everyone's food. I've been three times and found them really allergy-aware and attentive/nice about finding things you can eat if you have weird allergies. (Website here.)
• Garden Grille--(Pawtucket, RI). This is the boyfriend's favorite restaurant; he’s been going there since it was a hippy juice bar like ten years ago. It's vegetarian, mid-to-high-priced food, and it's pretty good quality. This is one of the few restaurants where I actually like ordering salads; they do a great job with them. There are one or two dinner/lunch entrees that are nightshade-free at any given time (I recommend the Buddha Bowl), but if you can't eat nightshades, you’re out of luck for brunch. The desserts are fantastic. They use egg replacer in some of them, so be sure to ask. (Website here.)
• Wildflour Bakery--(Pawtucket, RI). All vegan bakery. When I went, the workers there knew that some of the products contained egg replacer (nightshades), but didn’t know which ones. It always bothers me when employees at an eatery don’t know the ingredients in their products. They did know that the raw foods were safe, so I ended up with a raw chocolate tart that was FANTASTIC. They have large cases full of tasty-looking baked goods. (Website here.)

a nightshade-free weekend in NYC

Like I said in my last post, the reason I didn't post about vegan pizza this weekend was because I was in New York City. A friend of mine has a dance company and was putting on her first big show, so the boyfriend and I went to see it. We were only in NYC for 24 hours, from Saturday afternoon to Sunday afternoon, and I forgot to take ANY pictures the whole time I was there. But it was a great time, and we ate a lot of good food! NYC is full of great vegan eats, but many have small menus, and finding nightshade-free things to eat can be rough. I had fantastic meals at all three restaurants at which we ate this weekend!

One thing I recommend to everyone with unusual food allergies or intolerances is to carry a well-written, clear list of what you can't eat. Servers often have so much to remember and to write down that they may miss something; it's easier to hand them a piece of paper and ask them to check what you've ordered. I started doing this about a year ago, and it has drastically improved 1.) the quality of my meals at restaurants and 2.) my stress levels; I get so stressed out at restaurants because I'm afraid I/the server forgot to ask about some sub ingredient).

Here is my list:

I took this with my phone; sorry it's fuzzy. But it gives you an idea of what I work with. I usually give it to the server as I make my order; I tell him/her what I would like to have, then hand them the list and ask if they'd check to make sure I can have that. Sometimes servers will just look over the list and tell me themselves, but more often (and more comforting for me), they take it back to the kitchen and give it to the chef. Sometimes they return the list, sometimes they don't, but it's easy to write out another list. I usually have 2 or 3 tucked into my wallet at all times, just in case.

So! A quick rundown of our weekend of nightshade-free vegan food in New York City!

Caravan of Dreams features organic vegan quisine. We had lunch when we first arrived in the city on Saturday afternoon. The boyfriend and I split the live almond hummus as our appetizer, and we both had applewood smoked tofu sandwiches. Our waitress was pretty sure both things were nightshade free anyway, but she checked with the chef to be sure. The desserts looked delicious, but we were too full.

The boyfriend and I miss Grezzo, an organic, vegan raw food place that was in Boston's North End for a while before it closed, so naturally a visit to Pure Food and Wine was in order. Pure Food and Wine is really pricy, but their food is super gourmet in its tastes and its presentation. ALSO, they are the ultimate allergy-friendly restaurant: when I started to show my list to our waiter, he said "Oh, we have a nightshade free menu, let me go get it for you." Guys! A nightshade-free menu! When I raved to the waiter about how he made my day, he said "We have a bunch of different menus behind the counter, for all sorts of food intolerances, allergies, and avoidances." It was so great not only to know what I could have, but to have a whole menu of my own to look at! The boyfriend and I split the hazelnut crostini appetizer, and my entree was the porcini ravioli. The salted caramel tart for dessert was the highlight of my weekend, food-wise, and considering how much I ate, those are some high praises. My only complaint with Pure Food and Wine is that the portions are small for those prices, and I'm a big eater. I left feeling satisfied, but not full.

Counter does local, sustainable, organic vegetarian and vegan food. We went there with friends for brunch on Sunday, and our waiter was really helpful with finding nightshade free brunch options! Four of us split the pastry basket; the mini muffins contain egg replacer (= potato starch = nightshade), but I could have the delicious blueberry bread, the awesome chocolate pastries, and the homemade vegan nutella and soy berry butter on top. The waiter also told me I could have any of the sweet brunch things (pancakes, french toast), but after those pastries I was in the mood for savory. I ended up with the tofu scramble, which was delicious. There's a rumor on the PPK that Counter is closing at the end of February, so if you have the opportunity to go there before it closes, do it!

Eating big meals out in NYC left my wallet considerably lighter (and me heavier, I bet!), but it was worth it to have so many good worry- and nightshade-free meals.