Day Trip to Socal and the Hunt for Vegan Fried Chicken

This past weekend, hubby and I took a trip down to southern Cal so I could try out some vegan chicken from Original Herbivore which is a restaurant I discovered on Instagram. While waiting for the Original Herbivore to open, we went one of our favorite vegan restaurants Veggie Grill. While at Veggie Grill, I tried their new deli sandwich while hubby had their new rueben sandwich. Both sandwiches were delicious! 

Veggie Grill Encino and sandwiches

After eating lunch at Veggie Grill, we drove to Sherman Oaks so I could try the vegan chicken at Original Herbivore. While there, we ordered a bucket of vegan chicken which came with tater tots, biscuits, coleslaw and bbq vegan wings. The vegan chicken was crunchy and wingz were moist and chewy.

Food from Original Herbivore Sherman Oaks

Yesterday there was a chicken celebration food truck event in Fresno which is not took far from where live so we decided to go since one of my favorite Fresno food truck's (Plant Slayer) was going to be there and they were going to have a special vegan fried chicken bucket with 8 piece of vegan legs and thighs. The vegan chicken was good and even better since it came with four dipping sauces" buffalo, ranch, bbq and honey mustard.

Vegan 8 piece bucket from Plant Slayer food truck

The vegan chicken I had this week was different yet enjoyable and I'm so happy that there are creative people working to find new ways to replicate food they used to enjoy before becoming vegan.

Race Recap: T9 Mermaid Run East Bay Virtual 5K

A couple of months ago, I signed up to complete the mermaid series T9 Mermaid Run East Bay on Saturday, May 12. Since I was working on that day, me and a friend decided to complete the run on the next day on Mother's Day. Since it was a virtual race, the race swag was sent prior to race day and it was pretty cool since in addition to the usual race swag of a shirt, bib and medal, it also included a necklace. Overall, it was a great day for a run and it was even better since I completed the virtual with my friend/co-worker. 

Me and friend after finishing virtual 5K

Collage of race swag, me and friend and race finish time

New source for vegan pizza & vegan garlic bread in Fresno!

As I was looking on Instagram recently, one of the accounts I follow veganinfresno posted a sexy food photo of a vegan pizza and vegan garlic bread. Yesterday, hubby and I decided to stop by and see if the food was as good as it looked. I was super excited since usually you can only get access to vegan garlic bread by going down south to LA so I was hopeful that the food would be delicious.  

They just recently started offering a separate vegan menu and it has been very successful. Due to the Instagram post, the restaurant has seen a enormous increase in vegan customers and unfortunately they had run out of vegan cheese when we were there placing our order. The restaurant manager Rose was very friendly and accommodating in answering questions regarding if they use nuts in any of their food. Rose answered no but she doubled checked to make sure things were okay. After looking at the menu for a minute, I decided to the vegan garlic bread and a combination pizza. It was at this point that Rose broke the news to use that unfortunately, there was only enough cheese for either the garlic bread or the pizza but not both. I really wanted the garlic bread so we decided to have no cheese on our pizza. She the shared that since the Instagram photo, tons of vegans have visited the restaurant which led to the cheese shortage. 

After waiting a few minutes, the garlic bread arrived at our table and it was as good as I though it would. They use Teese cheese and it came with a side marinara and curry sauce. The marinara was perfectly and the curry had a nice subtle burn. The pizza was delicious and I liked that the offer vegan sausage. Overall it was a great meal and we'll definitely visit here again.

Entrance to Curry Pizza Company

Vegan menu

Vegan garlic bread with sauce

Vegan combination pizza w/o cheese