Vegan MoFo 2019: Day 15 - What I ate... in LA

The first of my What I Ate posts for MoFo is some of the food I ate in LA/Burbank on the first leg of our recent Holiday. Sorry it's 8 days late... moving on!

We booked to go to Comic Con in San Diego, for the second time this year. Last year we flew into Vegas and spent some time there. This time we flew to LA and decided to stay in Burbank, so we'd be close by for the Warner Bros. that we had booked onto.

So this is what we ate when we were there.

When we arrived in LA, we went straight to our hotel and then spent the next 5 hours trying desperately not to fall asleep, in an effort to beat the jet lag a bit. 

We had a quick look on Happy Cow and saw there was Fresh Bros Pizza just up the block from us; so we walked on up there. It's basically a pizza place where you build your own pizza and they have vegan options. I got an individual pizza with beyond sausage, daiya cheese and mushrooms. They also do vegan tenders, so I got the smaller portion of those. I'm so glad I didn't get bigger portions of either, as this was a pretty big portion of food. Simon got the medium pizza and that fucker was HUGE!

When the guy brought out my vegan foodz he asked me if I wanted some vegan ranch or blue cheese and I was like, err hell yeah please to the blue cheese!

I enjoyed the pizza a lot; I think the tenders were Gardein, which I like and vegan blue cheese - yes! (I think it was Follow Your Heart.)

The next morning, we wanted a decent breakfast, as we were booked onto the Warner Bros. Studio tour and wanted something to get us through the morning. We found a cafe not too far away called Bea Bea's on Happy Cow and grabbed an Uber there.

I got the tofu scramble, which is a huge dish of rice mixed with veggies, vegan sausage and chunks of tofu and some avo on top for good measure. And some potatoes on the side! This was SO good and SOOO filling! I love the idea of a rice scramble and I deffo need to recreate that. I actually don't think the tofu was really even needed, especially with the sausage that was in here that was really really REALLY good! I had this for breakfast two days in a row!

I won't spam you with Warner Bros pix but just a couple of highlights for me....

I'm on the Bandstand in Stars Hollow! 

This is me on Lorelai and Rory's porch!

...And this is the Gellers' House - the scene in the prom episode of Friends where Ross is sat on the stairs? Right here! The rest of the house is just a dilapidated shell, which is weird, but pretty much what all the houses on the tour look like when they're not being used for filming.

And now I'm in Central Perk! Or a recreation of it, including the sofa, anyway! The full set no longer exists.

Later that day we headed down to Universal Citywalk, which has shops and restaurants in. I spent a little time in Sephora :) and then after some googling, we found that Johnny Rockets had a vegan burger.

So that is what I got; apparently it's a Gardein black bean burger and it was pretty friggin good!

We shared some tater tots too, but didn't even eat a quarter of them! So.Much.Food!

We also spotted Voodoo Doughnuts and I was pretty sure I'd read they did vegan donuts and you know what, they do! YAY.

Here's what we got. We took them back to our hotel and shared them over the course of the next 12 hours. Including at 3am when we were wide awake - stupid jet lag!

Boston Cream - this was my favourite, it was so good! (sorry for lighting, it was late!)

PB&J - this was a bit dry (maybe because we ate it the next day) and kind of claggy. I wasn't fussed on it.

I forget what this was called but it had oreos and PB on it. Again a bit dry but still good.

I had to get the voodoo doll as well! This one was super good.

So after finishing these, we got on the train to San Diego, which is where I'll pick this up later!

Have a great day :)

Laterz
Sal xXx

Some recent weekend foods

I decided to show you some of the food we've eaten over the last couple of weekends, as there's been some good stuff!

We decided to make pizza! After unsuccessful trips to 2 supermarkets looking for dough or pizza bases that didn't look total crap, we settled for ciabatta for the bases. Which I love, Simon's not so keen. I added tofurky italian sausage, peppers, mushrooms, sweetcorn and a mixture of Follow Your Heart cheddar shreds and Daiya mozzarella shreds (the daiya is still in my freezer from New York!)

Last weekend we took my parents to see our wedding venue (it's booked you guys and it's soooooo pretty!) and afterwards we went over to the Golden Lion in Winchester for a roast. It's a lovely pub that has a vegan menu! (I've blogged about it before if you want to see the non-Sunday menu!) It's a bit of a trek for us but totally worth it.

They do desserts too. I'm 99.9% sure these are Lazy Days millionaire's shortbreads, which I suspected before I ordered it, because the other option was tiffin! When I tasted it my mind was made up. However, I'm a fan of the Lazy Days products so I enjoyed this. It was served with soy cream.

I bought this the other week from a store in Portsmouth and it had been in the fridge a while. I'd sneaked a few bits. But I took it out and ate it at room temperature and OH EM GEE it's amazing (totally better at room temp than cold too and I normally like my choccy chilled!) This is too dangerous to buy often because it's really really good. I've also tried their white nougat crisp variety which is also excellent!

On Friday I saw on Instagram that Lola's Cupcakes (stalls/stores dotted around London) do vegan options. I casually mentioned it to Simon and he brought me cupcakes home from work with him to cheer me up after putting my stupid back out. What a winner.

Obviously these are chocolate flavour and they were excellent. The frosting was fluffy and delicious and not so dense with sugar that I wanted to collapse into a sugar coma afterwards. The sponge was delicious too and not in any way dry!

Then on Sunday, as my back was still out and Simon wasn't feeling great either, we were lazy and ordered pizza. We usually order from Pizza Hut but we decided to give Papa Johns a go after looking at their allergen menu. We are so glad we did because this kicked Pizza Hut's butt!

We got wedges and dips. All those dips are great, especially that garlic dip (there's 2 garlic dips, one is vegan and one isn't so check the allergen menu) - it is DIRTY! Dirty good though.

I got the regular veggie pizza and when it arrived we sprinkled on some grated violife and let it melt in the oven for a bit. I don't normally bother adding vegan cheese, but that day I was feeling it and it was SO GOOD!

There was dessert too. The cinnamon bun things which do seem to be vegan from reading the allergen menu! These are basically croissanty shaped dough covered in a tonne of gooey cinnamon icing and they are dirty amazeballs. 

So that's that for some weekend eats.

Anyone going to the new Forest Vegan Fayre this weekend? If my back is up to it, I'll be there to sample some delights!

Happy humpday all
xXx

My Big, Fat 2015 Favourites Post!

It's New Year's Eve and so I have decided to tell you all about my favourite things this year. It's beauty/makeup heavy but I'm also including food, tv shows and films too. So strap in... it's a long one!

I'll start with the makeup stuff.

Favourite Eyeshadow Palette

It was a toss-up between 2 this year. Firstly I went with the Revolution Neutrals Vs New-trals palette, because I LOVE the colours in it. A mixture of warm and cool shades, mattes and shimmers. I have used this palette a LOT in the short time I've had it and it quickly became a favourite, that I'd definitely recommend. Also, you get 16 eyeshadows for £6.99! Bargainous.

My second pick was the Tanya Burr Fairytale palette. This one I picked because all of the colours are just so damn useful. You can create a whole eye look with it, or just use the brown as a crease shade, the cream on the brow bone and the black to deepen or as eyeliner. Although I have bought prettier palettes this year, this one is the one that I've got the most use out of!

Favourite Blushers
 
Revolution have done it again for me. I adore their blush palettes for excellent value, really pigmented blushes. I also love their singles, which are £1 each. (Also pictured is their single eyeshadow, which I also love.)

Favourite Highlighter

Another very close call between theBalm's Mary-Lou Manizer and Becca's Shimmering Skin Perfector, Pressed in Moonstone. Close because they are so similar!

Here's a side by side swatch, you can see that the Mary Lou (left) is very slightly darker. But there's really not much in it. The Becca one has more shades available, but not all shades are vegan. I don't think you really need both, unless you're a crazy makeup hoarder like me, but they are both stunning. If you wanted to pick one, I'd say go with the Mary Lou, just because it's quite a lot cheaper!

Favourite Cream Blush

Well technically it's a gel, but I love this watercolor gelee by Josie Maran. Now if only they sold it in the UK! Currently they don't, so you'd have to order if from Sephora, who do ship worldwide. They are worth it if you do those. I love this one and will definitely be picking up more, next time I put in a Sephora order. 

Favourite Perfume

Toss up again, between Lush's Honey I Washed the Kids solid perfume (which was limited edish, sorry!) and Eden Perfume's No 15, which is a dupe of Dior's J'adore! The Eden one pips it because it's amazing, lasts all day and is still available. :o)

Favourite Lipbalm

No change, still Crazy Rumours, which you can buy in Holland & Barrett in a metric craptonne of different flavours!  

Favourite Lip Products

Liquid lipsticks were huge this year, with another brand seemingly releasing one every other week! My favourite that I discovered were the Kat Von D ones. Again, unfortunately you cannot buy over here, but you can order from Sephora. I love the formula of these; so comfortable and long lasting. Plus tonnes of beautiful colours (one day, Lolita will be mine. Oh yes, it will be mine!) 

Here are just a selection of my liquid lipsticks that I've loved this year....

Speaking of Kat Von D, I'm giving them the title of brand I'm most excited to have discovered this year. I  bought a few bits when I was in the US in October, including the lipsticks and an eyeliner and one of the metal crush shadows and they are all awesome. I will be picking up more from the range in the new year.

I love that Kat is vegan herself and truly cares about the products being cruelty free. She is apparently reformulating some of the older stuff to make the whole line vegan, which would be amazing!

Favourite new skincare discovery

I haven't changed much in my routine this year, except ditching the old, heavy moisturiser I used to use and using only my serum in the morning and a facial oil at night. I really like this one from B. It smells nice, makes my skin feel really soft (my skin is really dry) and you only use a teeny bit so it will last ages! 

Favourite Lip Tar

I love lip tars, I use them often as they are great alone, or mixed. My fave this year was probably Grandma. It's soooo pretty! 

And because of all the liquid lipstick wearing, my lips were quite dry so a good lip scrub has helped, as well as a balm. I like this one from Lush (I wouldn't even like to tell you how old this is, years out of date I'm sure but it still smells ok!)

OK, let's move onto....

Favourite Place

This one is hard, because I went to Berlin AND New York this year and both offered amazing vegan eateries.

I think that Lucky Leek in Berlin is probably the best restaurant I've ever been too, the food was just incredible. In fact, I ate a lot of amazing food there and we were there over Valentine's day.

However, New York won my heart, because as well as the food, I got engaged there.

The meal that stands out for me there was at Vinnie's Pizza in Brooklyn (Williamsburg location).

This vid hopefully conveys my excitement about pizza....

And then my failure 15 minutes later!

Favourite UK Non Vegan / Chain Restaurant

Weirdly I'm giving this to the Toby Carvery. You wouldn't think of a carvery as being vegan friendly but it is. If you are surrounded by omnis in your daily life, it's worth a visit!

Favourite TV Shows

Ooh there's been a bunch of awesomeness that I've started and/or finished this year. We've especially loved Sons of Anarchy, Jessica Jones (not finished yet, no spoilers please), Daredevil, Orange is the New Black and Banshee. There's more, but those were the standouts for me.  Oh and Don't Tell the Bride for some guilty pleasure viewing heheh.

Favourite Films

Star Wars the Force Awakens wins hands down. In fact we will be seeing it again on Sunday, because we loved it so much. 

Honourable mention also goes to Straight Outta Compton, which I thought was insanely brilliant. Acted superbly and took me right back to the early 90s with the music. Loved it. 

We also loved Kingsmen, wait was that this year? I think so. It was bloody great anyway.

So that pretty much covers my highlights of the year. I'd love to know yours, tell me in the comments or come talk to me on the social mediazz, links above ya! 

Midnight tonight/tomorrow morning marks my 8 year veganniversary which means almost 8 years since I started this blog. I want to say a HUGE thank you to everyone reading, whether you've been reading since 2008, or since last Friday. I love you all. 

Happy New Year!!

Sal xXx