[Vegan MOFO Day 11] Weekend Round Up: Busy In 2 Cities

OK, so 2 cities is a lie...it was more like 4 but whatever!

Friday night Matt and I just chilled at home, after shopping for a bit. Matt updated his PS3, I read and we went to bed early...but with our porch light being repaired, a meow-y Mar and the PS3 needing attention my sleep was not all that great.

Saturday we got up early - for a weekend, but decided to be lazy in bed. So our plans kept changing. We decided to go up to Oakland and grab a light lunch-snack since we were having an early dinner.

 

Once in Oakland we headed to Whole Foods, we grabbed vegan taquitos from the hot case and a Blue Print Juice. Normally I would not spend $8 on one bottle of juice but I was curious about all the hype. I picked out the lemon cayenne agave - since I like sweet and hot. It was not really sweet but it had a kick. Would I spend $8 on it again? Most likely not! I will just get some lemonade and add a pinch of cayenne! 

We scored vegan samples of some yummy food demos that day. Some rad products that I will blog about later this week! 

We tried to do some shopping and it did not really work out. So we headed to Berkeley along the ocean route to meet up with GiGi  from Veganville and her husband at Nature's Express for dinner. We were on a tight sceduale because we had to drive back to Emeryville for Matt's film night...

GiGi interviewed me for her blog - she will post it later for MOFO and made us sinfully rich cake in jars - well, that is what I called them! Yummy chocolate parfaits with light airy coconut cream...I was so happy meeting her and her husband! Super nice people who made my night right!

So we love Nature's Express. The food is awesome, the service is fast and I like everything I have tried! 

Stellar burrito - spicy, sweet and comforting!

I ate it with a side of chili.

Matt got busy with a chik-un melt and fries!

We headed back to Emeryville and watched movies, including Matt's...Hung out and then decided to head back over to Whole Foods to get some perishables before going home. We found Beyond Meat in the hot case - in the form of a green chile sauce base, so good, Matt and I wished we got more. We saw a few people go for it while we were packing our box up - it is popular and I hope to see it out on the market full force!

What is rad about WF Oakland is they have vegan pizza by the slice...When you are going close to closing and the slices are getting small - you might get lucky and get a free slice like we did! Score! We had food in the parking lot, went across the street to 7-11 and got coffee to take on the road and headed home.

Fun times! We will be back in the East Bay soon enough! We love it there!!!

[Vegan MOFO Day 1] Weekend Roundup - Coffee Day - East Bay

Friday night started off right with Matt buying me a bag of those new coconut chips from Trader Joe's - love them, so good in soy/coconut yogurt...Plus Friday night is always nacho night here!

Saturday was coffee day ( A StarBucks barista told me that SB invented the "holiday"!)- after heading down town and finding the independent places closed I went to my go to StarBucks. I like my coffee with a splash of non-dairy milk and a tad bit of sweetener! Matt said that hot coffee was not good when it was 95 degrees but we were in the air conditioned mall and I was craving it...I get coffee cravings! Oh - and for the record I usually (98%) use my reusable cup - only when I am having a random coffee fix I do not have it on me.
Now for a coffee rant - well a StarBucks rant - I do not like them taking away the soy option for gold card members...All my drinks are custom - either with soy or syrup. I wish SB would put out a soy carafe for those just needing a splash...Pete's & Whole Foods both let you do it! Whole Foods even has almond milk!

Sunday we got up early and headed to Oakland to see Matt's short film in a film festival! I do not think it ever gets old seeing a project that you saw behind the scenes in it's bare state up on a screen. I am very proud of Matt - he even shared some words of wisdom! After he talked we headed out to find some food - we were starving!
We headed to Nature's Express in Berkley. It was pretty crowded - we are used to quite Sundays in town...The food was worth it though!

I ordered the Avo-Kale wrap. I added some sriracha to it (I love creamy avocado with spicy sriracha!) and it was so good. Also it is a really good sized wrap - considering it costs $6.50 - it is a good deal.

Matt got the classic reuben with sweet potato fries (I stole a few!). His sandwich was yummy - we sampled each others food and liked both items.


We then went to Whole Foods in Berkeley - I did not like how cramped it was, or the layout, maybe I am a store snob but I told Matt I wanted to go to the Oakland one...So we went to the Oakland location (more spacious!) and bought everything from local marinated tofu to doughnuts! I have some new products to review in the upcoming week! By then we were tired and needed to head back home...


I had a great weekend and hope you did too!

Oakland + Berkeley = A Day of Teaching, Food And Fun!

 Me telling Matt - don't take a pic of me plleeeasssee as I set up my first class!

I taught two classes in Oakland on Saturday - both on vegan body care using simple everyday kitchen ingredients. While the turn out & crowd was not what I expected (not to mention the second location was filthy) I sold some zines and taught two classes! So yay!

I made a destination check list of the hot spots I wanted to check out, eat and shop at. Well, we got up later than we thought and I was feeling rather crappy. So between my two classes we decided to eat lunch, first location - closed (Breakroom Cafe) and then we went to our usual place that told us that they were open but the kitchen was closed (Peeple's Donuts) we had little time so we searched for eats on our phone and went to Flaco's.

We got a plate of taquitos to share with an assortment of the avocado salsas. We both thought they were good - the crunchy corn bit was yummy and the salsa was yummy - the hot was really hot! The inside could have used a bit more working, essentially you get a piece of faux sausage with the corn wrapped around it. I would have like it crumbled with beans or something. It was good though and was washed down with strawberry agua fresca!

 Flaco's gave me enough energy to get me through my next class!

 We were supposed to go to SF after my last class to eat dinner but I was really drained. So we decided to go to Berkeley and explore! Matt was so happy seeing that his two fave movie/music stores were practically neighbors. I checked out a few stores and was ecstatic to see they had a Tutti Frutti serving vegan soy yogurt! After having a sample Matt and I got a few bites topped with strawberries in a cup to go. It was so good and creamy!


We headed off to dinner, finding alternatives but then seeing they were closed headed on our original route to Nature's Express. Matt ordered the Wild Wild West burger and I ordered the Cheezy Mushroom Chic-un  Melt. We were served our orders but they were mixed up, so I started eating Matt's burger and he was eating mine, we then realized the mistake and we both thought the food was great. I really liked my item! The fries were really skimpy in portion though, they combined our individual orders into one basket, I think they did this because they were out of a full serving of fries for each of us...No way is a full serving of fries 6 fries if that. We took a cookie to go, went next door and got a coffee with soy milk and drove home.

It was a fun day - long though and I was so tired. I am still tired! I am looking forward to going back to Oakland in a week or so to support Matt's film being shown at a film festival!