After the Farmers’ Market we went to Fresh for lunch with a friend. I usually get the Magic Tofu wrap but I decided to try something new. I had the Pesto Grilled Vegetable wrap. It was really good but not as good as the Magic Tofu!
After that we headed down to Panacea, the all vegan shop in Toronto, to stock up on vegan junk. Go Max Go has two new candy bars, a crispy rice bar and peanut butter cups. So far I’ve only tried the peanut butter cups, and they were amazing! Panacea also had vegan cola gummies!!!!! I’m not the only one who finds this ridiculously exciting am I?
That night our friend Camille who we were staying with had invited a bunch of her vegan friends over for a potluck. Not only were they an incredibly interesting, entertaining and welcoming group of people, but they can also cook! The food was great, a Mexican dip and soba noodle salad were my fav main dishes and the key lime pie and chocolate cake topped the desserts.
Sunday we went to Hot Beans in the Kensington Market. I have been dying to go to Hot Beans for awhile now. Vegan Mexican food and donuts…what a perfect combination. Not to mention that I’ve been craving donuts bad for like a year now. Sadly, there were out of donuts when we got there. Let this be a lesson to you, make sure you go to Hot Beans early in the day or give them a call to put some aside for you! Both Camille and Dave had the TVP Burrito. I had the tacos, one with TVP and one with jackfruit. The TVP was not a crumble like I was expecting, the texture was more like small pieces of fried steak. The jackfruit was yummy, coated in a sort of sweet and tangy sauce. I think the TVP burrito, which is their most popular menu item, was definitely the best.
Sadie’s Diner has actually opened up a vegan ice cream shop right next to Hot Beans so you can get some ice cream for dessert.
Since Hot Beans was out of donuts we went for gelato after. Camile had heard that Hotel Gelato had a lot of vegan options so we went there. It turns out they also have a ton of vegan baked goods from Sweets from the Earth and LPK (including those amazing peanut butter naniomo bars). In addition to many fruit flavors, they also had a soy chocolate flavor gelato. The gelato itself was some of the best I’ve had. Hotel Gelato also had a great atmosphere and would be the perfect place to go for coffee and dessert.
Monday morning we finished off our trip with brunch at Fresh. It was really hard to decide if we should try somewhere new or head back to Fresh which we knew from our last trip has awesome brunch. Fresh just changed their menu and one of the new features is that their pancakes are now gluten free. This is great for the gf folks out there but, sadly, the pancakes were definitely not as good as they used to be. I don’t know why they don’t just offer both types. Also new on the menu is the tempeh bacon, it was good but the serving size was way smaller than the sausage so I will probably go with the sausage next time.
