For New Years, I went to New Orleans with three of my friends from work. Being in a place with so much history, and a fusion of Spanish and French cultures was a really nice change from collegetown, USA. This city is also really good at making me wish I lived in a cute apartment above a quaint business in heart of the city. and the iron work on balconies and fences was amazing! Sadly, we only had two and a half days there, and with divided interests and diets, it’s easy to feel like I just barely scratched the surface of the New Orleans scene.

We stayed in the India House Hostel (the yellow house), and it was a very pleasant experience. Everything was super clean and had tons of personality. The only bad thing was that it was cold, and we only had one space heater for the four of us. Easy fix, though: bring more blankets, or visit in warmer weather. The Hostel was close to everything, and way cheap!

Our first night, my friends accompanied me to Lola’s to eat. I got the veggie paella! They serve you bread with garlic aoeli, which is just whipped olive oil, and man, was the flavor of the aoeli intense! I felt like my mouth was on fire from the insane amount of garlic, or horseradish (?). Never has a spread made me want to cry in that way (while still being so, so tasty). The paella was really delicious, and the atmosphere of this place is really nice. It’s a small bistro tucked away in a cute neighborhood. Definitely not touristy.

While in New Orleans, I had a few goals. One was to get coffee from Cafe Du Monde, since there are sadly no vegan beignets around. My other goal was to find myself a po’ boy! Both of those things required a trip on the magazine street bus to the wholefoods market for supplies. I got some soymilk for my coffee, and my veganaise for my po’ boy. Magazine street was super cute, and I’m sad that I only saw it from the bus. Next time, when I have more time, I’m going to walk around that area a lot more. Now, on to the po’ boys. I had asked some advice from Kittee, who had lived in New Orleans previously, and she reccomended Vertimart for Po’ Boys, which was later confirmed by several people we ran into. It was a really small neighborhood grocery, and the people who work there are really friendly and were teasing me for getting such a plain po’ boy (french fries, pickles, and bread? mmmvegan). Sitting on the curb, slathering my french fry po’ boy with veganaise, and watching the haunted tour groups pass by was a fun experience.

The next morning, New Orleans decided to frown on us, and it rained almost all day. We started our trek out to Fair Grinds coffee shop, because I had heard they had vegan pastries. It was a really cute shop, and it seems like a place I might hang out if I lived in the area, but the vegan pastries were slim. They had a few different types of sweet breads, so I got a pumpkin Flax bread. Not bad, but nothing special, and way dry.

Later that day, we set out to see the Iron Rail Book Collective. This was a really cool space. It’s in an old warehouse off of frenchmen street, that houses tons of books for people to read, and a small selection of books and zines for purchase. I wish I lived closer, so I could utilize the resources better, but awesome place, none-the-less. The Frenchmen area is a really nice place to see music or hang out at night, too.

For dinner, I chose cafe bamboo, which is New Orleans’ only 100% vegetarian restaurant. The atmosphere was really nice, and I enjoyed talking to and nerding out over vegan pastries with our server, Maureen, who is also the baker and wants to open a bakery. Unfortunately, the baked goods were at a minimum, because she had been out of town! Bummer. I ordered the collard green spring rolls as an appetizer, the sol’ chikn po’ boy, and I split a (huge) side of red beans and rice with a friend. The collard rolls were really unique and my favorite thing I ate (Apparently they’ve won an award for them?). The Po Boy was good (I brought my trusty veganaise with me, because a vegetarian restaurant without veganaise is a travesty), but I’m pretty sure the ‘chicken’ is really similar to the same thing whole foods (and and possibly even veggie heaven here in Austin) uses, which leads me to believe that it’s bought and not made from scratch. If this is the case… laaaame! Not a deal breaker, though. I think I’d like cafe bamboo a lot more if they had more variety on their menu. Everything was definitely tasty, and while on the pricey side, I could see myself visiting again.

One thing I was really dissapointed by, as with most touristy cities, is the use of horse drawn carriages. They were everywhere in the french quarter, and I guess I was most suprised that a lot of people used them! Here in Austin, we have horse drawn carriages downtown, but I mainly only see them being used on high traffic times during the weekend. There are so many pedicabs around that the horse carriages aren’t staring me in the face all the time, like they were in New Orleans. Do yourself (and the horses) a favor by watching Blinders and not supporting this industry.

NOLA, I am not done with you yet. I want to see more of magazine street, the garden district, the backstreet cultural museum, and I want to eat at a few other places including Bennachins (it was closed by the time I got there!) and a Banh Mi place called Moon Wok that I heard of after the trip. Also, this place I saw an ad for at iron rail, “Hey! Cafe”. The ad said they have vegan pastries! I’m sure I’ll be back.

This past week, I tagged along on a trip to Disney World with my Mom. For those of you who know me, you know that I have a mild obsession with theme parks, and rollercoasters. I had heard that Disney was fairly vegan friendly, and I was curious to find out for myself.

Meal #1: Earl of Sandwich, Downtown Disney:
Just a veggie sandwich, but decently priced (compared to the parks), and the bread was really good. I talked to someone on the phone who was able to confirm ingredients, as well. Our meal was followed by a performance by Cirque du Soleil. We saw La Nouba, and it was by far one of my favorite things of the trip. Totally worth it.

Meal #2: Tusker House, Animal Kingdom.
The second day was spent in Animal Kingdom. The last time we visited Disney (about 9 years prior), this park did not exist yet. It was worth seeing, but the park is set up like a zoo in some ways, and that makes me fairly uncomfortable for obvious reasons. We ate at Tusker House, which is one of the only actual restaurant that we ate at in Disney. At Disney World, “Restaurants” are marked on the map, and generally require a reservation, and employ actual chefs, instead of just a fast food type stand. In my experience, I’d highly recommend making reservations ahead of time at restaurants instead of trying to find vegan food elsewhere. It’s much easier when a Chef will come to your table and make something specially for you that is vegan, than having to hound someone about ingredients. Another things to note, is that most non-restaurants will have an ingredient binder somewhere (generally at the cashier station), if you ask. Tusker House was buffet style, and had tons of options for vegans. The chef walked around with me and pointed out what I could eat and what contained animal products, and even told me that he would make me special versions of things that didnt contain butter (Etc) if I wanted. I ended up with a plate full of samosas, hummus, rice, grilled veggies, breads, chutney, and many other things. For desert, tofutti ice cream and divvies cookies. Not the best desert, but really cool that they even had those options.

Meal #3: The Liberty Tree Tavern, Magic Kingdom
Another actual Restaurant that we ate at, and I was kind of skeptical of this place because all that I could have was a Vegetable Pot Pie. Low and Behold, the pot pie was actually pretty dang good. There was a HUGE rosemary buscuit in the middle that acted like the “crust”, and it was doused in veggie stew. Don’t let that picture fool you, the majority of the ‘colossal biscuit  of doom’ is hiding under the stew, and it is SUPER filling.

Meal #4: Sunshine Seasons, Epcot (The Land): Let me start by saying that Epcot has been, and is still my favorite park at Disney World. Probably because I’m slightly nerdy and like to learn things about different cultures and sciency things. The “Land” section of Epcot was really neat. It kind of has an environmentally friendly theme of sorts, with a boat ride that takes you on a tour of their huge garden that provides vegetables for the Restaurant inside the building. You can even take a special “Behind the Seeds” tour of the garden, where they show you tons of veggies growing in a lot of neat ways. Some are grown hydroponically, and some had exposed roots (how rude!) and were flying through the air while being sprayed by water (AKA: Aeroponics)! Nuts, I tell you. The tour costs extra, but was up there in my favorite things that we did at Disney. We ate at Sunshine Seasons, which isn’t a restaurant, but all I had to do was inquire about ingredients on a few things as I was good to go. I ended up eating a noodle bowl with tofu, and a vegetable flatbread sandwich. If you get the flatbread, make sure you ask for some Olive tapanade to put on it. If I were to eat here again, I’d probably just get the noodle bowl, though.

meal #5: The Lotus Blossom Cafe, Epcot (World Showcase)
This was a fast food type joint in Epcot, located in the China section (go figure) of the world showcase. The only option here is a vegetable stirfry with white rice and “wheat puffs”. The puffs were made of gluten, I’m pretty sure. For being such a basic dish, in my opinion, this was actually pretty good.

meal #6: Backlot cafe, Hollywood studios:
By the time we hit Hollywood studios, it was the weekend (meaning even MORE people were there), and we couldn’t manage to squeeze into any more restaurants without an actual reservation. I had a hell of a time finding something to eat here. I’ve heard that the Hollywood Studios restaurants have some great options for vegans, but without that option on my side, I was left frustrated and trying to find something to cure my hangries. I ended up finally finding a veggie sandwich on olive ciabatta bread at the backlot cafe. Nothing special, just a boring sandwich with overly greasy veggies… but an option, atleast. Served with a “bean salad” that was pretty much pico de gallo.

Snacks: There are a few options for small snacks to eat in each of the parks. In the Magic Kingdom, the main street bakery has a special “dietary restrictions” cart with vegan caramel corn, cookies, etc (all Divvies brand). The plaza ice cream parlor has rice dream and tofutti (vanilla and chocolate). In Epcot, each of the countries in the world showcase have shops that generally have something small. China and Japan have candies and cookies that come from over seas, Italy has some chocolate candies in bins with the ingredients listed. Kusafiri Coffee Shop in the Animal kingdom was able to scrounge up some soymilk on request.

Meal #7: Mythos Restaurant, Universal Studios Islands of Adventure:
By the last day, I was completely disney’d out, and Besides, we’d pretty much done everything anyways. Mom headed back out to the Animal kingdom, and since I was not wanting to be there anymore, I decided to head out to Universal Studios Orlando. More rollercoasters, you say? Yes, please. I ended up finding a restaurant in the park called Mythos, which was greek-ish inspired. The chef was really accommodating, and explained what I could eat. The only real option was the Pad Thai, but the sauce was made with butter and beef stock… so he offered to make me a special vegan sauce from scratch. I was really happy with the service at this place, but sadly, as beautiful as the presentation was, I wasn’t really impressed with the dish itself. It was spicier than I expected, and a bit too tangy. I am thankful for the effort, though. The bread that is brought to the table is a herbed bread, and is vegan, too (My server was kind enough to bring out the ingredients from the bread box).

We saw tons of Christmas decorations, which is one of the reasons we chose to go at this time of year. That, and it was 80 degrees there in December. A few highlights were the giant Gingerbread House inside of the Grand Floridian Hotel, and the Osborn family spectacle of dancing lights.

I have many qualms with Disney: overcrowded, not environmentally friendly at all (hundreds of buses used to transport people back and forth), using animals for entertainment, mediocre vegan options at a high cost, having vegan burger patties at places like Pecos Bills but all of the buns containing whey (how does this make sense? Frustrating.), crying children EVERYWHERE (hey, what do you expect?)… but overall, I had fun spending time with family and riding rollercoasters! Not an ideal destination for a vegan, but you won’t starve by any means. You just might have to eat more veggie sandwiches than you’d like. :P

Last, but certainly not least, our final stop before arriving in Austin to live, was Dallas, Texas. Now, I’ve never really been a fan of Dallas. I’ve never really felt it had much to offer me. I heard rumors of an all vegan diner in Dallas when I was just a vegetarian living in Houston, though I could never seem to justify a 4 hour drive for a place I knew nothing about. So I took this oppertunity to go check it out, years later.

Oh man, was this place awesome! EVERYTHING was vegan. I always get stoked in 100% vegan places, because I know I can have ANYTHING I want, which is unusual. I ordered the patty melt and a shake, and they were so delicious. the shake was topped with soy whipped cream, which, if my tastebuds serve me right… i think it was soyatoo. I’m not really a fan of the soy whip, but the shake was awesome. I got cookies n cream, and Vic got one with peanut butter in it (the name was something like “librarian”?). It was awesome. I hate when he chooses things that I like more than what I ordered. haha! I hate when places like this don’t serve fries, though. sometimes I just want to be unhealthy (ok, most of the time) and get fries with my sandwich! :( It was cool that they had potato salad, but I wasn’t really a fan of it, here.

I think I’ll be finding more excuses to go back to Dallas, now…