i don’t know about you guys, but i think this sounds like a pretty sweet gig. food for lovers (makers of the best fucking vegan queso aka cheese sauce that you will ever try) announced yesterday that they’re looking to hire brand ambassadors in los angeles, portland and san francisco.

“WTF is a brand ambassador,” you ask?

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if you want hearty vegan comfort food, there’s absolutely no better place in LA to get it than doomie’s home cookin‘ in hollywood. the all vegetarian (and mostly vegan) restaurant recently reopened, and i swung by last week with the team from clara’s cakes to check them out. good god, it was all fantastic—after a plate of nachos, 2 burgers, a pulled pork sandwich, a ham & cheese croissant, and a massive brownie, we could barely walk.

doomie himself was in the kitchen and was delighted to tell us that he was working on a new vegan cheese—one that stretches, melts, and tastes like the real thing. he’s already using it in the croissants, and offered to let us test it out on our burgers. hell yes.

let me work backwards though, and start off by telling you about the croissant…

vegan ham and cheese croissant $4

the vegan croissants at doomie’s are gigantic—definitely big enough to be an entire meal—and they’re stuffed full of homemade vegan cheese and sliced soy ham. i used to love real ham and cheese croissants when i was a kid (gross, i know), and these really took me back to my childhood donut shop days. absolutely amazing. the flaky pastry shell was so “buttery” and realistic. and the cheese inside is eerily close to the real thing.

vegan croissant the size of your head

even if you eat yourself silly at doomie’s like i did, grab a croissant to go. they heat right up in the oven and taste as good as new.

the new vegan cheese was just as insane on doomie’s already delicious burgers. check out how real this stuff looks…

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what’s the best vegan cheese in america? you tell me. i go back and forth on this quite a bit. daiya was my favorite for awhile, and then the new stretchy teese came out. at first i wasn’t a fan of follow your heart, but hard times pizza completely changed my mind. i can’t decide! what do YOU think? vote below and let us know.

[poll id=”3″]

feel free to elaborate on your decision in the comments section!

this is so exciting! one of my favorite products of all time, food for lovers vegan queso, is now available at whole foods.

i am used to driving across town for this stuff or ordering it in bulk online, so imagine how happy i was to see it at my the weho whole foods for just $4.99 per jar.

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VEGAN PIZZA DAY IS TOMORROW! you better get ready to party! to help you plan accordingly, we’ve compiled a list of the vegan pizza we’ve eaten in los angeles over the nearly 3 years of running this blog. when we started quarrygirl.com, there was ONE place to get pizza with vegan cheese. now there are over 20 places. for a complete list of places to get vegan pizza in LA, check out the vegan pizza day website. this is just a list of what we’ve eaten so far. enjoy! BTW, please email me pix of what you eat on vegan pizza day, and i will post them on the blog!

cruzer pizza

LA’s one and only vegan pizzeria is located in los feliz and makes incredible pie. check out their quarrygirl pizza (named after me!), and their awesome pasta dishes and appetizers.

pizza fusion

with locations in hollywood and santa monica, pizza fusion has got much of the town covered. they’ve got vegan pizza with your choice of daiya or follow your heart, tap beer, and vegan brownies for dessert. on vegan pizza day, they’ll be offering 10% on ALL VEGAN PRODUCTS! so just ask!

zpizza

zpizza is our go-to chain for vegan dining. all locations carry daiya cheese and gardein crumbles, and the pizza is fabulous. for vegan pizza day, they’ll be serving up vegan pizza by the slice!

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I mean… seriously! One of the best pizzerias in LA now stocks vegan cheese and makes it available on all pizzas.

We vegans are getting so many good options these days! My omni friends have often raved about Pitfire Pizza, A local chain of artisan pizzerias serving top notch ingredients, prepared in that most coveted of pizzeria paraphernalia: A pitfire kiln, able to cook a pizza in searing temperatures over 900 degrees.

Once you’ve had a pitfire cooked pizza, you’ll not want to go back to the spongy crust of lesser pies!

With just four locations (North Hollywood, West LA, Downtown and Culver City), Pitfire Pizza seems to have focused on creating a quality product with individuality rather than rushing for scale, and I’m pleased to report that their vegan offerings maintain – and even enhance, an incredibly well thought out menu. Pitfire Pizza ain’t your typical pizzeria, in oh so many good ways. Here you’re dealing with familiar ingredients combined in a novel ways and cooked to perfection. The addition of vegan cheese (in the form of Daiya) elevates the experience for vegans (and health conscious vegetarians/omnivores alike) to something that’s every bit as good as the regular menu, yet 100% cruelty-free.

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i have some pretty awful news for vegans in the united states: our beloved cheezly is no longer available here.

bye bye for now

we have been fans of the marvelous UK vegan cheese for years, and back in march after the natural products expo, we thought they were poised to take the united states market by storm. unfortunately we were wrong, and cheezly is no longer being distributed in the US at the moment.

i am really hoping the redwood wholefood company (maker of cheezly) finds distribution soon, because we NEED their delicious vegan cheese stateside. just earlier this month, i was raving about it.

i will miss you, cheezly.

please come back, cheezly! in the meantime, if any of my UK readers wanna send me some cheezly as a happy xmas gift, please do! 🙂

daiya vs cheezly. cheezly vs daiya. it’s an epic battle, and i don’t know who would win. have you tried both? do you have a favorite?

daiya pizza on the left, cheezly pizza on the right

i recently had the chance to eat both a daiya and a cheezly pizza back to back…and choosing between the two would not be an easy task. if only the new teese (which i love) would have been there, my mind would have been blown.

so which one looks better to you:

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act fast, vegans! i usually don’t post a lot of discount offers here on the blog, but this one is so epic that it deserves some ink.

aged cashew and brazil nuts cheese by dr. cow

figueroa produce, the friendly neighborhood market in highland park, is selling both dr. cow’s tree nut cheese and field roast celebration roasts at HALF PRICE, while supplies last….

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WANT VEGAN PIZZA NEAR YOU?!?! here’s how…

maybe we are idealists, or maybe we are just crazy…but we think that with your help, we can bring vegan pizza to the masses. and by vegan pizza, i mean pizza with actual VEGAN CHEESE (none of this cheeseless nonsense).

when we started this blog, vegan pizza in los angeles was a joke. there was damiano’s which was hugely expensive and decent at best…then after a while purgatory pizza popped up, and cruzer (which subsequently turned into an all vegan pizzeria!), followed by national chains like zpizza and pizza fusion, and now tons of little guys including lenzini’s, deano’s, and masa (of chicago deep dish fame).

this past year has been one huge and incredible vegan pizza explosion—but we aren’t satisfied yet. let’s take this shit to the next level. even though i just named a slew of vegan-friendly places, i bet that most of you have multiple pizzerias more conveniently located near your home or work that don’t have a dairy-free cheese offering. how great would it be if they did? that’s where this nifty form comes in.

fill it out, sign your name, and drop it off or mail it to all the pizzerias you’d like to be able to eat at. copy the text, and email it as well…let’s hit them up from all sides. SERIOUSLY, this stuff works. LA distributors are already carrying vegan cheese, restaurants just need to know that there’s a demand. and there IS A DEMAND…RIGHT?!?! right!

CLICK IMAGE to download the vegan pizza PDF

please note: on this form, i suggested daiya and teese as options for pizzerias to stock, because those are the only vegan cheeses available in LA that i actually like. if you don’t agree, feel free to edit the form to add or delete products as you see fit. hey, here’s a word document to make it super easy.

are you guys on board?! i seriously think if we do this, the vegan pizza choices in LA could take a massive upturn. supposedly this blog has a lot of readers—i don’t know who you people are, but i think you can help out in making vegan options more prevalent in our fair city. worth a shot? YES!

please comment below with any stories about your vegan pizza outreach and success. we are curious to see how many people actually take the time to do this…and even more curious to see what the results are as far as vegan pizza options are concerned!

btw: BY ALL MEANS, PLEASE use this form even if you don’t live in LA. everywhere needs more vegan pizza!

chili addiction in west hollywood doesn’t get nearly as much ink on this blog as it should. the place is seriously a godsend for vegans and has some of the the best animal-free chili, burgers, and sausages you will ever eat.

vegan chili cheese fries: Try our fabulous Belgian fries covered with any of our daily chilis and heaped with VEGAN cheddar cheese! $6

i went to chili addiction with some pals last night, and we had a whole table full of feastage…

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we already blogged about how awesome chicago soy dairy’s new stretchy teese is, but you shouldn’t take our word for it.

for the next week, vegan essentials is having a buy one, get one free sale that is not to be missed. here are the details…

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We’ve always been fans of Teese, a vegan cheese substitute that took the art of cheesy taste and texture and put it firmly on the vegan map. We started going to pizzerias again, ate paninis for the first time in years and just generally enjoyed ourselves in ways that were hitherto taboo!

We were delighted, then, when Chicago Soy Dairy sent us a preview of the latest creation they’ve been working on: Tasty, stretchy, vegan MOZZARELLA cheese, that comes as close as you can get to the “real thing”. We set about challenging the new formula, and were, frankly, blown away with the results.

Most vegan cheeses today aim to emulate the taste and texture of regular, velveeta-style or pizzeria-like cheese but we found something different in the latest offering from Teese—something more flavorful that lends itself to a variety of dishes.

Points:

– Streeeetchy. REALLY.

– Tasty: Like Teese of old, but better. Even when eaten straight out of the package, its flavor is excellent.

– Awesome in a panini.

Mozzarella panini with tomato, basil, and new stretchy Teese

– Pizza works really well. It’s excellent on both a normal pizza (pictured above), as well as an NY style “buffalo mozzarella” pizza.

NY style vegan buffalo mozzarella pizza with new stretchy Teese

The buffalo mozzarella pizza was a complete WIN, and the closest I’ve had to vegan NY-style pie yet. This only goes to show how versatile and impressive the new Teese is, even in these early stages.

Get excited, get very excited. When this product hits the shelves, you are going to LOVE it.

Here is a letter from Chicago Soy Dairy that came in our sample pack:

Of course we will keep you posted, and let you know when this Teese is available to the public. Lookout!

as i mentioned in my re-cap post of expo west, one of the most exciting companies present at the convention was vbites. already huge in the uk, the company produces some of the best vegan meats and cheeses in the world, and makes everything ranging from deli slices and burgers to fish fingers and frozen dinners. there’s even an entire vbites restaurant in brighton, and it’s pretty much my definition of heaven on earth…so imagine how stoked i was when i heard these amazing products were finally coming to america!!

animal rights campaigner and owner of vbites, heather mills, was serving up pizzas and spreading excitement about her new products at the booth all weekend.

the new vbites food i tried at expo west was so fantastic, i decided it needed its very own post. just have a look at what the company has in store for the united states…

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UPDATE: the surly goat is now open, and it’s awesome!

Two of the nicest and most talented guys you’d ever wish to meet are Alex Brown and Evan George, a duo of vegetarian chefs, beer experts, writers and god-knows-what-else collectively known as Hot Knives.

The last time we raved about Hot Knives was after attending some patio sessions at Glassel Park’s Verdugo Bar last summer. We whiled away a couple of warm afternoons drinking from an amazing beer selection while Alex and Evan served up some imaginative and very, very tasty vegan food. We’ve also long been fans of their blog where they wax lyrical about beers of the world and publish recipes to die for.

Imagine, then, how pleased we were to receive an invite for their book launch party to be catered by Hot Knives themselves at a brand new bar that shares some common ownership with Verdugo Bar. We couldn’t believe our luck with a one-two-three punch of Hot Knives’ food, 27 special beers on tap and a book about one of my favorite subjects: BEER!

This being January and LA storm season there wasn’t much patio action going on, but West Hollywood’s newest bar, The Surly Goat, couldn’t have been a better setting to munch on some food and learn about Hot Knives’ new beer book, “Greatest Sips”. The new bar (it opens to the public Wednesday February 3rd) is in the former 24K club spot and is a welcome addition to a part of town that doesn’t have many great places to drink, being situated a block west of Fairfax on Santa Monica Blvd. The beer selection pretty much mirrors Verdugo Bar (virtually all of it vegan) and there’s a cool, dark environment that’s a pleasure to be in. I know The Surly goat will be on my list of regular haunts, and I’ll probably be at the bar on a highly regular basis!

Upon arrival we downed a couple of Blind Pig beers from Russian River, and made our way to the back of the bar where Alex and Evan had laid out the most amazing spread. To call Hot Knives perfectionists would be an understatement.

They wanted just the right kind of bread to pair with their food so they invented a recipe and made a bunch of crispy baguettes (yes, they do taste as good — or better — than they look).

First order was to grab a hunk of this unbelievable bread and smear their special vegan cashew ricotta cheese all over it. The cheese was a perfect texture, something like cream cheese, but crumbly and tangy just like ricotta. I could seriously have eaten not only every baguette but also the entire hoard of cheese as well as it was so fucking good!

Just when I thought that I’d reached a state of sublime existence (due in part, I’m sure, to the Blind Pigs) Evan pointed out the second vegan plate which was a spicy habanero seitan loaf. The seitan reminded me a little of the seitan which they put in the Banh Mi sandwiches but the spiciness here was off the charts. A little crispy on the outside yet soft and chewy on the inside made for the perfect combination of mouth textures, while the delicate flavoring hid that fire in your mouth that only habanero chilies can deliver.

Balancing the power of the chilies was a smooth, cold and creamy sauerkraut sauce (I think they called it a mustard) which just begged to be splashed all over the food. Of course, we had multiple visits to the food tables and were not surprised to see everything disappear pretty quickly.

We had a chance to briefly leaf through the book “Greatest Sips”, written by the Hot Knives dudes in their inimitable style. Ours is on order now, at the mercy of USPS and will be an indispensable guide for beer drinking at The Surly Goat and elsewhere. Not only are the guys perceptive experts in beer, but they love to tell you about what food to pair it with and even what music to listen to while drinking it. No, I’m not joking! The insight is hilarious and I’m sure a little tongue in cheek. Here are Alex and Evan to tell you all about the book themselves:

Greatest Sips from Hot Knivez on Vimeo.

Hot Knives are vegetarian chefs, so they do use non-vegan ingredients in some of their cooking, and are huge fans of cheese..but we won’t hold that against them, rather we’ll hope that they do one day decide to become vegan so that they will be inspired to make more and more inventive and tasty vegan foods.

Also, on the beer front, do remember to check out Barnivore, a super site that answers questions about vegetarian and vegan ingredients in just about any beer you’ll ever want to drink.

Alex and Evan, thanks so much for feeding us today!

For more info on The Surly Goat, check out Eater and LATimes.

Oh, and finally, The Surly Goat hasn’t got its food menu together yet so they won’t be serving any of this gorgeous food (and maybe never will). Hopefully, though, the Hot Knives guys will show up from time to time and take care of filling hungry vegan bellies.