Holiday Roundup- We Stop in NYC for something special...

So on the way to visit my grandmother, we made a stop off in the Big Apple!

And by stopoff I mean we drove around vaguely lost for a few hours gawking at things. New York City is pretty cool! Expensive, but cool!

However, while we were there, I did pick up something for myself! The next day when I woke up in Jersey, I had these to tide me over:

That's right! I went to Babycakes!

Here's my review: The shop is cute, but tiny, however the people working there are super nice! I asked for 6 random gluten free cupcakes, and it came to 28$. This is pretty expensive, but frankly, about what you'd pay for a regular cupcake in a fancy cupcake store. 

I have no idea exactly what flavors I got, but I'll estimate. There was a minty chocolate one that was frankly, delicious in taste. The carrot one was also really good, as was the lemon one. The other ones didn't really stick out for me, but all of the cupcakes tasted pretty good!

The icing was the real winner for me. It was divine! DIVINE! I actually pulled the icing right off the top of the cupcake and ate the cake, and then the icing separately. This was really simple to do as you have to keep them refrigerated. (Since the icing is made with coconut oil, if it's left out in the warm it'll melt!)

The cake itself was a bit dense for my tastes, but still tasted pretty good. It was a bit crumbly, but not as much as I've seen, so probably mid-high in density quality. It tasted really good though!

So the cupcakes were delicious, even my skeptical mother thought so!

So, if you're ever in NYC, I recommend a quick stopoff at Babycakes to pick up one of their cupcakes. I thought they were really good!

Product Review: Noel Nog

When I was little, my favorite thing about Christmas was drinking the egg nog.

It just filled my little heart and tummy with joy and happiness. However, when I realized it also filled my stomach with pain and horror, and caused the cow population so much anguish, I figured that I would never feel that Christmasey joy and happiness ever again...

UNTIL NOW!

I had tried other soy nogs, but they didn't quite have that same... zing I was looking for. Le sigh.

But I was at the grocery store (one I don't go to often) because we had a gift certificate, and there, in a little fridge with all the soy milk, was a little bottle of So Nice Noel Nog.

It's amazing, it tastes EXACTLY like I remember! In a moment of shame, I've almost drank the entire bottle, but frankly it was so delicious that I couldn't stop myself. I kept a cups worth to drink before bed tonight.

GET SOME. If it's in your neighborhood, get some, you'll feel Christmasey in no time, and I'm not a particularly jolly person around the holidays, so that's saying something. I may have even hummed "Jingle Bells" a little... just sayin!

Restaurant Review: Aux Vivres

Matthew and I hit up a restaurant today, Aux Vivres in Montreal. If you're a vegan who finds themselves in Montreal, this is apparently the place to go.

I have to apologize in advance for the less than stellar photography, I took it on my Ipod, whose camera is very noisesome. Bear with me!

So First Matthew got some Parathas for an appetizer, which were not gluten free, so I couldn't test them. Though he ate them with much gusto!

They came with a veggie butter dipping/spreading sauce, which he says was absolutely excellent.

I didn't get an appetizer, because I was saving up for dessert, which is to come!

So for the main course, I got the "Dragon Bowl" and chose the option with grilled tempeh. It looked like this:

It had brown rice in the bottom, and grated carrots, beets, red cabbage, and sprouts. I think there were also some Daikon radish in there. The tempeh was grilled to PERFECTION, and the dragon sauce was INCREDIBLE. The brown rice and salad it was on top of was brown rice and salad, so there's really not too much there to go over, it's hard to screw up brown rice and lettuce, haha.

Matthew got a Gyro, which he says (from the perspective of an omnivore) was one of the best gyros he's ever had, vegan or otherwise. It was made with Seitan, so I can't say whether or not this is true for myself.

We shared some roobois tea, which was divine.

For dessert, I had the only GF pie/cake offering, which was a banana chocolate pie on a nut/date crust. It was awesome! I need to reverse engineer this one! So creamy and rich!

Matthew got a brownie, which he says was delicious, but a bit dry. He said that since the rest of the food was so excellent, he's giving the brownie the benefit of the doubt, and saying it was probably just an off brownie.

So Aux Vivres was awesome! It was a bit pricey for us (but we're cheapos) and our two meals, with Matthew's appetizer, and his coffee, our tea, and our desserts, came to 51$, which isn't terrible, but as I said, we don't really go out to expensive places (we usually spend about 25$ for the two of us when we go out). However, the food was awesome! I recommend it if you find yourself in Montreal!