This year marks the very first Veggielicious Festival in Toronto. To support the festival and local restaurants offering deals on vegetarian meals (or offering vegetarian meals at all) Tom and I decided to take a stab at one. We chose Lick’s Homeburgers & Ice Cream, because it’s kind of like a Wendy’s and Arby’s meets Subway kind of deal, and though I’d never been, it seemed like a good idea to support a chain to let them know this is a great thing to be doing. I thought I could handle it.
Guys. Seriously? OW. My tummy hurt so badly! But it’s not because of the food! Well, it IS because of the food, but it’s because of the food I eat on a daily basis, not this food. (Tom was fine.) We both thought our homemade bean burgers (which I will now post the recipe for soon) were 1000x better (and a quarter of the price), but we still had a good time. The chili fries were pretty good, I’m just accustomed to really healthy (and organic) food and I think to have almost greasy spoon style was not going over well.
But now I want my black bean burgers.
10 Comments
Kim
28 Apr 2011 at 10:30 pmThough I haven’t managed to cook every single thing in the Blossoming Lotus’s cookbook (it’s called Vegan World Fusion Cuisine) everything I have made over the years is phenomenal. For a long time, their “Bananananda Bread,” cashew cheez sauce and vegan thai pizza were staples for us. Though, I will admit that there is a certain level of liberty taken with cultural appropriation and the titles of the recipes can be downright obnoxious (like, Jai to the Most High Sunflower Dip? Sistah Jah Soup? Come ON!). So, it’s definitely on the hippy dippy derpa derpa side, but the content is where it’s at.
Oh! And about cutting food out of your diet and not being able to handle it later – totes. My mom found out ~7 years ago that she’s diabetic, and she’s since reported that despite being a chocoholic, whenever she’s “bad” she can now only eat a tiny bit of chocolate, whereas she would devour an entire candy bar in one sitting in her former years. And even though I eat bread still, ever since Chris went GF my intake of gluten has been on a serious decline, and though bread has never made me feel gross, I definitely get that rock-in-my-stomach feeling when I eat wheat pasta now. Your body will react poorly to anything if you don’t ease into (or out of) it. I remember once, I complained about coffee making me literally sick, and my friend said, “Yeah, I was that way, too, but I just kept drinking it and drinking it and eventually I built up a tolerance.” I was like, O____O
Kim
27 Apr 2011 at 3:43 pmThis reminds me of my first birthday in Portland, Chris took me out to the newest location of Blossoming Lotus – a very popular vegan/live/raw food restaurant that only has two other locations (downtown Portland and Hawaii) and from whose cookbook I’d been addicted to for YEARS (seriously, with you and Tom’s lifestyle switch, this cookbook would change your life!). The food was actually delicious, but the belly ache that ensued from eating “live food” while not actually being on a raw food diet was enough to keep me from ever going back. Such a bummer when you get amped up like that!
On a slightly related note, can you really feel the difference between eating organic and non-organic food? I know some people say they can taste the difference, but for me, it’s never been more than just a satisfaction of the mind when I buy organic produce, and knowing that there’s no “icky stuff” in my food. At this point I still don’t make enough money to go all out, but I do try to get the “important” stuff, like potatoes, leafy greens, porous fruits, etc and feel like it’s just as hit or miss as when I go with the conventional options.
Sara
28 Apr 2011 at 2:11 pmI will have to check out this cookbook because I have been very interested in adding more raw food to my diet lately, but I don’t think I could every live 100% raw. Well, I could, I just don’t think I’d want to!
Also, Tom didn’t notice anything at all after eating the burger at Lick’s, it was just me, so it could have been a lot of things. But I’m pretty sure it was just me not used to processed foods anymore. We ate out about a month ago and we’re almost certain there was dairy in our food diary because we both had huge headaches afterwards. And to be 100% honest not all of our produce is organic, also because of money but what I gather is that when you go 100% organic, and do it for a month or two, you tend to get sick afterward. The same thing supposedly happens when you cut diary all the time and then have some at some point. Which I think is true because that’s just the way the body works. When I stopped having soda in high school I lost my sweet tooth. Even chocolate became too sweet and rich. So I believe some people can taste the difference, especially if they’re 100% organic (oh, I long for the days!) but when you’re half in half out I think it’s just unseen/unfelt good you’re doing for you body.
Diane
24 Apr 2011 at 5:32 pmI saw those fries on your Flickr stream, and myyyy do they look good!
Maggie Fortson
24 Apr 2011 at 12:50 amThese photos are awesome. Now I want a burger 😉
lorena
22 Apr 2011 at 5:31 ammmm, I want one right now, Sara!
You are very lucky.
agrr!
Bronwyn
21 Apr 2011 at 11:33 amJust a heads up – some places in Toronto yell if you photograph their food or merchandise. 🙁 Literally yell. It’s not fun times.
I love that Licks is trying though. Brendan and I had our first date there. The food wasn’t good but I can’t say I cared haha. 🙂 Random fact of the day.
Sara
23 Apr 2011 at 1:15 amYeah, that’s usually why I ask first! Some restaurants are picky because they don’t want you to steal it (wtf?) or write nasty reviews or something, I guess. I don’t know. Grocery stores are particularly picky about it, I’ve found. I’ve almost given up trying in places like those!
Dani
21 Apr 2011 at 10:34 amWow, I wish we had a place like that here. I know home made stuff is better, but if we had a burger joint that was more like a Subway set up, that would be awesome.
LOVE your hair in the last photo. I do mine like that a lot, straight or curly.
Random question. You took a lot of photos of them making and giving you the food. Do you get embarrassed doing that? I want so often to take photos like that, but feel like people would be weirded out, so I don’t do it. :/
Sara
21 Apr 2011 at 10:45 amYeah! I feel like a huge whiner for complaining about the food and I should be grateful that there’s actually a local chain that offers things like “Nature’s Burger”, “Chili” etc for when we’re out and about, but it really made me feel awful! Honestly though, Tom and I couldn’t remember the last time we’d been to a place like this. It had to have been at least a year ago! My body just wasn’t used to it.
Thank you! I just have it in a Gibson with the little whispies coming down.
To answer your question, absolutely I get embarrassed. Sometimes it messes up my game, I rush a little, and the photos don’t come out quite like I want if I were taking my time. Yeah, people are weirded out sometimes but never in a negative way. Most of the time they are bemused and smiling and wondering what the heck I’m up to. I usually ask someone at the restaurant first if I can take photos, and I’ve never had someone say no. Sometimes people ask why I’m doing it, and usually my response is an enthusiastic, “Because I photograph everything!”
Sometimes I don’t feel up to the challenge, but it’s usually worth it when I do!