We ate a lot of really delicious food on our trip up north. I get nervous traveling to non tropical locations for fear that I’ll be left hungry. But there was no shortage of delicious vegan food in Canada. I felt so lucky to be able to travel and eat so well, especially with my dietary restrictions.

Alex said it the other day, but he thinks it’s funny when people say that eating vegan feels restricting or difficult. It’s not restricting at all– there are SO many options out there. It’s when you start adding in things like nut-free, gluten-free, corn free and more that things start to feel restricting. Especially when eating out. And those are just my restrictions. I would also prefer to eat low to no fat and completely un-processed 😉 But I try not to get thatttt difficult when eating out, especially when traveling.

But yeah, surprisingly for us was that out of all our recent travels, Canada may have been the most vegan friendly place to travel to. Massachusetts/ New England was okay, but not good. Colombia was almost impossible. But Canada? It was pie. A big fat delicious piece of pie. You know, we didn’t actually eat pie in Canada, but we probably could have found it if we wanted to.

The photo above is rice, daal soup, veggie dumplings. and some sort of spicy spinach potato thing too. We decided to try the restaurant Tibetan Om after the Krishna festival we visited sold out of food 🙂
Aux Vivres. Everyone and they’re mom recommended this place. Marlowe got this re-fried bean taco breakfast plate.
Brown rice veggie miso bowl for breakfast, anyone? It seemed like an odd breakfast choice, but I went for it. It was pretty good. I forget what Alex got and didn’t take pictures. But one thing we all agreed on was that the portions were insane. I feel like the three off s eat way more than most people I come across and this is the first restaurant we went to that we couldn’t finish our portions of food.

I’m not normally a fan of all vegan places— I hate mock meat and we don’t eat fake cheese anymore. Not usually anyway. But I was happy with this place– a lot of tempeh options. And I really enjoy tempeh cause I’m an odd bird.
This was technically New York, not Canada, but whatever. We stopped at Amy’s Place in Buffalo before flying home. Marlowe was so freaking happy to eat a bagel with chickpea salad on top. It’s like, junk food for her haha. And like me, she’s not a fan of plain chips. I need bbq chips forever.
Lola Rosa. They had a vegan Cesar salad option. She had two bowls of this– and hen something else, but apparently my food memory is totally slacking tonight because I can’t remember at all unless the photo is in front of me.
A coconut curry (with more tempeh mmmm) for me. The rice was completely undercooked, but otherwise it was good. I could have eaten a few bowls at least.
Alex still eats gluten– he’ll never be gluten-free, that’s for sure. Marlowe eats it sometimes, but def. not daily. I cook gluten-free substitutes at home (ie. rice noodles or rice instead of bread or wheat noodles) and so that’s what she eats. We also don’t buy bread anymore. So at home Marlowe is mostly (almost completely) gluten-free. When we travel, we make exceptions for ease and because she enjoys a good sandwich now and then (who doesn’t) and so we let her go for it.

On this day– Alex was on a mission for bagels. And well, we weren’t going to deny Marlowe trying a Montreal bagel. So they got bagels and I stood there like a sad puppy dog staring at the food. Thankfully, just a few more blocks into our walk we stumbled on this vegan restaurant with all sorts of delicious things– like crepes. And so you better believe I went for the gluten-free crêpe.

Eating crepes is not going to make me feel good after I eat them— I know this. And it’s certainly not healthy by any means. But its delicious and life is short. So sometimes you just gotta eat the buckwheat crêpe filled with whatever and topped with syrup and processed vegan whipped cream, you know? Oh and we got an acai bowl to share, but it wasn’t delicious with beat inside of it. I don’t know, it’s hard to really hide beets in food. Also: when I grow up I want to be an acai critic. I can’t remember or find the name of this restaurant.
Ming Tao Xaun tea house. Alex and Marlowe both got dumplings. We all got tea.
There are a lot of diner type spots in Montreal. I assume that’s a general city thing– since it seems like most cities have a lot of diners? I know this food was everywhere in my recent Chicago trip. I got home fries and tofu scramble. Marlowe did too. Alex got the eggs version.

As of now, I’d say that Alex eats vegan 90% of the time, vegetarian 7%, and meat 3%. It’s very rare for him to order anything with meat these days. And at home we’re all completely vegan. He basically never has dairy anymore, now that he’s finally realized/admitted that dairy was the cause of his sinus problems. But from time to time he does order eggs. This doesn’t really bother me, cause I’d say that out of the times he eats eggs,  90+% they’re real local farm happy chicken eggs.

Marlowe is still vegan and dairy free. But I’d say she maybe has one egg every two months or so. But never ever a junky caged egg. It’s only ever when we’re on a farm with actually happy birds. Here’s an old post on Marlowe eating eggs if you care to read it.

I don’t remember the name of this restaurant. But that’s okay, because it wasn’t that good.
Some sort of hash bowl for me and a flatbread pizza with an egg on top for Alex. Marlowe had some sort of tofu sandwich at The Socialist Pig in Gananoque Canada. You know, I had planned to do another road trip post from this drive from Montreal to Toronto and forgot. I probably won’t now. But it was a nice drive for sure. And super surprising to find vegan options in this little town along the way. And super fun to find out that the chef to the restaurant is actually vegan too!

Smoothie stop in Gananoque (Natures Tonic) Aka on the way to find the restaurant. Aka two doors before we got to the restaurant. But man, I was so excited to find a smoothie place, so I wanted both, smoothie and food. There was maple syrup in the smoothies. Oh Canada, you’re funny.
This was our last stop in Toronto before heading to Niagara Falls (Canada side). I had this place on my must go list before we traveled. Kupfert and Kim. It was pretty good. I don’t know if it was because it was an abnormally cold day in summer or what, but the atmosphere itself could have been a lot cozier. But the food was decent. A granola fruit bowl for Marlowe. A savory miso porridge for me. 
And for Alex? Waffles. They were gluten-free (yay!) but full of nuts (booo). I have to say out of all my allergies, the ones that bother me most are the corn and nuts. I don’t mind the gluten thing so much. And on the day-to-day, I don’t mind the nut thing– I like sticking to the low-fat thing anyway. But when we eat out, it’s hard to skip nuts. A lot of gluten-free or vegan substitutes are full of nuts. On a positive side, the allergies make sure that I eat better and don’t pile a lot of unnecessary junk in. But on a negative side, sometimes I do just want some waffles slathered in a creamy sauce, berries, and syrup. You know? You know.

Recently Alex did say he was going to make the switch to vegan once he finished at his work. Well, he has a week left of work over here. And to be honest, I don’t know if he will be going completely vegan. But at this point, I’m okay with it. Both of our diets have changed A LOT since we first met. (You can see a really old post called, “how we cook together, a vegan and a pork lover” here.) The important thing for me, I want to see him giving a crap about his body and what he puts in it. As long as he is mostly making good food choices for himself, well, I’m not going to give him a hard time if he eats eggs from time to time, you know? I just want him to care about himself too.

For Marlowe, well, I think things are going pretty well. She’s a skinny little thing and I’m always offering her more food and more snacks (we have no limit on snackage over here). But the doc and I both agree, as long as she’s healthy it’s fine. She eats well, has loads of nutrient dense foods, and rarely gets sick ever anymore– especially since we (mostly) cut out gluten.

I just want us to all be happy, healthy, well fed, and sometimes a bit indulgent when we travel too. I’ll be posting from our Colombia trip too. The contrast in food cultures is so crazy.

Not pictured: the loads of ice-cream we ate on this trip 🙂

Hope you guys are having a good week.  <3

6 Comments

  1. We were in Montreal 2 weeks ago, had no problem finding Vegan food, all the restaurants we went to were great making me a Vegan dish (the rest of the people I was with weren’t Vegan). Also, I thought you had your own Chickens for eggs?

    Arlene

  2. So strange to see that you passed by my area. I often forget it’s in between Montreal and Toronto. I used to love the Socialist Pig and the tofu sandwich Marlowe got but unfortunately their service has completely destroyed that place for me 🙁 I haven’t been to the smoothie place but it looks promising! Glad you guys enjoyed your time in Canada.

  3. Thanks for sharing as always :). It’s so interesting to follow your journey. A few months back I cut dairy out of my diet (I’ve never been into meat or eggs so no biggy there). While I haven’t noticed any drastic changes I’m amazed at how fast and willingly my body has adapted. I have absolutely ZERO cravings for any kind of dairy and feel so much lighter and cleaner inside. I feel like I’m finally eating the way my body has always wanted me to. I’m glad to hear you say that Marlow’s weight isn’t a problem because that was kind of one of my concern. My older daughter is a little bean pole (like her mama, ha!) and I was a little worried about taking the extra fats from the dairy out of her diet. She’s so healthy and full of energy though that I think she is just taking after me (and her grandmother, and her great grandmother) in the body department.

  4. Marlowe’s re-fried bean taco breakfast plate is definitely my favorite 🙂 I wouldn’t mind trying to make my own version of that. I’m supposed to eat gluten-free, but I’m not going to lie, that’s been more difficult for me than going vegan.

    ~Laurali

  5. We flavor a lot of things here in Canada with Maple Syrup – it’s a good option when trying to reduce sugar, without going into artificial crap. Plus maple syrup is our thing – it costs more per barrel than gas. Glad you had a good time. Next time you’re heading to Ontario, you should visit some of the places southwest of Toronto – like Hamilton (a smaller city a couple hours away from Toronto, with a ton of green space). You would love the James St N food district, and the escarpment, and the trails. You’d probably like further north as well, like Tobermory and Manitoulin Island. And of course, Georgian Bay is absolutely beautiful, and Port Elgin Ontario is listed by National Geographic as one of the top two places in the world to watch the sun set (the other place is Capetown South Africa).