We’re sitting at the airport waiting for our flight home after a fun and packed few days in Los Angeles. This may sound strange as a Californian, but it’s been years since I’ve vacationed in this area and after this trip we will be back soon. And goodness, I have so much to cover after stopping at tons of vegan restaurants and hitting lots of attractions. That will come as soon as I finish going through all the pictures. So let’s start with the first day for now that started with a short flight from Sacramento.
Heck no we weren’t driving, California is a huge state and Southwest flights are cheap. We picked up the rental car and navigated to Lotus Vegan for lunch. After a quick search, I was almost overwhelmed by the vegan options in the area!
Parking in the neighborhood sucked, that was our first intro to the driving challenges of LA. The street parking was packed and we ended up circling a few blocks before finally finding something in walking distance. But lunch prices were very reasonable and I liked that portion sizes weren’t crazy. I got a delicious pineapple curry tofu dish with brown rice.
Service was fast and the tofu and sauce did not seem greasy.
While walking back to the rental car, hubby spotted this on the sidewalk.
Dinner was really magical! When we got settled into the hotel, I started to look for dinner places near by and found Moby’s vegan restaurant, Little Pine, was just a few short miles away. And because it was a weeknight, we were able to get a reservation!
Shortly after we were seated, Moby walked in and hung out for a bit!
I seriously wanted to run over to him and gush about how awesome he is and the restaurant is, but he seemed a bit more low-key and no one else seemed shocked he was there, so I played it cool. :-) Our waitress said he’s in frequently as well as many other celebrities.
I really liked the atmosphere, it was clean, modern, and classy while making efficient use of smaller spaces. But I really love the purpose and passion of this restaurant because the entire menu is vegan and all of the profits are donated to animal organizations, the whole story is pretty awesome.
And the food – oh my! I could have ordered the entire menu. We started with the fried cauliflower and potato leek soup to share, then shared the fennel flat bread pizza.
Everything was simply amazing, creative and impressive. The soup is turned up with drizzles sage, chives, and pepper flakes – must add those next time I make potato leek soup. But the star was the pizza using house made vegan sausage and parmesan.
We saved room for dessert and they did not disappoint. I got a banana cream pie that was so new it’s not on the menu yet and huge! Hubby got the brownie sundae with peanut butter ice cream – both amazing and almost too big!
While we were walking back to the car, I spotted a tree about a block away that was beautifully lit up and remembered there is supposed to be a tree somewhere in LA filled with beautiful chandeliers. Turns out the Chandelier Tree is just a short walking distance from Little Pine, how cool!
And such a fun sight to see to wrap up our first day where we already saw tons, had a celebrity sighting, and ate at two great vegan restaurants in just half of a day. More to come on the rest of the trip, I have tons of pictures to sort through which will happen in time because it’s back to the grind tomorrow. So to the list!
Lindsay shares some interesting insights on veganism and dieting at Happy Herbivore.
Easy recipe swaps to eat more plant based.
Have you seen the ridiculous commercial for the Devour Bacon Mac N Cheese frozen meal? I love that Upton’s already has a vegan option, what a time!
Vegan cheat sheets to inspire.
Runner’s World offers advice on spring cleaning your vegan diet which I could use after this trip.
AHH I WISH I COULD BE WITH YOU!!!
Haha, yes! You gotta check out the vegan eats here!
Right away when I saw that pic – I was like – OMG!!!! Moby!!!! LOVE him! Saw him in concert YEARS ago and he was WONDERFUL!!!!! So full of energy! LOVED the photos of the trip and the restaurants! How far of a drive is it for you? I noticed you were flying – just curious!? Those lights in that night photo were beautiful, too! The sauce in that tofu dish was MARVY – I want to slurp on it RIGHT NOW! lol!!!!
Yes, me too and have so much of his music on my workout playlists. Awesome on seeing him in concert! Thanks and there are many more to come – I was overwhelmed with so many vegan restaurants in the area to choose from! Driving to LA from our area in north Sacramento would take about 9 hours with decent traffic, no thanks! Agreed on the tree, it was such a cool sight.
WOW! 9 hours!? I guess I didn’t realize that!
Yes, California is a huge state! 1 hour flight is much better, lol.
How fun! I love that chandelier tree!! My son and his girlfriend moved to LA in January and they ate at Little Pine last month. They didn’t even realize it was Moby’s restaurant until he walked in. He called me right after they ate to tell me about it. I can’t wait to eat there the next time we visit. Did you eat at Gracias Madre? It’s a vegan Mexican restaurant. Delicious and a really cool vibe. Thanks for the fun links.
Very cool on your son and awesome that you have an excuse to visit LA more. :-) Too funny on Little Pine, I heard Moby stops by a lot. We didn’t make it to Gracias Madre on this trip, but I did make it to the one in San Francisco awhile back – amazing!
LA really is like a different world compared to the rest of California! I’m hoping to get back out there soon as well, for the vegan food and beer fest next month… Just gotta commit and book those tickets. Looks like there’s still a million other things I need to check out while I’m in town, too!
It really is and I can see we need to visit much more – so many vegan restaurants and not enough time. I saw billboards for the Vegan Food and Beer Fest – wish I could go back for it, hmmmm.