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"nz cupcake queen" - 5 new articles

1. Day 7 - Downtown San Fran and Vegan fine dining!
2. Day 6 - fun slides and vegan japanese
3. Day 5 - 4th of July vegan style!!
4. Day 4 - LA to San Francisco and then vegan ICE CREAM SUNDAES!!
5. USA day 3 - Hollywood
6. More Recent Articles

Day 7 - Downtown San Fran and Vegan fine dining!

One happy vegan!!

We stayed in a hotel on the edge of Chinatown last night and spent our day exploring more of downtown San Fran today. We made our way to the Metreon Farmers Market and tried to find Souley Vegan who are known for their all vegan southern food. Unfortunately they're only there certain days so tomorrow we'll try again.

We ended up heading to Wholefoods again where I grabbed another amazing vanilla vegan donut and some potato salad made with Veganaise - yum! We cruised around the shops for a bit and checked out all the stores we don't have back home like Old Navy and Urban Outfitters.

But the highlight of the day had to be our dinner at Mellennium, a vegan fine dining restaurant on Geary Street. Even though we're on a super tight budget and this place cost what we'd budgeted for food for two days, it was worth every cent! We definitely recommend trying Mellennium if you ever make it to San Fran, you don't need to be a vegan to enjoy this amazing experience.

The meal was perfection, the flavours intense and the service and atmosphere just made the whole night out one we'll always remember. We went for the 3 course set menu and had an entree, main and dessert. The meals were all a decent size which isn't always the case with fine dining experiences. The meals were made of fresh, locally grown produce from farmers markets and so much care had been put into planning the menu and combinations of flavours.

Unfortunately I didn't take notes on what each of our meals were and the photos aren't all that great but who has time for photoshop touchups while on holiday!


City's entree: Tempura Zuchinni


Chris' entree: soup


City's dessert: dark chocolate cheesecake with vanilla gelato


Chris' dessert: almond shortcake with berries


I apologise for the lack of cupcake related stuff on the blog at the moment. We've been pretty slack at taking photos and I actually haven't eaten many vegan cupcakes on the trip! Hopefully that'll change when we hit Chicago!

Day 6 - fun slides and vegan japanese

City The NZCQ and Melisser The Urban Housewife

Chris and I have been loving the fact that in San Fran everyone walks everywhere. In LA we walked everywhere and people thought we were crazy. Turns out in the USA its a known fact hat nobody walks in LA and we've been told numerous times there was even a song written called "Nobody Walks in LA".

We took another long walk and headed into the Castro district to take in the amazing gay & lesbian culture around there. We found a cute dog store and picked up a hoodie for George the pug with a tattoo heart with Mommy inside. We also found crazy Care Bears street art with a twist and some amazing artwork on the side of the Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy.




Then we headed to the Seward Street slides which is the most random and amazing little treasure hidden in the suburbs of San Fran. Years ago the 2 concrete slides were built into the side of a hill in a neighbourhood park. You climb up to the top and then hop on a piece of cardboard or sacking and slide down. Its a crazy ride and so fun!




We also checked out Haight Street and Ashbury Streets and all the amazing shops and colourful characters hanging out there.

We also got our nerd on and had photos by the houses made famous in the opening credits of the 80's tv show Full House.



Dinner that night was vegan Japanese at Cha Ya and it blew my mind. Its not often I get to go to dinner and I can have ANYTHING off the menu. It was almost too much with so many choices. Unfortunately we were so busy eating, there were no photos!

We headed home for an awesome dessert of sundaes with Cinnamon Caramel and Peanut Butter Palooka ice cream, complete with butterscotch chips, choc, caramel and hazelnut caramel sauce and brownie and choc chip cookie sprinkles. Yummy overload!!!

Day 5 - 4th of July vegan style!!

The Golden Gate Bridge in all its glory

Always keen to throw up the westside


We had a nice lazy start to the day with a well deserved sleep in! Then we walked down to look across the bay and take some pics of the Golden Gate Bridge. We walked through town where the Jazz Festival was on and the streets were packed.



Melisser whipped up some awesome vegan cookies and brownies for the 4th of July dinner that evening and before everyone started turning up Chris and I had a snack of our first sandwich made with veganaise, tofurky slices and soy cheese slices - I am HOOKED!! The 4th of July cookout was great with 4 or 5 different types of vegan sausages, kick ass quinoa salad finished off with the cookies, brownies and lemon slice. So much awesome food, we were stuffed!


Sadly this is just a small portion of the food, we were too busy eating to take photos!

We were joined by Melisser and Ryan's rad vegan friends and special guest Molly the pug/boxer who stole the show with her snaggletooth!


Molly

Day 4 - LA to San Francisco and then vegan ICE CREAM SUNDAES!!

Beamish, Scurvy and Strummer all get friendly with our luggage


So we headed to San Fran on the 3rd July. Was an interesting experience going through the domestic airport security! Nothing like being pulled over into the "special" security area to be double checked, scanned and patted down. Even my under wire bra was checked!! Chris managed to cruise through no worries.

The awesome Melisser and her wee dog Strummer picked us up from the airport and took us straight to Maggie Mudd's for vegan ice cream sundaes. It was a freaking awesome way to arrive in San Francisco and after surviving on Mexican food and cereal with soy milk in LA, we were ready for some good vegan eats! I tried Mudslide and Froot Loops flavours and they were served in a waffle bowl topped with chocolate sauce and vegan whipped "cream".



We then headed to the amazing Rainbow Grocery Wholefoods Co-op on Folsom Street which just blew our minds. I wish I'd remembered to take photos but I was too busy oohing and aahing over aisle after aisle of great vegetarian and vegan food. It was 5 x t he size of Huckleberry Farms in Greenlane back home.

They had an aisle of their bulk foods full of nut butters you could buy in bulk!

Then we headed to Wholefoods to grab some white corn for the 4th of July feast we were having the next day where we also scored our first vegan donuts!! Chris grabbed chocolate and I got vanilla. They were sweet, cakey and soft, soooooo good.



After stocking up on vegan treats we don't have in NZ we headed back to Melisser and Ryans to give them the vegan goodies we'd brought over from NZ. We got to meet their huge cats Scurvy and Beamish who were both about the size of George! Dinner was vegan pizza with Teese cheese from Amitris Pizza. It has to be the BEST pizza I've ever eaten, even in my old cheese eating days.

USA day 3 - Hollywood

We hopped a train today and headed to Hollywood Boulevard to do some touristy stuff and check out the Walk of Fame.

We fought our way through the massive crowds, barricades, flowers and memorials to check out Michael Jackson's star. Since his death it is constantly crowded with people and has its own security guard to keep people moving!



I was stoked to find William Shatners star and Chris had photos with the Eddie Murphy, Frank Sinatra, Jimi Hendrix and Richard Pryor stars.

We walked and walked and walked around LA and found Amoeba Records which Chris had been dying to visit. Its like Real Groovy and JB Hifi merged together and on steriods.

We entertained by plenty of crazies around Hollywood, but our favourite was the guy on the train who was singing and dancing loudly to his ipod telling us we'd all be singing and dancing too if we were listening to his stuff. Awesome!

Its a boring update today because we are POOOOOOPED and ready for bed! Off to San Francisco tomorrow to finally meet up with Melisser aka The Urban Housewife!! Can't wait to have lots of vegan baking nerdy talks with her not to mention eat some great vegan food and take in the sights. And since I'm missing George the pug, I'm looking forward to some Strummer snuggles to tide me over!

Then its off to Chicago to meet Natalie aka Bake & Destroy and Tara aka Just Desserts

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