Last night my husband, Neil, decided he would take us out for a date night at The Alchemist Pub and Brewery in Waterbury Vermont- “The Alchemist is a 7 barrel brew pub specializing in hand-crafted beer and casual pub fare. All of our ales flow directly from our basement brewery, which was designed and installed by our brewer and co-proprietor John Kimmich. We use only the finest imported malts and domestic hops available to bring you the tastiest and finest selection of beers in Vermont!” (from their website).
We settled on getting the oatmeal stout and the red….however we were brought a porter and a harvest. They quickly apologized about that mistake and gave us our correct beers on the house.
For dinner I ordered the Marinated Tempeh Sandwich without the walnut pesto and subsituted the maple balsamic dressing. Neil ordered the Blackened Tofu Burrito without the cheese and sour cream. We also ordered a side of fries with their house made mustard and ketchup.
Although our meals were really good we didn’t make it through the first bite of the burrito because they had forgotten to not put the cheese on. So we sent it back and it was quickly replaced with the correct vegan version. The tempeh sandwich was so good and the fries were amazing- nice and crispy fresh cut. The burrito was good we really liked the blackened tofu but it was missing something in it, maybe the salsa would have been better in than on the side.
Overall we just fell in love with the places great atmosphere, food and beer. We extremely impressed with the service as well and appreciated the 2 free beers and the free burrito (they covered that as well since they had made the mistake- we really didn’t expect that but it was a great treat).
This past weekend my husband and I headed south to Lowell & Boston for the weekend. We stayed in Chelmsford and decided that we just had to go to Life Alive for dinner in Lowell. We visited the cafe the same weekend last year and they actually had a booth at Boston Veg Fest 2008 (they didn’t have one this year though.)
I enjoyed The Swami which had a- (as described on the menu)- “Miso Curried Sauce sweetening a masterfully-tasty mix of tamari roasted almonds, flame raisins, pearl onions, dark greens, broccoli flowerrs, and shredded carrots, served over brown rice with a sprinkle of nutritional yeast.”
Neil enjoyed The Emperor- (as described on the menu)- “Sweet and nutty short grain brown rice, melted cheddar cheese, sundried tomatoes, steamed greens, sweet yellow corn, shredded carrots, tofu and sunflower sprouts crowned by our Satisfying Sesame Miso sauce.” He got it without the cheese obviously and subsituted with raisins and nutritional yeast.
Neil loved his dinner so much that he just had to hug about it.
For breakfast Saturday morning we went to our old standby Bagel Rising– inside the Espresso Royale on Newbury Street. We both got the ‘Joy of Soy’ on a whole wheat everything bagel; mine with jalapeno tofu spread and Neil’s with veggie tofu spread. I enjoyed a double espresso and Neil a soy chai.
We love Life Alive so much that we went back again for dinner Saturday night. We started out with a shot of wheatgrass.
I’m boring and got The Swami again- this time with squash.
Neil got The Rebel – (as described on the menu)- “Sesame ginger nama dressing with flax oil and Braggs, tofu, carrots, beets, dark greens, broccoli and hijiki steamed over quino and short grain brown rice”- They were all out of quinoa so he just had brown rice and I gave him half my squash.
For breakfast Sunday we went to Newton Center to Prana Cafe– a mostly raw cafe that serves it’s full menu from 7am-4pm.
I ordered the Burrito – (as described on the menu)-“Wrapped in chard leaves with refried beans, avocado, marinated vegetables, and sour cream.” I have to say this was the best thing that I had all weekend and was a ridiculous amount of food.
My husband decided that he would be nice and take a picture of me eating the biggest bite ever.
Neil had the Prana Burger – (as described on the menu) -“Taylor grew up in Chicago eating deep fried hamburgers at a favorite family restaurant. This tastes so much better and actually fills your body with the best vitamins, minerals, and enzymes ever so you feel satisfied but not slowed-down. Served on our homemade-n-hearty onion bread.” This came with yummy crispy kale chips and Neil ordered cashew cheese on top. It was delicious!
We finally made our way to the Boston Vegetarian Food Festival where we enjoyed trying the different samples and meeting various vendors. We are excited though because we met the owners of a new vegan B&B on Cape Cod and we are excited to check them out. The owner told us that the vegetarian one we had visited last year is now closing so they are opening to fill the need.
We stopped up to the noon demo but were really disappointed with it and decided to leave about 10 minutes in. It drove me nuts that they guy kept calling omnivores carnivores …..seriously??
Anyways the fest was fun but after two years of visiting I don’t think we would go again unless we happened to be in Boston the same weekend it was going to be happening.
We did leave the fest with a wonderfully sinfull treat from Vegan Treats– the Chocolate Peanut Butter Mousse Bomb- which was incredible.
This week has been an emotional one for my husband and I, at 11 weeks along we found out that we had lost our baby. After days of hanging around the house and lounging in our bed grieving our loss we decided it was time to get out of town and we headed south…..to Massachusetts and Connecticut. I unfortunately did not take any photos on our trip as our camera is still full of pictures from our cruise. We headed down to MA and CT on Friday afternoon and stopped in at Angkor Wat in Woodstock Vermont where we had a disappointing overpriced meal.
We then headed to Northampton one of my favorite small towns and we wandered the shops and the downtown area. We stopped in Herrel’s Flagship Store and got ourselves a scoop of No-Moo Coffee “ice cream”. It was delicious. I see that they have a bunch of other flavors (we have had the peanut butter at the Cambridge location) and I am dying to try burnt caramel – what a fun flavor!
On Saturday we took a drive south towards New Haven where we wandered around the Yale campus (which is beautiful) and then we stopped for some lunch at Claire’s Corner Copia. This place was packed! There was a line out the door ,which seems to usually be a good sign, plus the place has been around for 34 years so it must be doing something right. My hubby got the Cornercopia Grande Burrito with refried organic pinto beans, brown rice, roasted organic vegetables, chipotle soy chicken and salsa. It was huge and delicious! I got the Quesadilla Tia Juana that was filled with a salsa of organic black beans, corn, organic bell peppers, San Marzano tomatoes, onions and Anaheim chilies and served with guacamole it was delicious!
On Sunday (I saved the best for last) we headed home and stopped at Esselon Café in Hadley MA for some amazing brunch. My hubby got the Vegan Brekkie which included tofu scramble with sautéed spinach, mushrooms, avocado, and grilled tomato with toast and a side salad and he also got a soy chai latte. I got the Vegan Benny which was grilled and seasoned tofu, sautéed spinach, roasted red peppers, topped by vegan hollandaise and came with a side salad, I also got a soy latte. The food here was by far the best all weekend. The Vegan Benny was delicious and as my husband said (bashfully) it was better than mine (crushed ….haha just kidding I totally agreed). His food was great too and huge so much food I was impressed. Also the salad is a great touch much better than homefries or something similar to that.
After one great weekend away we are planning another in about 5 weeks for a wonderful weekend to go to all the places we didn’t get to visit.
So my hubz and I went Boston to see Blondie, Pat Benatar and to our surprise The Donna’s who opened for them. We sent the afternoon lounging at our hotel pool and then decided that it was getting late and we should get ready to head out. At this point we were pretty hungry even though we had a big lunch at Le’s in Cambridge earlier. We decided that becaues of time we would go try Grasshopper again see if it would be better than the last time (last time we went back in October it was awful-well the dishes we ordered were anyways). So we tried it again and got the appetizer platter which was really good- we didn’t love the dumplings but everything else was really good. We also had the “No Name” which was really good but of course awful for you but still good and lots of it. We ended up taking half of it with us and ate it in the hotel room after the show. So Grasshopper you’ve redeemed yourself and we will be back.
The other night Neil and I decided to go to dinner and after discuss about a million places that we might go we decided on pizza. There is this new pizza joint off Howard Street downtown called Bite Me. It is a localvore and organic pizza place that is super small but has great pizza. Along with this they have specically vegan pizzas that is labled on the menu you can also create your own vegan pizza. We decided to get the vegan pizza which was called “The Vermont Intervale Ghosts- it had marinated tofu, roasted eggplant, baby spinach, squash, roasted red peppers, red beets, caramlized onions, yellow and red tomatoes and lemon oil drizzle for $20. The price might seem high but this pizza is huge and worth the costs.
Other vegan toppings include: basil, thai basil, baby arugula, baby spinach, callions, cilantro, sprouts, sunflower seeds, apples, walnuts, pears, grapes, pineapple, okra, broccoli, crimini mushrooms, portobello mushrooms, tomaotes, onion, roasted red peppers, roasted garlic, squash, roasted fingerling potatoes, roasted eggplant, marinated tofu, carrots, artichoke hearts, sun dried tomatoes, red beets, olives, kim-chee, and shitake mushrooms with your choice of tomato sauce or spicy red sauce…they have a pesto but i am not sure if it is vegan and the richard’s bbq sauce is not vegan there is worcestershire sauce in the bbq sauce.
i would definitly reccommed this place and can’t wait to try their kimchi pizza
So I have to admit Neil and I loved New Ethic and not only did we go their Friday night we went Sunday for lunch as well. Friday night we met up with our friend Monica and we decided to each get something and share it since we were all curious as to what everything tasted like. Neil ordered the nachos, Monica the fried chicken sandwich, and I ordered the soul food plate, we also got a side of mac and cheeze to share.
Let me tell you this was amazing food. The nachos were perfect they were sooo fresh and good! The chicken sandwich yum yum yum, their mock chicken is the best I have ever had. The mac and cheese really good too (my hubby and I would have liked some ketchup for it or hot sauce but it was good anyways). Lastly the super star of this dinner was the soul food plate which consisted of fried chik’n with ranch dressing, mashed potatoes, green beans and corn bread; all of this was incredible the chik’n so good, the cornbread was sweet and yummy and the potatoes soo good the only thing that was meh where the green beans but that can easily be overlooked.
On sunday Neil got the Sweet chili burger with coconut bacon and i got the cobb salad. Both were really good. The coconut bacon which everyone was raving about was good however I felt that the coconut flavor was slightly over powering in my salad, it was great on the burger though.
Over all this restuarant is amazing and anyone who comes to Burlington….or VT in general should make a special trip here.
