Weekend Roadtrips are Fun. part one: London. (Chil Frozen Yogurt)

I’ve been wanting to visit Michigan again for a while. It’s been about two years since our last visit to Detroit, and this weekend seemed like the perfect opportunity since we were planning on being in London, Ontario for the Anarchist Bookfair this past weekend.

This of course makes sense if you’re not an agent in either of the involved boarder crossing agencies. Neither Canadian nor USA agents appreciate the amazing bounty of vegan goods that we can find a mere hour or two away from Canada, or why we’d bother going over just to visit three whole foods locations and any hippie market we could find. Or maybe they would – but we haven’t yet found the need for cross border declarations of veganism, but maybe if they put it on my passport it would explain why we drove 4 hours away from home to buy food.

The original plan was to drive down to London to check out the anarchist bookfair and hopefully add to my zine library (which is ample) and go back home. But eventually that evolved to stopping in Detroit for a few hours. Which eventually turned into spending the night in Ferndale.

After a quick walk through of the bookfair, I realized I had most of the zines on offer, but one thing that was super cool and interesting and beautiful was comic/art book called Red: A Haida Manga by Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas. There is a video about the book here:

If I ever see it again at a book fair or in a store I will buy it. Beautiful isn’t it?

After wandering through the book fair, we decided to walk over to Veg Out. It’s been a favourite spot to eat at whenever I’ve been in London, Ontario. Alas – it wasn’t meant to be, as they were closed for the holiday weekend.

But, on the bright side, while we were walking along Richmond to Veg Out, we saw this sign for Chil Frozen Dessert Bar, and it drew us in. Just look at this bright pink sign (and the welcoming outdoor patio seating area in the background.)

It spoke to me, really it did, because it said “Many Dairy Free and Vegan Options,” and that’s a major interest area.

One of the owners was nice enough to show us around the place, but being a froyo at an expert level now, I knew what I was doing. But there were too many choices. They rotate two options between non-dairy milk types (almond, soy, hemp, quinoa) this time they had a vanilla soy and a quinoa based one.

They also had two sorbettos to choose from, a mango one, and a “Super Food Fusion” which was a blend of fruit and vegetables which sounded interesting.

In addition to the four flavours that I mentioned, they also said they could make 60 other flavour combo’s with any of their non-dairy based frozen desserts in the back if we wanted (for a small extra charge)

They let us sample everything, but ultimately the quinoa based frozen soft serve won out (and I was pleasantly surprised by how good it was).

This was my lunch so of course I added peanut butter sauce for extra protein, some almond slivers for texture, and some dark chocolate sauce – just because.

Next stop, after walking back to our car was Detroit! I have more to share on that later!

Other vegan friendly spots in London, Ontario/resources

• Vegup London is a social group for anyone who is vegetarian, vegan, or curious about going veg and eating healthy. VegUp events are held monthly.
• VegFest London is coming up on October 25, 2014
• Jambalaya – 119 Dundas (also downtown) – Cajun/Creole cuisine, with vegan options on menu. Closed
• London Zen Gardens – 344 Dundas (Downtown London) – lacto-ovo-vegetarian restaurant. Vegan friendly.
• Organic Works – bakery

Do you have any other places to suggest?