{"id":144,"date":"2011-04-06T18:01:00","date_gmt":"2011-04-06T18:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/meshell.ca\/blog\/?p=144"},"modified":"2011-04-06T18:01:00","modified_gmt":"2011-04-06T18:01:00","slug":"veggilicious-vegan-scavenger-hunts-and-hot-beans-vegan-springtime-fun-in-toronto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meshell.ca\/blog\/veggilicious-vegan-scavenger-hunts-and-hot-beans-vegan-springtime-fun-in-toronto\/","title":{"rendered":"Veggilicious, Vegan Scavenger Hunts and Hot Beans. Vegan springtime fun in Toronto"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Spring is coming, or creeping along, and I&#8217;m really looking forward to the warmer weather. Soon it&#8217;ll be time for picnics and lounging on patios. This summer is going to be full of fun veg*n events (in Toronto, and all over the place (<a href=\"http:\/\/vidavegancon.com\/\">Vida Vegan Con<\/a>!)), and I can&#8217;t wait to participate.<\/p>\n<p>This past Thursday (March 31st, 2011) was my first Vegan Rock TVA fundraiser at The Boat in Kensington Market, and I had a great time. Music and vegan baked goods (which disappeared quickly, so it paid to be early), random conversations with other local vegans, and just an all around fun time.<\/p>\n<p>There were treats by some very awesome people, and I was curious who&nbsp;the volunteer bakers were (so I asked around). I&#8217;m happy to say I probably got to try&nbsp;some of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.apiecalypsenow.com\/\">Apiecalypse Now&#8217;s<\/a> vegan treats (since I snacked on something from every dish) and had a very cute yummy little cupcake from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecupcaketree.ca\/\">TheCupcakeTree<\/a> (which is not an exclusively vegan business.) The other folks were rad private individuals that volunteered their time to help out, so thank you to them!<\/p>\n<p>After the snack fest and mingling, there were performances by a diverse group of performers, from the all instrumental work of  <a href=\"http:\/\/morethanbreathing.bandcamp.com\/\">More Than Breathing<\/a>, the indie, slightly haunting, vocals of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.myspace.com\/jacquelinerendell\">Jacqueline Rendell<\/a>, the mindblowing 12 string guitar in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.myspace.com\/dreamawakemusic\">Dream Awake<\/a>, and an inspirational rap set from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.myspace.com\/hushmoneyband\">Hush Money<\/a> (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/#%21\/pages\/Hush-Money\/\">fan them on FB<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p><center><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/prairiev\/5595231287\/\" title=\"hushmoney by MeShellG, on Flickr\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm6.static.flickr.com\/5109\/5595231287_c31b02d04a.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"300\" alt=\"hushmoney\"><\/br><br \/>\n<\/a><\/center><br \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.veggielicious.ca\/\">Veggielicious<\/a> is coming so soon! Starting on April 9th, 2011 and ending on April 24th, various places around the city of Toronto (as well&nbsp;as a few places&nbsp;a little further)&nbsp;will be offering specials on vegan meals around the city. There is such a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.veggielicious.ca\/restaurants\/\">great list of restaurants<\/a>, including some surprises, that keeps getting updated with specials. I&#8217;m really looking forward to trying some of the places I haven&#8217;t made it out to yet. <\/p>\n<p>If you haven&#8217;t heard yet, there will be a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.torontoveganscavengerhunt.com\/\">Vegan Scavenger Hunt<\/a> on Saturday June 2nd 2011, in Kensington Market, Toronto,&nbsp;(noon to 6pm.) They are on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/TorontoVeganScavengerHunt\">facebook<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/vgnscavengrhunt\">twitter<\/a>, so follow them for updates! Registration starts on April 25th! I don&#8217;t know about you, but I&#8217;m pretty stoked to participate. Now I just need to think of a team name&#8230; oh and find a team!<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve been pretty late to the <a href=\"http:\/\/hotbeansvegan.com\/\">Hot Beans<\/a>(160 Baldwin St. Toronto, ON) love party, but I&#8217;ve been there a lot in the last few weeks if that&#8217;s any indication of how much I like it. They&#8217;ve got a great location, right in Kensington Market. Most of the time the food has been totally great, I&#8217;d recommend heading over there earlier in the day though before they run out of the good stuff. Plus on weekend they have breakfast burritos! (Which I haven&#8217;t tried yet, but I&#8217;d like to.)<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t think I can recommend the donuts enough. I had one of the espresso glazed ones a few weeks ago and it was overwhelmingly delicious and fluffy, plus the glaze was just stellar, sweet with a hint of creamy coffee.<\/p>\n<p><center><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/prairiev\/5498241590\/\" title=\"Espresso Glaze from Hot Beans by MeShellG, on Flickr\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm6.static.flickr.com\/5255\/5498241590_0d3541dd8f.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"300\" alt=\"Espresso Glaze from Hot Beans\"><\/a><\/center><br \/>\nI like the mix and match option with the tacos, I usually get the Yuba and the Jackfruit, but last week I tried the TVP and I was pleasantly surprised. (I was expecting tiny chunks of TVP but it was more like half chunks of nutrella\/<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ishopindian.com\/images\/D\/mdh_soyatein_c.jpg\">soyatein<\/a> if you&#8217;ve ever had it.) Everything is spiced well, but they offer hot sauces with varying degrees of spiciness on the side. So what I&#8217;m saying is, go try it. It&#8217;s good. You can find their <a href=\"http:\/\/hotbeansvegan.com\/menu\/\">take out menu <\/a>on their <a href=\"http:\/\/hotbeansvegan.com\">website<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><center><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/prairiev\/5498240488\/\" title=\"TACOS by MeShellG, on Flickr\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm6.static.flickr.com\/5293\/5498240488_0e75e09bf4.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"300\" alt=\"TACOS\"><\/a><\/center><br \/>\nAnother nice thing about Hot Beans is that everything they use, from the containers to the forks to the cups, is compostable. They have a compost bin and a recycle bin, and that&#8217;s it. Now that it&#8217;s a little after lunch time, I&#8217;m thinking it would be a good time to go grab their nacho plate. Ciao!<\/p>\n<p><center><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/prairiev\/5595811158\/\" title=\"2011-03-29 15.34.27 by MeShellG, on Flickr\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm6.static.flickr.com\/5174\/5595811158_55d6ae194a_m.jpg\" width=\"240\" height=\"180\" alt=\"2011-03-29 15.34.27\"><\/a>  <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/prairiev\/5595811482\/\" title=\"2011-03-29 15.44.46 by MeShellG, on Flickr\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm6.static.flickr.com\/5176\/5595811482_f2c78a54c9_m.jpg\" width=\"240\" height=\"180\" alt=\"2011-03-29 15.44.46\"><\/a> <\/center><br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Spring is coming, or creeping along, and I&#8217;m really looking forward to the warmer weather. Soon it&#8217;ll be time for picnics and lounging on patios. This summer is going to be full of fun veg*n events (in Toronto, and all over the place (Vida Vegan Con!)), and I can&#8217;t wait&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[228,199,230,227,101,231,229],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-burritos","category-donuts","category-hot-beans","category-tacos","category-toronto","category-vegan-scavenger-hunt","category-veggilicious"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/meshell.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/meshell.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/meshell.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meshell.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meshell.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/meshell.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/meshell.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meshell.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meshell.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}