shizenya!

for lunch today, i went to shizenya, an organic brown rice sushi place downtown (vancouver) on hornby. what is especially awesome is they have a no-rice roll! to be a complete raw nerd, i brought some of my raw nori and asked if they could use that for the 'organic greens roll' (avocado, mango, cucumber, bell pepper, sprouts, spring mix lettuce). 

isn't it beautiful?

i'm hoping that maybe they'll start using the raw nori so they can have one completely raw and vegan item on their menu as, well, it's great having options! and this restaurant is really great. with lots of vegan options too! (nothing worse than only being able to order a kappa roll when going out for sushi with friends!) they just opened up about a year ago and they are doing the sushi thing RIGHT. and everyone i have brought here loves it!

hooray for coming home!

i had such an amazing time with amazing people in korea but i have to admit, i'm pretty excited about getting to make my own food again and get to eat my favourite kinds of things!

first stop yesterday when i got home was some food to go from gorilla food:
i got a choco gorilla shake (almonds, cacao, banana, hempseeds, date, coconut oil) to try keep me awake while i waited for the food. i know being awake 26+ hours played a big role but waiting 40 minutes seemed excessive for my salad) and 2 treats to go (the cinnamon almond goji crunch cookie and a piece of the fudge).

 i got the great gorilla salad which really felt good because i have been craving dark greens and avocados and almonds and hemp seeds.... it was worth the wait! but the best part was getting to hang out with lovely people later when i ate it!

okay and then today... my parents were out and my favourite person's birthday was 2 days ago so we had a lovely early dinner together at organic lives, another place i've been excited to go back to since korea.
i ate some of my parents' sushi and mexispirals and split this tostada salad to start. SOOOOO GOOD.

 and then i got the mushroom pasta (zucchini noodles are always a win but the sauce is too much raw mushroom taste - it needs more kick! i mixed the side salad with its citrus dressing in to help). the masala burger on yam bread was pretty good - some sauce would do it quite well. the dehydrated 'bun' and dehydrated 'burger' is too much dehydrated stuff, you know?
so... the tostada salad was definitely my favourite. but it was exciting to try some new things there! and it gets my brain buzzing with inspiration for making things at home!
there wasn't a black vitamix in stock so i guess i'll have to wait on getting that. sadness!

 when i got home, i regretted not getting some dessert to take home so i whipped up some macaroons with some coconut oil, coconut flakes, medjool dates and cacao powder and put them in the dehydrator for maybe an hour to warm them up a bit. they were a hit!

last morning in the cafeteria and on to incheon and narita airports!

last breakfast... last of my chia cereal, sundried tomatos, rawmesan, italian crackers... my chef friend gave me some oranges too. yippee!!!

i'm grateful to my go raw bars and gopal's nori sticks for getting me through the flights and waits to get home.

my vgml meals on japan airlines:

i couldn't eat all the white food! yuck! and the fruit salad was exactly like those fruit cups in the tin... gross! didn't touch the cherries. the dinner (middle picture) was definitely the best. it sucked that my least favourite selection was the one that was repeated.

my meat-eating friend still wished he had requested the vegan meal though! 

korean middle school cafeteria winter-styles day 20

my last full day at the school... i finished off my last package of rawgles, sliced some banana on top of my chia cereal (i have enough for tomorrow), and the salad was nice like last night and i added *roasted* nori again. i'm bringing home a full package of my raw nori. i just couldn't be bothered to make sushi much this time!

 my head chef friend presented me with a carrot rose... it tasted extra amazing. i miss eating carrots. i don't have much more than a few strips in a salad when i'm here!

 lunch... one lady working in the cafeteria said the kimchi was vegan but my head chef friend later told me it wasn't. i didn't expect it to be so i hadn't eaten any but took some to be polite. carrots and cukes were exciting! plus the last of my oil and vinegar atop of the salad with the last of my garden pesto crackers! and a banana snagged from breakfast. YAY!

 dinner.. a strange pairing... there was hot pot with fish intestine and such in it which of course i didn't partake in. the salad was served up in spaghetti which ended up being a sweet and red pepper paste spicy sauce that was animal free. i put 1/2 of the remainder of my sundried tomatoes and rawmesan on top expecting it to be the pasta sauce i had before. but it was fine. and i had taken the *roasted* nori - i ended up wrapping it in the leaf i picked up with the oranges. then i finished off the olives i brought, with help from friends ^_^ i gave one to the head chef to try and he couldn't finish it!

korean middle school cafeteria winter-styles day 19

breakfast... raw bagel and coconut oil, oranges, salad with *roasted* seaweed and chia cereal with bananas and cacao nibs.

 lunch... the last of my cacao nibs on top of a banana from darren. spicy lettuce stuff with rawmesan on top, salad with sundried tomatoes.

 dinner... the end of camp special buffet. the salad had more of a veggie selection and there were 3 fruits at once! other than that... not many options for me! i took some spaghetti noodles and french fries to pretend this was a great dinner for me too but yuck. i added jovan's raw element garden pesto crackers for some excitement.

korean middle school cafeteria winter-styles day 18

breakfast... raw bagel (it wasn't in pieces!), *roasted* seaweed, chili salted sprouted almonds, olive oil and apple cider vinegar, salad and apples!

 lunch... perilla and green leaf lettuce leaves, ice berg lettuce, raw 'italian' crackers, sundried tomatoes, dulse, oil and vinegar...

 dinner... banana (later mashed up with the cacao nibs! YES!), and same salad as above...

korean middle school cafeteria winter-styles day 17

breakfast... broccoli? potatoes and carrots? oh my! warmed food but a welcome change. i didn't even have cereal this morning! ooh and the 'asian pears' - oh yes!!!

this salad had some sundried tomatoes and dulse and oil and vinegar and it was kind of depressing. but then i found out the squash soup was vegan. and it was delicious! YESSSSSSS!

dinner... nori potatoey covered noodles of some sort, steamed greens and salad. worked for me. but i ate way too much and felt sick afterwards.

korean middle school cafeteria winter-styles day 16

before breakfast, i couldn't help myself but eat ALL of the treats mipa gave me yesterday. ok, darren had ONE but still. these were like a less sweet, softer chewy lara bar: persimmon taste instead of date and almonds and 2 other kinds of nuts. how did i forget already? i'm so grateful for these. i have to detox from sugar right now. yesterday was insane. and i want to feel normal again! thank you so much, mipa for these little orbs of delight!

the last of my almond milk today :( but what a way to go! i soaked the chia cereal in it, sliced up 2 bananas and sprinkled cacao nibs on top. this is HEAVEN. totally doing this when i get home too. well, if i can get away from my blender in the morning. i can't WAIT to make smoothies again!

there were cherry tomatoes this morning so i added them with some sundried tomatoes to the *roasted* seaweed atop of the iceberg lettuce salad.

 lunch... not raw but wow... options! baked squash? just had some at loving hut last night. i LOVE it so much!!! and then a spicy leaf and onion thing that was vegan. yippee! and perhaps the end of my brown rice?

 dinner was sad... even for the meat-eaters. i put some dulse and sun-dried toms and apple cider vinegar on top of the salad. and then ate a (non-raw!) clif bar. and then tried some freeze dried rambutan (very strange and doesn't taste natural at all except the smell is the same) and some chickpea miso soup.

day 2 of 2 in seoul...

breakfast in the cafeteria... bananas! hurrah! went oh so well with the last of my cranberry ginger chia cereal mixed with the plain chia cereal and almond milk! plus obligatory side salad.

 me and darren wandered around all over the place today but didn't eat anything substantial until dinner. seriously, we ate cookies from sticky fingers and yah, were running on sugar and adrenaline (it was the coldest day ever in seoul) until 6:30pm at loving hut achasan where we met up with 8 others! it was so awesome. we were there for 2 hours!!! i didn't have many raw things here either but all vegan and awesome. it was great to be eating with meat-eaters who couldn't believe it was all vegan!

korean middle school cafeteria winter-styles day 15

breakfast... the last of my granola (sniff!), some pineapple and salad/*roasted* nori, ahem, kim (i am in korea and all, i should be practicing my minimal korean)...

 there was tofu at lunch and soy/onion/veg sauce so i went for it. oranges were a nice surprise! (snuck some for later) and i added some hemp hearts to my salad.

 bean sprouts and onion or garlic or something with carrot strips and the salad... this time with the rest of my package of hemp hearts and the end of my bag of croutons. apple cider vinegar to keep it from blowing away...

now that i'm approaching my last week (i leave in one week tomorrow morning!), i'm thinking of emptying my jars (olives, walnut butter, chickpea miso...) so i don't come back with half-used food. i'd rather keep things unopened or totally demolish them. so we'll see how it all works out...
i'm getting super excited to get a vitamix when i get home (i got some money for one for christmas/birthday) and start making some new foods at home! making food at home again (rather than on trays in the cafeteria or at the desk in my room) will be AMAZING.
seoul tomorrow! yay!!!

korean middle school cafeteria winter-styles day 14

getting close to the end of my raw granola stuff. tomorrow is the last day of that! had it with almond milk, but of course, and the obligatory salad with *roasted* seaweed and brought the last of my homemade dehydrator ginger red onion flax crackers. by the time i got to breakfast this morning, one of the chefs was carting the oranges away! boo! they brought out persimmons right after which is great too of course. but it's exciting to switch up the fruit!

 lunch... okay this was the envy of every eye that spied my tray. one of the chefs prepared some of my brown rice and then they had what i think are perilla leaves steamed up and salad that i put apple cider vinegar and hemp seeds on. i rolled up some brown rice with the greens and some salad and dehydrated lemon ginger pumpkin seeds inside raw nori.

 oh yes! not perfect looking but oh so great!!!

 tonight i got another bowl of the brown rice but i was too lazy to make sushi so i just had the nori broken up on top (doesn't mix as easily as the roasted stuff but it was still a welcome taste). the salad was topped with the vinegar and hemp seeds again.

korean middle school cafeteria winter-styles day 13

breakfast! the raw hemp granola and almond milk and salad and persimmons on the side! yay!

some green stuff on the side was exciting at lunch. also the banana because, oh yah, mashed it up again with cacao nibs. LOVE THIS. added hemp seed to my salad. had to eat a vega vibrance bar after this though. and some teriyaki sprouted almonds!

 dinner... my head chef friend made some of the organic brown rice i brought! hurrah! it was nice to have something warm, i have to admit. it tasted like oatmeal. but i was hungry and it worked MUCH better than the white rice they serve. i have been confusing the chef by not taking white rice (which is served at every meal)... it is vegan but to me, it is so pointless (and maybe even painful!) to eat it!
ooh anyways, i had salad too (duh) and splashed some apple cider vinegar on it with crumbs of raw bagels. drinking some chickpea miso as i write this... 3 days until seoul and 9 days until i leave for home!

korean middle school cafeteria winter-styles day 12

breakfast... the mandarins were cut in half for whatever reason (to prevent us from sneaking them into our backpacks?). i had a container with me so i snuck some out, along with the cut persimmons they put out later. this was soooo great to have later in the morning! i had some more of the hemp buckwheat granola stuff with almond milk and some of the regular salad... i brought the remains of my box of quinoa to the head chef and managed to explain how to make it (through an interpreter) and it seemed he would bring me out some for lunch so i was excited for something new.

 well, an even bigger surprise at lunch was having a bowl put aside for me with spaghetti and sauce without the meat! i had the same meal as everyone else! not raw but hurrah for vegan! plus, the quinoa was made too! so i had some of that with the leftover sauce. i wasn't even hungry at dinner.

 but i couldn't resist eating the rest of the quinoa. and some boiled beyond belief cabbage. gross. but it was something different. i even found a strip of beet in my salad. um, not so inspiring. i tried some of my lydia's organics italian crackers (that i found in seattle) and they were a lot more inspiring!

korean middle school cafeteria winter-styles day 11

breakfast... i had saved a banana from yesterday and couldn't resist mashing it up with cacao nibs like last night's lovely treat! there were oranges and well, salad! and today i thought i should open up the organic almond milk i brought and the goji hemp buckwheaties that i had bought back home at buddha-full. i found it a little bland until i got to the exciting golden berries but really, it was a nice comfort food in the morning. i was hungry by noon though which was a bummer and had to grab a larabar. i wish larabars were raw and organic but i love how simple the ingredients of them are! so really i should be making them myself!

 lunch - an orange i saved, some steamed greens of some sort with garlic salt and then i poured some dulse crumbs and spanish almond croutons from back home at organic lives. i am already regretting i only brought one bag of them with me this trip. i just have a few crumbs left for a iceberg lettuce salad in the very near future.

 dinner... it was a sad night tonight for me as everyone was buzzing about this squash dish that had cheese mixed all through it. i was happy there was cold (yet previously steamed) broccoli and i almost finished off my croutons (alongside dulse again) on the salad. i am so graetful for my bag of spirulina superchips which i managed to eat all of while typing on this here computer. i was so excited to see them at drive organics before i left as i have always ordered the bars from vegan essentials for these korea trips when i have time to wait for them to cross the border. well, a bag costs $10 in vancouver but online, it's $5.49 u.s. bleh. oh well, it was worth it! of course i didn't know i'd end up in seattle the day before i left for korea where i could get 2 bars for $4 at whole foods! ANYWAYS.. this is not a price comparison blog, i swear.

korean middle school cafeteria winter-styles day 10

breakfast... chia cereal (which i added apple slices too - i guess i forgot to include them in this photo!) and the usual salad and *roasted* seaweed...

 lunch salad... sundried tomatoes atop of the rest of a bag of rhythm superfoods zesty nacho kale chips and some olive oil to hold it all together. YES!

 dinner... not so exciting salad as there's just sundried tomato on top. BUT! there were bananas! and i had brought cacao nibs with me! i mashed up some bananas and oh goodness, was that the best. happy sigh!

heart + seoul

i only get 2 days in seoul this trip and today was one of them. eek!

day started in the school cafeteria... and i tried my room-made quinoa with chickpea miso and hemp seeds atop of the salad with *roasted* seaweed and lovely oranges on the side!

 okay and i didn't get a photo of just my roasted veggie burger at the 'honest' loving hut restaurant in itaewon. oops. well it's not raw either. but vegan amazingness!
me and darren met mipa from alien's day out at veggie holic bakery which was rad!
and then for dinner i had a veggie burrito plus avocado sans cheese and sour cream at dos tacos in hongdae. also not raw at all but mighty delicious!