jenojoon

Here is the second installment detailing some of the yummy food I ate on my recent work trip to Los Angeles. I talked about the amazing sushi here.

One night we went to a little hole in the wall in downtown LA called Garage Pizza. I found it on Yelp and we decided to try it because it had vegan and non-vegan pizza options. We walked about 10 blocks from our hotel and we were a little sweaty by the time we got there. It was close to 100 degrees that week in LA. My omni dining companion and I each enjoyed a cold beer while we waited for our food. We both ordered calzones. I ordered the Vegan Calzone. Garage Pizza does not allow for any substitutions, which was fine with me. The vegan calzone had what I believe was Follow Your Heart mozzarella style cheese, vegan sausage, and peppers and onions. The crust was perfect. The insides were a little watery, but tasty. (the side of dipping sauce was bland and cold- only real drawback here) I know that doesn’t sound like the most appetizing review, but believe me, it was pretty good! I’d go there again for sure! (sorry- forgot to take a photo)

After eating our calzones we walked around the corner to Babycakes NYC, a vegan and gluten-free bakery in New York and now in LA. The little bakery was seriously adorable! All pink and girly with a giant painting of two fluffy white kitties. It reminded me of a rich little girl’s bedroom from the 60s…

babycakes pumpkin spice cupcake

The guy and gal working the counter at Babycakes were also adorable and very friendly and helpful. I ordered a pumpkin spice cupcake, my companion order a ‘Sammie’ which was two oatmeal raisin cookies filled with buttercream frosting in the middle, and we also bought some day old banana bread slices to have for breakfast the next day. Everything was great! The cupcake was more muffin-like and was made perfect with the rich, sweet frosting. The Sammie was probably my favorite of all (I got to have a bite!), and the banana bread was still super moist even when it was two days old!

On the last day of the trip, on our way out of town actually, we stopped at Masa of Echo Park, again because I found them on Yelp stating they had vegan pizza. And they sure did!

vegan pizza!

I ordered the 12 inch thin crust pizza with Teese mozzarella, garlic, veggie pepperoni, and roasted red peppers. It cost $3 extra for the vegan cheese and $3 extra for the veggie pepperoni, plus the regular $1.50 extra for each of the other toppings. (ouch!) It was tasty, but nothing can compare to Daiya cheese for melting ability and taste. I ended up taking chunks of the Teese off because it got rubbery as it cooled. (to be fair, I never liked big chunks of melted dairy cheese when I ate that stuff either…) I ate half the pizza and took the other half home to enjoy later. It was delicious cold!

So that wraps up the high points of my trip. I can’t wait to get back to downtown LA for sushi and cupcakes!