Vegan Vegan Con Takes Texas: The Bazaar!

I'm back with another Vida Vegan Con recap! Tonight, I'll be sharing pics and tales of the wild and crazy Vegan Bazaar, Friday's pre-conference vegfest with special talks, panels, and most importantly, free food samples!

Friday morning started off a little rough though. We had our hearts set on grabbing some vegan biscuits and gravy from the Biscuits & Groovy food truck. And we got there right as it was opening, but they hadn't yet made their vegan biscuits. And there was "an hour or two" wait for the biscuits to be cooked (seriously, how can biscuits take an hour or two?). So we headed to Vegan Nom, a vegan taco truck, for breakfast tacos. But they were closed because they were packing up to head to the VVC Vegan Bazaar, which started at noon. So we went with our third breakfast option — Bouldin Creek Cafe.


What luck! This place was amazing! We all ordered the Renedict, a vegan eggs benedict with Bouldin's best-ever nooch-coated tofu scramble and homemade tofu bacon served over ciabatta bread and topped with vegan hollandaise. DUUUUUUDE! Also, we got hash browns on the side. Best breakfast I had in Austin!


While at Bouldin, we discovered the most amazing hot sauce that will surely be something I cannot live without out. It's called Yellowbird Habanero Sauce, and it's made in Austin. I bought some later at Rabbit Food Grocery (more on them in a later post!), but I'll be needing to order more as soon as this runs out. Here's Sheridan and Drew checking it out.


And here's Paul and I just chillin' with our iced coffee.


After breakfast (or was it really brunch?), we headed over to the Marchesa Theatre for the VVC Vegan Bazaar! The first hour of the bazaar was reserved for conference attendees (and our plus-ones), and during that time, we were treated to a buffet of Miyoko's Creamery Cheeses!


The bazaar opened to the public at 1 p.m., and I was scheduled to give a demo on DIY Homebrewing right away. I talked about making kombucha and ginger beer, and we went through the basics of SCOBYs, ginger bugs, and fermentation!


After I was done with my talk, it was doughnut time! Red Rabbit Co-op was there peddling the softest, awesomest vegan doughnuts. I went with Chocolate Maple because maple.


The rest of our time at the bazaar was all about free samples! I tried the new Jackfruit Carnitas from Upton's Naturals in this tiny taco!


And tiny nachos made with Spicy Chia Cheeze from Heidi Ho Organics.


Earth Balance was sampling avocado toast made with their avo margarine spread and mac & cheese shooters (yes, I did a shot of mac & cheese ... skillz). And they had this cute photo booth!


We ate lots more stuff (jackfruit tamales! cookies! mini cupcakes!) and bought some stuff (animal rights tees! buttons! jewelry! treats!). And then we took a break at the bar for vegan Bloody Marys!


We were stuffed after the bazaar, so rather than head straight to dinner, we hit up Cornucopia, a build-your-own popcorn tin shop! They have a number of vegan flavors, so we sampled them all!


And then we built custom popcorn tins. I can't remember what Sheridan and Drew got, but I picked Garlic & Herb, Texas BBQ, and Chili Lime.


Friday night was lovely, but there was rain forecast for the next couple days (even though it didn't end up raining much at all!). So we figured Friday night would be a good night for checking out some food trucks!


Out of my list of all the places I wanted to eat in Austin, Baton Creole was NUMBER ONE! Cajun food truck!


They serve a legendary Vegan Jambalaya on a Stick and Vegan Beignets. I had one of each, thank you very much.



In case you're wondering what jambalaya on a stick involves, here's an inside shot. There were cubes of spicy tofu speared through the middle of the stick, and that was covered in a generous amount of jambalaya rice. It's battered, deep-fried, and served with spicy mayo. This was, hands down, the best thing I ate in Austin.


Whew. That's enough deliciousness for one day! I'll be back tomorrow with eats from day one of the official conference!
 •  0 comments  •  flag
Share on Twitter
Published on June 03, 2015 19:24
No comments have been added yet.


Bianca Phillips's Blog

Bianca Phillips
Bianca Phillips isn't a Goodreads Author (yet), but they do have a blog, so here are some recent posts imported from their feed.
Follow Bianca Phillips's blog with rss.