My now-open vegan sandwich shop, Phoney Baloney's, has been coming up on some amazing organic strawberries grown right down the street from the shop. As an ardent lover of good strawberries, I decided we had to have some seasonal specials to use these gems, so we added:

Strawberry Cookie Monster - Cookie butter, vegan cream cheese, fresh strawberries and agave drizzle, panini pressed between two slices of whole wheat sourdough. $4.95 (Think vegan stuffed french toast.)

Picker's Salad - Local, organic "European" spinach, red onion, strawberries and candied pecans dressed in our house balsamic vinaigrette. $3.49 / $5.95

Phoney's is open Monday-Friday 11am-9pm and Saturday 11am-4pm. Closed Sundays.

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Laventina's Big Cheese Pizza on the Balboa peninsula has been a community staple in the Newport Beach community for almost two decades now. The pizza joint, known for feeding Patron-powered peninsula partiers until 3am on the weekends, is committed to providing great pizza to their more mellow daytime crowd as well, not relying on booze soaked palates to carry their business.

I had previously had cheeseless vegan pizza a few times from Laventina's, which was good as is, but I was ecstatic when I recently saw an ad of theirs claiming "vegan, dairy-free and gluten-free options" now available. Last week, on a gorgeous, sunny Southern California afternoon, I decided to ride my bike down to the peninsula to check out the new offerings from Laventina's.

I made this video as a quick recap of all the fun we had at our vegan quesadilla party at Phoney Baloney's for Cinco de Mayo. A very special thanks to Galaxy Nutritional Foods for sponsoring the event with their amazing Mexican Style Vegan Shreds.

Phoney Baloney's opens to the public this Thursday, May 17th. Hope you can stop in for some tasty, affordable vegan sammies!

Click here to visit the Galaxy Foods site.

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Galaxy was kind enough to send me a couple packages of these, asking for a Cinco de Mayo post in return. I told them I love quesadillas, so I would surely write a post about using their shreds in some vegan quesadillas. Since I like to go above and beyond what is required of me, instead of just writing this post, I am throwing an entire vegan quesadilla party tomorrow for Cinco de Mayo at my soon to open sandwich shop, Phoney Baloney's. Can you guess what kind of cheese we'll be using?

Here is the menu for Saturday's vegan quesadilla party at Phoney Baloney's. For $4.95 you get a custom vegan quesadilla made with Galaxy Nutritional Foods' new Vegan Mexican Style Shreds. If you haven't yet tried these new amazing shreds, this is your chance! Our friends at EatPastry will also be providing cookies for dessert. Hope to see you there!

Click here to follow Phoney Baloney's on Twitter.

Click here to "like" Phoney Baloney's on Facebook.

Click here for the Facebook event page to RSVP.

Click here for directions to Phoney Baloney's.

My new vegan sandwich shop, Phoney Baloney's, which will open in May, is hosting a vegan quesadilla party for Cinco de Mayo! Here are the details:

While there have been vegan parmesan substitutes on the market for a while, no one has really nailed... until now. Since most vegan parmesans are just a blend of nutritional yeast, nuts and spices, most vegans (I think) find themselves just reverting to plain nooch since it's cheaper and easier.

Now the vegan parmesan paradigm is being shifted by Parmela, a brand new product that just began to hit specialty and natural foods markets. Parmela does use nuts and nutritional yeast, but their product is then fermented, giving it a truly cheesy flavor profile. I tasted it by itself as soon as I opened the box, and I knew immediately that this was the real deal.

If you read my meticulous review of all the new vegan products at Expo West 2012, you know one of the most buzzworthy items was Daiya's new wedges, which come in cheddar, havarti and jack varieties. I had mixed feelings when I tasted them at Expo West, but luckily the fine folks at Daiya sent me home with one of each new flavor.

Urbantag is a new app for sharing your favorite places in any given neighborhood, and it offers some unique features compared to something like Yelp or Foursquare. Urbantag has asked me to be their "tastemaker" for vegan dining in Los Angeles, and I am honored to contribute to this new venture. You can check out my map, or download the app to use on the go. I'll be adding a bunch of new places as I review them (I currently have 5 LA reviews in the pipeline) so stay tuned!

From urbantag:

We’ve all shared emails and recycled lists of recommended spots - either for an insider’s travel tips to a city, or simply where to eat a good meal in a specific neighborhood. Urbantag gives you a single platform to share places with people you trust, ensuring your favorites are always available, social and fresh.

Although I don't have enough time to keep up on this site as much as I should, I sometimes get a free minute or two to write a guest post for other vegan sites. With my vegan sandwich shop, Phoney Baloney's, opening in May, I recently had the privilege to write a sandwich post for Happy Herbivore.

Happy Herbivore is the creation of Lindsay S. Nixon, best-selling vegan cookbook author whose simple approach to low-fat, healthy, animal-free food has created a loyal following of "Herbies" who have seen positive results from the implementation of Lindsay's recipes. I am honored to have been able to contribute to the site, and hope you will take a minute to check out the article by clicking here.

Click here to visit the Happy Herbivore site.

Click here to follow Happy Herbivore on Twitter.

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