Mrs. Winston's Green Grocery

 Two locations in Santa Monica & one in Century City, MRS. WINSTON'S GREEN GROCERY is truly LA'S BEST!  What a gem!  Here are pics of the one in CC...

It has a Sandwich Bar, a Salad Bar AND a Soup Bar! And all three ARE UNREAL! Amazing selection (especially for VEGETARIANS!) and meat-eaters alike! Fresh, clean, abundant, yummy, organic, hormone free meats, and did I say VEGAN???? They offer at least 10 different vegan meat-like options ( Vegan Pastrami is viewed in pic, Vegan chicken salad, etc).
You can make your own sandwich with different kinds of breads, meats, cheeses, spreads, etc.

They also have a soup bar with 4-5 different options, of which half are VEGAN! And DELISH!

Salad bar is amazing too, they have a Vegan Chocolate Pudding too!

Can't wait to go back for more!!

NATURAL PRODUCT EXPO WEST.... a bit delayed...

So, I know I'm a week late.  But, to my defense, I ate A LOT there, and had EVEN MORE to eat from my take-homes, so I needed some time to eat, digest and now, write.  So, the pic above is of 1/40th of all the stuff I was given at the show to take home.  This is on top of the MILLION of sampled foods there.  So, yeah, I'm still digesting!

Don't get me wrong, this expo was the most AMAZING event I have ever been to, TRULY!  I mean for someone like me, a foodie, a vegetarian, and a lover of anything NATURAL, it was PURE HEAVEN.  All the big names were there: Amy's, Daiya, Double Rainbow, Soy-Licious, Chicago Soy, Yogi, Kind Bars, Lara Bars, Tom's Toothpaste, Gardenburger, Macrobar, Organic Sunshine Burgers, TaDah!, Eden Organic, Tea's Tea, Cas Cal, Steaz Teas, Dagoba Organic Chocolate, Prince Tahini, TerasWhey, Liberte Yogurt, Sol Cuisine Vegan Gluten-Free Burgers, EatPastry Vegan Cookie Dough, Stonewall's Vegan Jerquee, Hodo Soy Beanery, AND A MILLION MORE...

I STILL have bags and bags (and bagsss) of stuff from them.  I think the best and easiest way to go about this is name some of my top favs (That I can still remember).  So, here it goes:

Matt's Muchies (Premium Fruit Snack)- Island Mango
Stephen James Luxury Organics - Beauty Bar
Crunchfuls (Cereal)
TahDah! - Lemon-Garlic Hummus Falafel Wrap
Organic Sunshine Burgers - Falafel
Soy-Licious
Chicago Soydairy Dandies VEGAN MARSHMALLOWS & TEESE CHEESE
Amy's Pizzas
Daiya
Hodo Soy Beanery
EatPastry Vegan Cookie Dough

There's so much more that I'm probably leaving out. BUT, if and when I do remember, I will do an UPDATE!  Please feel free to comment on this if you guys were there and have any favs of your own!

Followers...

Thought I'd throw this out there, in case any of you want to follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/melmoradi.

That's it. Have a nice weekend :)

Fig & Olive Los Angeles - Review

Fig & Olive (a NYC restaurant) opened up their flagship West Coast location in Weho last week (off of La Cienega/Melrose Place).  Checked it out Wednesday night...

Variety of Crostinis (some half eaten...)
TOP FAVS: 1. Mushroom, Truffled Artichoke, Parmesan
2. Manchego, Fig, Marcona Almond

Fig & Olive Salad: Lettuces, Fig, Apple, Manchego, Gorgonzola, Walnut, etc.
UMMM....ONE OF THE BEST SALADS I'VE HAD...EVER!

Provence Vegetables & Burrata
GOOD, NOT GREAT. PESTO RICOTTA WAS INTERESTING...

They start out your night by bringing a trio of olive oils and some delicious pastry-like foccacia bread to your table. 

In addition to the things shown above, we also ordered the PENNE FUNGHI TARTUFO and it was pretty darn good. But, then again, you could put Truffle oil on the bumper of a car and it would be BOMB so...

Other things were ordered, but weren't good enough for a mention here so if you do go make sure to order the Crostinis I mentioned and the salad.  All the desserts are AMAZING too!

BTW, Vegans: some of the crostinis are vegan, as are some of the Vegetable and Soup dishes.

Organic Japanese-Style CREPES in Bev Hills...SO GOOD!

So, my cousin has been raving about this place for months now and today, finally, I had a chance to give it a try.  It's called Harajuku and here's the website: http://www.harajukucrepe.us/.

I was curious what made them Japanese instead of French and the owner explained to me that Japanese-style crepes are much simpler, thinner, and healthier (with use of fresh, natural, simple ingredients).  They don't overstuff and overdo their crepes - Making them deliciously light and perfect for on-the-go munching! What's more, Harajuku Crepe strives to use seasonal, organic ingredients in their dishes!


Here's a pic of my Earl Grey Tea flavored crepe batter filled with organic peanut butter and bananas and strawberries!

They offer lots of options, from breakfast crepes to savory crepes and yummy decadent dessert crepes....

During my chat with the owner, I kept pushing for the addition of a VEGAN crepe on the menu and he said he was trying to come up with one and should have one available SOON! SO EXCITING!