Columbus trip

I recently went to Columbus, OH to finish my Christmas shopping. As I've said before, Columbus is only 2 hours from me and has a lot more to offer than my city. I went to Easton mall and got a lot accomplished but it was a grueling weekend of walking tons and shopping til I dropped. I ate at P.F. Chang's while I was at Easton (I always do when I visit) and was severely disappointed this time. I found out from my waitress that their tofu has wheat germ added to it. This makes very little sense to me and since the tofu is no longer gluten free, I couldn't partake in it. So instead I got the Buddha Bowl off of the GF menu which came to me as a big bowl of steamed broccoli. It had a couple mushrooms and carrots in it, but it was mostly broccoli. I love broccoli but I didn't want a whole bowl of it. I got the GF soy sauce on the side and dipped the veggies into it. The brown rice was also undercooked so it was kind of hard and chewy. It was a very bad experience.

I also ate at ZPizza. They have Daiya cheese and GF crust. I ordered mushrooms, zucchini, black olives, and artichokes as my toppings. This is what my pizza looked like:


You can't tell from the picture, but they didn't really cook the veggies and mushrooms. Despite this, the pizza was pretty good. The crust was better than expected. Not to bash ZPizza since I appreciate them offering Daiya and GF crust, but I have had a much better GF vegan pizza in Washington, D.C. at Pete's A Pizza. But Pete's doesn't have Daiya, they carry Teese which is my second favorite vegan cheese.

I went to Whole Foods to buy specialty foods because I only have a very tiny health food store where I live. Our store carries very little and consists of 3 aisles of food and some fridges. While at Whole Foods I looked (longingly) at their baked goods and came across these cupcakes, some of which were vegan but not GF:

So cute and festive!

I also visited a locally owned health food store, The Raisin Rack in Westerville, OH which is a suburb of Columbus. They have a food bar, salad bar, complete cafe menu, and smoothies. They had a lot of GF and vegan offerings so I had breakfast here before leaving to go back home. I got a really good tropical smoothie and the food bar.

No Columbus trip would be complete without a visit to Pattycake Bakery. I've mentioned them on here before because they are completely vegan and have GF offerings. I absolutely love them and so do my non-vegan friends and family! While there I picked up some of their Marry Me Blueberry Muffins (not GF) for family and my boyfriend. For myself I got a Buckeye Bar, Cranberry Almond cookie, and raw truffles. Delicious!

I'm really looking forward to Christmas. I get to see all of my family and my boyfriend is a wonderful gift giver. This is my favorite holiday and time of the year. I've already been watching Christmas movies that I love, such as The Year Without Santa Claus. I'm a sucker for claymation =]