Category / EATING OUT ANIMAL-FREE:

by Chef Sharon Davies-Tight

Mistakes Restaurants Make When Serving Vegan

THE IMPOSSIBLE BURGER

Let’s use as an example the IMPOSSIBLE BURGER that recently was introduced on many restaurant menus around the country – many animal-based restaurants.

The two in question are located downtown Cleveland, Ohio: STACK’D HANDCRAFTED SANDWICHES and WAHLBURGER’S.

Steve and I wanted to try the burger, so he checked both restaurants which claimed to carry it and they both did. However, neither restaurant provided a vegan bun or vegan cheese or vegan sauce. Everything except the burger was animal-based.

That’s like serving a gluten-free burger on a gluten bun to a person who does not eat gluten. It makes no sense.

As future chefs and restaurant owners, do the logical thing when serving vegan: Make the entire dish vegan or at least say it can be made vegan.

It almost seems intentional or a slap in the face to vegans who are the ones who worked and fought for decades to see these animal-free changes made in food offerings in restaurants. For meat-lovers only.

A vegan burger for meat lovers only. Flip it to the vegans who can’t have it because everything on it is animal-based. How small of STACK’D and WAHLBURGER’S.

WAHLBURGERS IMPOSSIBLE BURGER

Restaurant_Logos_Web_STACKD

 

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by Chef Sharon Davies-Tight

Bring Your Own Vegan Cheese (BYOVC)

ORIGINAL CRUST VEG PIZZA WITH PLANT-BASED CHEESE photo by THE ANIMAL-FREE CHEF

That’s what Papa Nicks in Cleveland, Ohio said it was okay to do. In fact they encouraged it when I asked about it. So the next time we ordered take-out on our way shopping to pick up later, we first dropped off some vegan cheeses: Daiya Mozzarella Shreds and Follow Your Heart Provolone Slices. They did a great job. We left the extra for them to try. They said they would.

 

by Chef Sharon Davies-Tight

Leslie’s Watermelon Mint Martini

LESLIE'S WATERMELON MINT MARTINI 1

At Tick Tock Tavern in Cleveland, Leslie often makes up special drinks for special customers. This one we titled Leslie’s Watermelon Mint Martini.

Wow, so good, refreshing, soothing.

In blender add:

Stolichnaya vodka

fresh watermelon (no rinds)

fresh mint

raspberry flavor

ice

Blend till frothy. Pour into martini glass.

Garnish with fresh watermelon wedges and organic grapes.

 

by Chef Sharon Davies-Tight

Eating Animal-Free In A Chinese Restaurant

 

by Chef Sharon Davies-Tight

IT’S ALL MOM’S FAULT

 

by Chef Sharon Davies-Tight

Animal-Free Sous-Chef Reaches New High For Photo Views

On Google Maps Sharon Lee Davies-Tight reaches new high of over 500,000 views of her EATING OUT ANIMAL-FREE photos.

CHECK THEM OUT RIGHT HERE: https://animal-freesous-chef.com/category/restaurants/

 

by Chef Sharon Davies-Tight

How to Order Vegan at Fast Food and Chain Restaurants | PETA

Did you know that vegan fast food totally exists? We put together this handy guide to help you navigate the chain restaurant world.

Vegan Fast Food is Here! Try These Options on the Go

What’s the deal with vegan food? Some of us never thought we’d see the day when Burger King or Denny’s offered veggie burgers, but now that they do, the millions of omnivores who eat there can see that choosing meat-free meals is easy and tasty.

 

Almost every restaurant has at least one vegan dish. By making educated choices and asking the server for assistance, dining out can be a delicious—and cruelty-free—experience! We put together this handy guide to help you navigate the chain restaurant world.

Baskin-Robbins

Remember going to Baskin-Robbins when you were knee-high to a grasshopper? Awaken the kid in you by trying the chain’s dairy-free and gelatin-free ices and sorbets, which are just as yummy and cooling as ice cream—without the pus and hormones.

Bennigan’s

A delicious vegetarian Boca burger and a fresh garden salad are your options at Bennigan’s.

BJ’s Restaurant and Brewhouse

The pizza crust and marinara sauce at BJ’s Restaurant and Brewhouse is vegan! Order a veggie pizza without cheese, and ask for your pizza not to be brushed with butter. Not in the mood for pizza? Order the spaghetti marinara.

Blaze Pizza

Blaze Pizza’s traditional and gluten-free crusts are vegan, and it also offers Daiya cheese. For your sauce, try the classic red or the spicy red sauce or a drizzle of BBQ sauce or olive oil…

Finish reading: How to Order Vegan at Fast Food and Chain Restaurants | PETA

 

by Chef Sharon Davies-Tight

Chipotle — Food with Integrity [???]

 

Food With Integrity is Chipotle’s commitment to responsibly raised animals, classic cooking techniques, whole ingredients, the environment, local produce.

DAY AFTER DAY WE’RE COMMITTED

To sourcing the very best ingredients we can find and preparing them by hand.

To vegetables grown in healthy soil, and pork from pigs allowed to freely root and roam outdoors or in deeply bedded barns.

We’re committed because we understand the connection between how food is raised and prepared, and how it tastes.

We do it for farmers, animals the environment, dentists, crane operators, ribbon dancers, magicians, cartographers and you.

With every burrito we roll or bowl we fill, we’re working to cultivate a better world.

IN THE KITCHEN WHOLE OR NOTHING REAL INGREDIENTS JUST TASTE BETTER.

We’re all about preparing food without added colors, flavors, or preservatives (other than lemon or lime juice, which can be used as preservatives — though we use them only for taste).

Just genuine raw ingredients and their individual, delectable flavors. We source from farms rather than factories, and spend a lot more on our ingredients than many other restaurants.

We wouldn’t have it any other way.

CULINARY CHOPS WE ACTUALLY COOK IN OUR KITCHENS.

Great ingredients deserve great preparation. Morning to night, our skilled crews use classic cooking techniques on the meticulously sourced meats and produce that are delivered regularly to each restaurant. It’s no coincidence that our founder and CEO is a classically trained chef.

G-M-OVER IT ONE STRONG STANCE DESERVES ANOTHER.

In 2013, Chipotle made headlines for becoming the first national restaurant chain to voluntarily disclose the presence of GMOs in our food. In 2015, we succeeded in our quest to switch to serving food made only with non-GMO ingredients.

ON THE FARM RESPONSIBLY RAISING THE BAR

We care deeply about where our ingredients come from. While industrial farming practices have evolved to maximize profits and production, we make an extra effort to partner with farmers, ranchers, and other suppliers whose practices emphasize quality and responsibility. See how we’re making choices with farmers, animals, and the environment in mind.

FARMS

We believe that small farms come in many sizes, that it’s more about what you do than how big you are. Our suppliers share many of our values. Here are two to chew on.

We develop close relationships with many of the farmers, ranchers, and other suppliers who produce the ingredients we serve every day.

We partner with farms that prioritize the long-term health of their land.

ANIMALS

We think that animals raised outdoors or in deeply-bedded pens are happier and healthier than those raised in confinement. With our suppliers, we take a firm stand on two things.

We’re serious about pasture-raised animals that have room to be animals.

There’s no place for nontherapeutic antibiotics or added hormones on the farms that produce our ingredients.

BEYOND CULTIVATING A BETTER WORLD

We’ve always done things differently, both in and out of our restaurants. Check out how we’re changing the face of fast food, starting conversations, and directly supporting efforts to shift the future of farming and food. We hope you’ll join us as we continue to learn, evolve, and shape what comes next on our mission to make better food accessible to everyone.

CHIPOTLE CAREERS

With a tradition of mentorship and promoting management from within, Chipotle is a place to build a career and have fun while you’re at it.

FOUNDER AND CEO STEVE

How many classically trained chefs start fast food restaurants? In 1993, Steve Ells did just that, opening the first Chipotle and bringing fresh thinking and real food knowledge to an industry all about cheap ingredients and addictive additives. Fast food hasn’t been the same since.

A LOVE STORY

A Love Story is a short film parable of how the fast food industry has devolved over the years through rivalry and marketing-driven menus.

CULTIVATE FOUNDATION

The Chipotle Cultivate Foundation is a non-profit organization that funds initiatives supporting sustainable agriculture, family farming, and food education. Through events like our annual Boorito promotion at Halloween, we’ve contributed over $3 million to what we believe in…

Read More: Chipotle — Food with Integrity

AFSC Response: 

THERE IS NO INTEGRITY IN RAISING ANY ANIMAL FOR THE PURPOSE OF KILLING IT, no mater what the animal is fed, or the reason for slaughtering the animal, whether it be for our plate, to wear on our backs, to experiment on or any other insane reason to continue the debate. It is and always will be flat-out wrong.

It’s hard to even imagine how the brutal enslavement, torture and slaughter of animals could in any way shape or form be considered part of somebody else’s love story.

Unless completely plant-based, Cultivating Chipotle by investing in their product is a total mistake and waste of money.

We don’t get pork from pigs. Pork is the pig.

Given that Chipotle has half of the love story wrong, they do put out a chart on how to order vegan at their restaurant.

Do you think it would kill their love story to offer a vegan grated cheese and a liquid cheese, plus vegan chicken and pork products? How difficult could that be?

 

by Chef Sharon Davies-Tight

How To Eat Vegan At Taco Bell

How To Eat Vegan At Taco Bell

Continue at: How To Eat Vegan At Taco Bell – Taco Bell

 

by Chef Sharon Davies-Tight

Earth Bistro Reopens In New Location

EATING OUT ANIMAL-FREE AT EARTH BISTRO CAFE

Continue reading →

by Chef Sharon Davies-Tight

Restaurant Review Criteria

Pictures is how I do the review. Pictures of the food I order, eat and like. If I don’t like it, I don’t post it.

Animal-Free is the primary non-negotiable criterion. Service is not what I review. If a restaurant is so dirty that I can’t stand the smell of it, I’ll walk out as if I hadn’t been there.

I recommend a dish to you, through a picture, as a dish I liked, not as a dish I think you may like. I don’t know you nor your tastes. I only know mine.

Keep in mind that a pretty picture does not translate to a good tasting dish. In my own experience developing recipes, where I take pictures throughout the process, many a dish did not taste like the picture suggested through its beauty that it would. Those get scrapped. Will I make it again? Yes, but only after I’ve reworked the recipe, and only if the recipe is worth the effort. Sometimes it’s better to move onto another one.

Writing about the food in each restaurant gets in the way. Nobody is ever satisfied. She wrote a hundred words for theirs’ and only fifty for mine. His got a better sounding, a larger, longer applaud is a place I don’t want to visit.

I’m not out to destroy anybody. If I find out later that an item had something of the animal in it, I take down that picture. It’s on the restaurant to be honest.

If they consistently make mistakes for whatever seems to them to be a good reason, I’ll stop going, but will keep the review up on the site as a reminder of what the restaurant once was and could be again.

There is only one restaurant/bar that I barred from my site – and it was more due to the improvising of food handling procedures and being consistently out of the vegan food I ordered, that their menu claimed to serve.

In future I may decide to write a few words here and there. The only things written in stone are that it contain no animal products to get me to order it, and then to taste good once I’ve eaten it.

~ Sharon Lee Davies-Tight, the animal-free chef