During her visit she visited Belmont Veg, Loving Hut and Acoustic Java.

From Kristin’s blog, Will Travel for Vegan Food:

…Even though I haven’t been to too many Loving Huts in the US… yet… I think I know why this place is rated #1. Aside from making delicious food they are so friggin’ friendly here. Holy wow! Granted, the friendly factor at all the Loving Huts I’ve been to so far exceeds most of the other vegan restaurants. That’s no lie. But this place takes the vegan cake. The woman who took care of me was a lovely, warm soul. She greeted me with a huge smile and asked how long I’ve been vegan, where I’m from, and more questions about the trip once I mentioned that. So sweet and very attentive. Impeccable customer relationship management + good food = a winning combo...

Read the entire blog post about her visit to Worcester…

From Worcester Magazine:

Vegan Dishes Put Worcester on the Map

Story Updated: Oct 13, 2010 at 6:27 PM EDT

In recent years Worcester has grown into a hot spot for the vegan food. This year PETA named Worcester among the top-10 vegan-friendly mid-sized cities in America. At the end of 2009, Worcester even had more vegetarian restaurants than Boston.
The Vegetarian Resource Group found that only 3 percent of the general U.S. population is vegetarian or vegan, but 18 percent of U.S. college students are vegan. With 13 colleges, it’s no surprise that our city has a burgeoning vegan movement. At the end of last April, more than 2,000 Worcesterites came out to the first-annual Worcester VegFest, a daylong vegan festival at Worcester State College.

Why vegan?
Vegans avoid meat, dairy and eggs, opting for plant-based foods instead. For some, eating vegan is a way to improve their health. For others, veganism is an ethical objection to the routine cruelty involved in raising animals for food. With our society’s growing ecological consciousness, many have chosen a vegan diet because it dramatically reduces our carbon footprint ­— in 2006 a United Nations commission published a study stating that livestock is the principal cause of human-made global climate change.
Bill Clinton recently appeared on Wolf Blitzer’s show to discuss why he made the switch to a vegan diet. For Clinton it was a matter of health. “I did all this research, and I saw that 82 percent of the people since 1986 who have gone on a plant-based: no meat, no dairy of any kind… 82 percent of people who have done that have begun to heal themselves. Their arterial blockage cleans up; the calcium deposit around their heart breaks up.”
Whatever your reason for choosing vegan food, Worcester has plenty to offer at its many veg-friendly restaurants.

Getting your Vegan Eats in Worcester
Worcester is a melting pot. In our little city, you can sample some of the best vegan foods from around the world. Pho Da Kao on Park Avenue offers big bowls of Vietnamese vegetable Pho, a traditional noodle soup ($7.76). Udupi in Shrewsbury offers all-vegetarian South Indian cuisine. Try the savory Chana Batura — chickpea curry with puffy fried bread ($10.25). For a meal on the go, you can pick up a couple of Jamaican curry pockets from One Love Cafe on Main for less than $5. The Sahara on Highland Street has a fattoush salad ($7.95) that makes a hearty-but-healthy lunch.
You’ll find plenty of vegan options at chain restaurants like Moe’s, but local businesses are often better at responding to local demand. So delicious vegan fare is easier to find at the mom-and-pops. While most restaurants in Worcester will have a vegan dish on the menu, there are definitely some shining stars:

• For a leisurely lunch, stop by the cafe at Bahnan’s International Market on Pleasant Street. For $7 you’ll get a falafel sandwich, steak fries crusted with Middle Eastern spices, and a soda.
• A cornerstone of the vegan scene, the second-Saturday-of-the-month buffet at Loving Hut on Chandler is a deal for $10. (Next one: [November 13].)
• Flats on Maywood Street is a new pizzeria with a stellar Neapolitan vegan cheese pizza ($14), which you get in classy 100 percent post-consumer recycled pizza box. The white sauce is also dairy-free. Flats could certainly win over Worcester’s entire vegan community by adding mock meats to their menu
• A relatively new addition to the city, Belmont Veg serves up home-style Jamaican vegan food and features a rotating menu with new items each day. Choose one of the three sizes (small, $9.91; medium, $10.09; large, $12.22) and order a “whatever” to sample a mix of everything they have that day.
• If you’re out at the Dive Bar on Water Street, step outside to Chris’s Hot Dog Cart for a vegan completo: a veggie dog topped with sliced avocado, onions and peppers
• Like to do your own cooking, but want to try some interesting new ingredients? Mekong Market on Main Street has a substantial selection of specialty mock meats. They have everything from veg pork to vegan shrimp.

Much of the credit for the ample vegan choices at local restaurants is due to Worcester’s numerous student groups. Every month, college veg groups are holding vegan potlucks or movie nights. Clark University’s Student Association of Vegetarian and Vegan Youth has its annual vegan Thanksgiving dinner coming up soon. It’s free and open to the public. WPI’s Veg Polytech is planning a trip to The Boston Vegetarian Food Festival on the weekend of October 30 and 31 in Roxbury.

Worcester has award-winning vegan food. Get out there and try it!

If you appreciate the coverage of vegan- and vegetarianism, you should send a quick note to the editor (editor@WorcesterMagazine.com) or leave a comment on Worcester Mag’s website. I’m sure she’ll be happy to hear some feedback and encouragement. Who knows? She may even run your comment in the paper.

WE BEAT PROVIDENCE

PETA recently ranked US cities with less than 300,000 people in terms of veg-friendly places to eat, and placed Worcester seventh. Last year they highlighted the meatball soup at Buddha Hut on Chandler Street, so this isn’t a big surprise.

I’ve lived in Worcester for eight years now, and been vegan for almost nine. What with the opening of Belmont Veg a year or two back, it does feel like the city’s restaurant scene is at a vegetarian high water mark. This PETA thing is a nice tip-o-the-hat.

Local restaurants Belmont Vegetarian Restaurant, Nancy Chang, and Loving Hut helped Worcester grab seventh place among small cities in PETA’s 2010 survey of the most vegetarian- and vegan-friendly cities in North America.

[...]

Olympia, Wash., took first-place honors among small cites, and Burlington, Vt., came in second. Rounding out the top 10 are Bloomington, Ind.; Boise, Idaho; Iowa City, Iowa; Lincoln, Neb.; Providence, R.I.; Syracuse, N.Y.; and Topeka, Kan. The winner among big cities was Washington, D.C.

Link

Cross-posted at Worcesterite

The 2010 Mac Daddy Competition was a tremendous success, with over 15 entries and a packed room of vegan mac & cheese lovers. We raised around $150 for the 2010 Worcester VegFest! Let’s cut to the chase, who won? The fancy, mock-meat filled, cheesy casserole from Mr Gregory Lee Opperman won him the belt. His recipe features 30 ingredients. Mickey O’Hara & Brie Goldberg’s Thanksgiving-themed mac & cheese came in second, winning them a copy of the Vegan Soul Kitchen cookbook. See below to get your own vegan bling belt buckle and check back tomorrow to see Greg’s winning recipe.

How’d everyone stack up?

At the Mac Daddy Comp, every single entry got at least 2 votes. So I can confidently say that there were no bad entries. There were some creative dishes like spaghetti squids with cheezy sauce (veggie dogs with pasta tentacles) & a desert mac & cheese (carrot cake artfully designed to look like cheesy pasta). We also had a good number of traditional recipes like Belmont Veg‘s melted soycheese dish or Annie & Dan’s casserole.

Get Your Own Vegan Bling

The MACNCHZ championship belt buckle is one of a kind, but you can get your own VEGAN bling belt buckle from VegWorcester (click see a larger picture) for a $20 donation to the VegFest. Make it $30 if you also want it to come with a nice, non-leather belt (any size). Want it? Comment below or email drew@VegWorcester. Do it fast, because there are only a few of these buckles. First come, first serve.

Want to see the recipe that won the comp? Check VegWorcester.com tomorrow morning. FYI it had 30 ingredients. Greg was not fooling around.

UPDATE: Greg’s winning recipe is now online.

Awesome! This week’s issue of WoMag mentions VegWorcester’s Mac Daddy Competition, the vegan mac & cheese cook off/taste off.

Check it out from Worcester Magazine:

The 2010 Mac Daddy Competition proves you don’t have to include dairy in a killer Mac & Cheese dish on Jan 30 at 6p.m. This vegan mac & cheese cook-off/taste-off is $5 at the door and serves as a donation for VegWorcester. VegWorcester.com.

Unfortunately they printed the address wrong (I corrected it above). The Mac Daddy Comp is starting promptly at 6pm at 126 Easten Ave, Worcester. If you haven’t done it yet, RSVP to the facebook event so all your friends see that you’re coming.

Also, good news: Belmont Veg has confirmed that they will be entering a dish in the competition. For entry rules & more details about the 2010 Mac Daddy Competition: http://VegWorcester.com/MacDaddy

There is a sweet grand prize for this event. Soon I will post pictures of it!

VegWorcester member Jin hands out veg dining guides to kids in line at the Palladium.

On Saturday, a couple of VegWorcester volunteers handed out over 250 copies of our Spring 2009 vegetarian dining guide to Worcester at events downtown. We went down to the Four Year Strong show (Worcester hardcore band) and also gave out leaflets at the Danskin Expo.

Fireworks at the Palladium

VegWorcester members Jin and Drew with the members of the band Fireworks

Lots of the kids in line at the Palladium said they were vegetarian or vegan and almost everyone took a copy of our guide. Yeah! While we were out there, we met the members of Fireworks, one of the bands playing that night. They’re from Detriot and just passing through, but were pysched to get a copy of our dining guide. Turns out their whole band is vegetarian and they’ve got a vegan on board too. I recommended they check out Tortilla Sams or Belmont Veg, since both pretty close to the Palladium.

Chicks dig vegans

Jin offers a copy of the 2009 VegWorcester dining guide to a couple in downtown Worcester.

When we were done with the line at the Palladium, we walked over to the DCU center to see if anything was going on. Turns out there were a ton of women going to the Danskin Triathelete Expo. These ladies were excited to get copies of the Worcester veg  guide. A handful of people thanked us for putting it together and taking the time to hand them out. What a great response! Some were from Boston or other towns, but appreciated the guide nonetheless. When we ran out of leaflets, I didn’t find a single leaflet on the ground. That’s a good sign!

Want to help out next time?

Overall, a very good day of veg advocacy in Worcester. If you’d like to help out with something like this in the future, email drew@VegWorcester.com. VegWorcester has a bunch of volunteer opportunities coming up this month.