The Happy Vegan

Things I am not: vegan.  Gluten-free.  Into healthy cafes.  And yet, here I am, reviewing The Happy Vegan, which, as you may have guessed, is a vegan cafe.

The cafe is located in Bayview, however I did not visit it in person.  I can't really tell you anything about the cafe itself, but they do serve breakfast and lunch, along with assorted pastries and desserts.  The breakfast lineup includes plant-based omelettes, yogurt, acai, and oat bowls, waffles, and bagels.  Lunch has an assortment of salads, sandwiches, and vegan burgers and fries.  Everything, and I mean everything, is vegan.  And everything is also gluten-free. 100% plant based, 100% free of all major allergens.

I tried several baked goods, bagels, and sandwiches.  Every single one of them was clearly gluten-free, if you know what I mean.  The textures were just all off.  The vegan substitutes for meats and cheeses were very clearly fakes.  There is no way you'd be convinced these were regular items, which I found pretty surprising for a place that specializes in these types of goods.  That said, they were fascinating to try at least?

Baked Goods

Even though vegan and gluten-free baked goods aren't generally that great, I thought I'd try my luck, since the place clearly specializes in making everything both vegan and gluten-free, and, well, I just love baked goods too much NOT to try when given the opportunity.  The Happy Vegan has an always changing lineup with the seasons, but it includes muffins and quick breads for the morning, pies (apple, pumpkin), cheesecake, cookies, blondies, and streusel bars for dessert.  Off-menu, they also have donuts, seemingly only available for catering.

Pumpkin Muffin. $5.

For the fall, The Happy Vegan went a bit pumpkin crazy.  They had pumpkin pie.  Pumpkin cheesecake.  Pumpkin bread.  And, as I tried, the pumpkin muffin. 

The muffin was ... interesting.  It was a style I find fairly common with either gluten-free or vegan places, that is, very dense, not light and fluffy like a regular muffin.  You have to want a heartier, denser muffin to enjoy it.  But the pumpkin flavor was good, it was nicely spiced (not too much nutmeg!), and felt very seasonally appropriate.

It came with toasted pumpkin seeds on top, which added a nice crunch.

Overall, a decent item, but you certainly would not be tricked into thinking it was a regular muffin.  ***+.

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffin. $5.

Next up, I tried the banana chocolate chip muffin, another quite dense item.

My first feedback?  If I hadn't read the sign saying this was banana chocolate chip, I wouldn't have known it.  I did not taste any banana, which was a real surprise, as banana is usually a pretty strong flavor.  I could see little flecks of brown when I looked closely at the muffin inside, but, I truly did not taste any banana.  The chocolate chip component was only slightly more noticeable, my muffin had perhaps 4 chips total.  I did like the little bit of sugar on top.

Like the pumpkin muffin, it was a heavy, dense muffin, with an extremely tight crumb structure.  The flavor had a hint of something to it, that I couldn't quite identify, but my brain just noted as "healthy".  When warmed up with a touch of water, it entirely disintegrated into mush (I tried half warm to see if it was better that way, and I added a splash of water to help steam it in my toaster oven ... and, yeah, it totally broke down, which regular muffins do not do!).  

So, not any banana flavor, only a couple chips, and again an odd texture, but it wasn't awful, just, not anything like a regular muffin, and certainly not for those who wanted banana.  ***.

Everything Bagel. $4.
Plant Based Cream Cheese, Butter, Chive & Onion Cream Cheese. $2 each.

The Happy Vegan makes 3 kinds of bagels:  plain, everything, and cinnamon raisin.  

I tried the everything bagel.  It was ... well, not very good.  It tasted gluten-free in every way imaginable.  Odd texture, odd chew, odd flavor.  It was a kinda hearty wheat base, as were the plain bagels.  It was heavily crusted in seeds on one side, with basically none as you see here on the other.  It was a little better when I toasted it, but, as someone who doesn't need to be gluten-free, I'd never get this.

*+ bagel.

I was pretty skeptical about the vegan spreads for the bagel too, but, hey, I wanted to try them all.  I started with the most promising, the chive & onion cream cheese.  While it had some flavor from the chive and onion, it mostly was just, well, for lack of a better word, odd.  Slightly bitter.  Slightly grainy.  Slightly sour.  Slightly sweet.  I didn't particularly want a second bite.  *.

Next up, the regular cream cheese, not that I expected that to be any better.  I think it was even worse.  Slightly sour, slightly sweet, grainy.  Tasted like tofu sorta.  I really did not like this. *.

And finally, the butter, which was strangely separated.  It also had an off taste to it, and it didn't spread well, even when I left it at room temperature for a while, and stirred it up. *.

Blueberry Donut.

Ok, now we were getting to something I was more excited by.  Donuts!  I eagerly grabbed the blue one.

The frosting was generously and evenly applied.  I thought it would taste blueberry, but, alas, it was just blue colored plain icing.  Good enough, sweet icing, but, yes, plain.

The cake part is where the blueberry element came in, with tiny blueberries studding the cake.  They gave perhaps tiny pops of flavor, but blueberry forward this donut was not.  Also, um, while it was ring shaped, this really was not a donut.  I'm fairly certain it was baked, not fried.  And the cake part?  Yes, it was very clearly gluten-free.  Slightly strange texture (*very* strange texture for a donut, just slightly strange for a bundt cake) and density.  It tasted like, well, healthy, cake? 

This donut looked much better than it was, lacked in blueberry flavor, and really was not a donut.  **.

Maple Donut.

If at first you don't succeed ... yup, I tried the other donut, this one maple.

This one was different from the blueberry in that the icing was actually flavored, it was quite strong maple flavor, sweet, and quite enjoyable.  And like the blueberry donut, it was very generously frosted.  So, frosting, quite good.

The donut cake part though, was much like the blueberry in its non-fried and odd texture nature, but also, it was entirely plain.  So, plain cake, but with tasty maple frosting.  Eh. *** for the frosting, but the cake part is bad enough that this is still just a **+ overall.

Sandwiches

The Happy Vegan has a fairly large sandwich menu, which at first glance, reads like that of any other cafe: tuna salad, BLT, caprese for cold subs, chicken cheesesteak, chicken parmesan, tuna melt, meatball marinara, grilled cheese, etc for hots ... and then you realize, wait, these are all vegan.  What is the "cheese" in the cheesesteak, the parm, and the caprese?  What is the chicken, the bacon, the meatballs ...  yes, they are all plant based.  And of course, all served on gluten-free bread.  I had my doubts.

Caprese. $9.

"Pesto, generous amounts of mozzarella and tomato, lettuce, olive oil & balsamic dressing on freshly toasted ciabatta bread."

I started with the caprese, quite interested by the idea of vegan mozzarella.

The mozzarella looked at first glance like it may be normal, but, it was considerably softer and slimier than its non-vegan counterpart would be.  It tasted like ... I'm not quite sure what, I think kinda like soft tofu.  The texture was not particularly pleasing.  That said, it was sliced thick and the portion generous.

The other fillings were fairly average: sliced tomato, shredded iceberg, nothing fancy there.  The pesto had a bit of an odd taste to it, which, I guess you'd expect, as it can't have cheese in it either.  It was a bit bitter.  It was strange to have both pesto AND olive oil and balsamic dressing in there, and it ate a bit oily.

And then, the bread.  It had a strange, grainy, mealy texture, and in this untoasted form (even though it said it was toasted, it didn't seem to be), it wasn't good.  That said, I did toast it at home, and it was considerably better, although the texture was still all off.

Overall, it was fascinating to try the mozzarella, the tomato was fine, but otherwise, not for me.  **+.  The $9 price is pretty reasonable given the speciality ingredients.

BLT Sub. $9.

"3 strips of bacon, lettuce, tomato, mayo on freshly toasted ciabatta bread."

Next, I went for the BLT.  Mine was a bit of a lie, at least given the menu description, as it had only two, not the promised three, slices of "bacon".  I didn't mind.

The bacon was crispy, and fascinating, but it in no way tasted like bacon.  I didn't hate it, it was nicely salty, and savory, and it added a great crunch, but, very clearly not bacon.  The dark spots on it made it look even more fake than it needed to.

This sandwich also had the same sliced tomato and shredded iceberg, again both fine.  It was also generously slathered on one side with vegan mayo, which tasted like regular mayo to me, and for that I was appreciative.  Creamy and rich, mayo.

This was much better than the caprese, and I did actually find the fillings tasty enough, but, the bread was again a letdown.  And the bacon really was not fooling anyone!  *** fillings, **+ overall.