Stone Brewery (Escondido): Lunch, Tour, and Tasting

There are two reasons to visit Stone Brewery: their great beers and the fact that their tour (with beer tastings) is FREE!
(What is NOT a reason to visit, on the other hand, is the food at their bistro)

Actually, perhaps there are three reasons to visit. The grounds around the brewery is lush and beautiful, perfect for a walk or a picnic.

We decided to eat here because we had to wait for the brewery tour (it's free but you do need to get passes for specific times early on, since they fill up quickly). Admittedly, I loved the restaurant's space itself. It is spacious and bright thanks to the large windows.

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Voodoo Doughnut (Portland, OR)

Voodoo Doughnut is one of Portland’s most popular food/tourist destinations because of their wacky donut offerings, especially since it showed up in Bourdain's show (and was apparently mentioned in Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club).

Maple Bacon Bar

The line at the original location seems to always be long and we waited 45 minutes to get our pink box, you know the one good things come in!)

 

It's small and dinky, but we found it fun and kitschy. This is not some fancy gourmet doughnut shop, mind you.

One of Voodoo Doughnut’s claims to fame is their maple bacon bar, which is literally topped with two slices of crisped bacon. I thought it may be all hype because of its weirdness but it was actually really good! Nickel Diner’s maple bacon donut has nothing against this. I like the texture of voodoo’s donut and the maple icing was sweet but not sticky like Nickel’s. The bacon? Worked surprisingly well. Wandering Chopsticks and I were glad we each got one but regretted that we didn’t each get two.

The Voodoo Doll doughnut is just a chocolate dipped, raspberry-filled bar, but you should order it anyway because it’s shaped like a voodoo doll with a pretzel stake through its heart!

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Vegan Feasting and Boozing at Shojin

I am never one who'd decide to go vegetarian one day, but I've heard many great things about Shojin, the organic/vegan/macrobiotic Japanese restaurant in Little Tokyo from fellow bloggers (mainly LA-OC Foodie and inomthings).

Seitan Steak Marinade

I've been meaning to try it for a while and an invitation to a blogger dinner provided the last push and I finally made it there!

Shojin's dining room was much nicer than I had expected, especially for being in that neglected mall in Little Tokyo. White tablecloth, chandelier, and all.

Shojin also recently started serving alcohol and we tried their "Mojito" made with unprocessed cane sugar, mint, apple juice, cranberry juice, vegan sake (Ichigo)

We started with a tasting of the three most popular appetizers:
Spicy rock shiitake tempura, spicy wasaby mayonnaise
Yuzu ponzu Seitan (pan fried sliced seitan with grated daikon and yuzu citrus sauce)
Spicy fried tofu (fried marinated tofu, spicy soy sauce)

The shiitake tempura was chewy and meaty. I loved the tofu which had a light yet crispy breading. Apparently the batter was made with whole wheat and arrow roots which makes it stay crispy for a long time. The seitan was unremarkable compared to the other two.

Shojin also makes sure to serve vegan wine and sake. Wine isn't always vegan? Nope, apparently most wines are filtered using egg whites or egg shells. The appetizers were paired with some Nottage Hill Chardonnay from Australia.

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