I recently came back from LA due to some family responsibilities and while I didn’t get much time to explore the full gamut of vegan offerings while there, I did make sure to try some new stuff at the grocery stores.

If you’ve tried and loved Follow Your Heart products, I was delighted to find that they started as a restaurant/store decades ago and that place happened to be near where I was staying. (This was more of an anecdote because I was excited to visit their awesome restaurant…I’m not reviewing their food this time around! 😛)

This entire aisle is vegan food; a mind-boggling vista if you’ve ever been to a normal grocery store!

Anyway, today we have some fun offerings from Daiya, Clean South, Sweet Earth and So Delicious.

These reviews are particularly geared towards former omni eaters who are keen to have that meat or dairy favourite available as a tasty cruelty-free equivalent.

About the ratings system: Ratings are for what I consider the important elements of an appealing food product, with “Texture” being one that you might not normally see for other food reviews, but to me it is quite indicative of the success of a meat or dairy substitute. I choose “Value” over “Price” as vegan foods are generally more expensive than their meat or dairy counterparts (or rather, the latter are unreasonably and irrationally cheap given what they are) so I choose to focus on how good they are for the amount you pay.

On to today’s reviews:

PRODUCT: CLEAN SOUTH – VEGAN BUFFALO WINGS
Type: Prepared meal
Country of origin: USA
Clean South

Whenever I see things with “buffalo” flavouring, my mouth instantly starts to water. Back when I had an omnivore diet, hot chicken wings were my guilty pleasure. While I now think about how abhorrent it is to consume the little wings of young chickens, the desire for that flavour doesn’t leave you and I am forever on a search for the perfect buffalo wing replacement. Enter: Clean South’s Vegan Buffalo Wings.

I am not prone to using OMG to describe foods, but O.M.G. these were good. I honestly couldn’t even be bothered heating them for the first half of the box, but then when I did and paired them with Daiya’s dairy-free blue cheese dressing, flipping’ ‘eck bro, things got crazy-good. Now, in restaurants I have tasted some darned good vegan ‘wings’ but this was the first packaged ones I’ve had that just nailed it. Texture, chewiness, beautiful tangy and hot sauce (and plenty of sauce), tasty and addictive. I’m a big fan of Franks’ Red Hot sauce inspired hot wings sauce, so this was just right for me.

Being that I was in the US and this was a local LA product, I kind of expect things to be a wee bit cheaper, but no, these were quite expensive at US$9. I’m happy to support a local, small producer that is banging out awesome food though. I desperately wish I could get these in Australia, but I’ also glad as I’d be broke.

More to come….