Part 1: Bay Area (Cinnaholic & Ike’s Place)
Cinnaholic, Berkeley
There is a bit of hype surrounding Cinnaholic in the vegan community these days, for good reasons. If you haven’t heard of Cinnaholic, let me introduce you: first of all Cinnaholic bakes up fresh, gooey gourmet cinnamon rolls right before your eyes (a la Cinnabon). But Cinnaholic does cinnamon rolls even better than your average Cinnabon because these rolls are 100% vegan and they are award-winning.
What’s EVEN BETTER: these rolls are customizable. What that means is you get to choose from an extensive list of icing flavors (including almond, hazelnut, key lime, root beer, Irish cream, cream soda, and many more) and toppings (including bananas, brownie chunks, pie crumble, and more)! WHAT?!
But wait! It gets better!
How can it get better than 100% customizable, vegan cinnamon rolls? Well, since my visit to Cinnaholic, they have kinda since just added a vegan soft serve machine. I blogged about it here.
So, let’s get this all straight: 100% vegan, fresh, delicious, ooozey cinnamon rolls with choice of icing and topping, AND a side of creamy soft serve!!! Heaven exists and it’s in Berkeley, CA.
BUT if you aren’t in Norcal and don’t plan on going any time soon, they ship nationwide. They even ship to the Vegan Zombie.
What I ordered: The specialty Cookie Dough Roll (original vanilla icing with cookie dough on top), It's pictured below...
The cookie dough is a great choice if you are new and overwhelmed by all of the choices. They use their very own vegan cookie dough and it was great on top of a warm cinnamon roll. The dough was gooey and the chocolate chips were melty. So perfect. The roll was divine. I would have ordered this with soft serve, but, sadly, they didn’t have it available yet when I went.
You better believe I’ll get this with soft serve next time!
Ike’s Place, Walnut Creek
Photo courtesy of quarrygirl.com
Ike’s is a famous sandwich shop with lots of locations in the San Francisco and East Bay Areas. We visited the Walnut Creek location. This location is not on the website yet, but its vegetarian menu is very similar to the Danville Location, so be sure to check out the Danville menu. It’s a little pricey, but their sandwiches are so tasty. Plus they are very accommodating when you want to make substitutions. They have vegan, vegetarian, and gluten-free options. The service was great, too. Everyone was so friendly!
I ordered two sandwiches (the first I ate for dinner that night and I saved the second sandwich to take to the Oakland Athletics game the next day- it held up really well). These two sandwiches are both on the vegetarian menu and I simply asked for them to be made vegan:
Meatless Mike: Marinara, Pepper Jack, Vegan Meatballs
Natalie Coughlin: Avocado, breaded eggplant, Cheddar, French Dressing
The vegan cheese was great (it tasted like Daiya mozzarella-style cheese) and the breaded egg plant was awesome. I thought I recognized the breaded eggplant from Trader Joes- but I could be wrong. Either way, these sandwiches were great thanks to Ike’s amazing bread and sauces. So much flavor!
Rumor has it that Ike’s is coming to Los Angeles and I can’t wait because it’s a great treat when you want a fresh, high quality sandwich.
I hope you liked Part 1 of June Eats. Be sure to read Part 2: The Valley- where I cover Juicy Ladies & Veggie Grill (the new Encino Location)
-S&P
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