Fressen, Wild Earth and other treats this week

Thanks to Taste of the Danforth last weekend, I wasn't able to go for my usual Sunday grocery trip so I felt really out of whack. Started off the week with some potluck leftovers and random bits from my kitchen for lunch:


Baked falafels, veggie wrap, cucumber slices and almonds. As weird as it looks, it was actually quite satisfying. I like variety in my lunches so I highly recommend leftovers and bits from your pantry to keep things interesting, especially when your fridge isn't stocked.

On Tuesday, after my first spin class I went to Fressen with Melly and Nicole. I had been intrigued by Fressen for awhile, and since they don't open for lunch I was waiting for a good dinner opportunity. We were told that it would be about 25 minutes for a table, but we weren't in much of a rush so we waited. Once we were seated, the waitress listed 4 or 5 dishes that they had sold out of, but unfortunately we didn't have our menus in front of us yet so we couldn't really remember which ones they were when it was time to decide what to eat. Oh dear. Off to a great start.

Fressen is entirely vegan with tapas style dishes so our server encouraged us to order 5-6 dishes to split between the three of us. We opted for four:

• Sliced avocado over marinated tomato, fennel & chick peas on baby spinach. Served with sesame flax crackers
• Shredded jicima & celery root marinated in lime, chilies, herbs and hemp oil served on a bed of crispy watercress
• Steamed bundled asparagus on a warm bed of tahini creamed quinoa with miso hemp butter
• Flax and cornmeal crusted eggplant pizza tart with pesto, sundried tomato paste, olives and pineapple, grilled and served on mixed greens

I liked that the gluten & wheat free items were labelled as such, making it a lot easier for me to choose (rather than ask the waitress a million questions). The salads came first and they were both pretty good. None of us had ever tried jicima, but I think we all approved! They were fresh and fairly light with good seized portions. The "sesame flax crackers" were more like pappadums and didn't really do much for me. They also used a lot of black pepper which my mouth didn't like very much and I found myself coughing a couple of times.

Then the other two dishes arrived.

I have to say that I liked the salads a lot better than the two mains. The pizza tart was interesting, but had too much going on and was a lot sweeter than I had anticipated (due to the pineapple). It also got a little soggy as it sat at the table. The asparagus was probably my least favourite dish. While the asparagus itself was lovely and crisp, I did not like the miso hemp butter at all.

Our served let us know that they had dessert and proceeded to give us a really long explanation and for a minute we thought there were two different choices? We said sure, and all three of us were so glad that we did.

This was worth visiting the restaurant for. I don't know exactly what it was but it was INCREDIBLE! It was chocolaty and creamy and fruity and just amazing. The three of us shared it and I felt that I had eaten more than enough.

Overall it was a decent dinner, questionable service but a fantastic dessert. I wonder if things would have been different if there hadn't been so many things missing from the menu? I would definitely go back though, just to have that dessert again.

After dinner, Nicole and I headed to the Horseshoe to watch Joey's band.

They were amazing!

I was a bit tired on Wednesday at our company offsite because I had gone to bed pretty late for a Tuesday! It was a long, but enjoyable day. I spent a good chunk of it in a metallic purple dress for a Guitar Hero World tour competition (team building at its finest)

Our team came in second but we had an awesome time doing it. I belted out a pretty mean "Heartbreaker" if I do say so myself.

Today I headed down to the Beaches on a mission for gluten free oats - I was successful! I will be reviewing them later this week as well as sending another box down to a lovely gluten free blogger friend. Along the way I checked out Wild Earth Bakery:

Lori told me about this place a couple weeks ago and I was excited to check it out. They specialize in organic, gluten free and vegan baking. Look at the goodness I found inside!!

After much consideration, I chose a gluten free vegan lemon square.

It was delightful! I actually had a lot of options to choose from so I will definitely be going back to try out more goodies in the future!

I swear I ate things other than sweets this week, but they weren't nearly as exciting as these treats. In fun news, I am on vacation this week! I will be blogging early in the week to let you know where Joey and I are going and will be posting at the end of the week with a trip recap, so stay tuned!