Thanks to Anj, I got my Christmas present: a trip to the Veggie Grill in El Segundo! This place is SO GOOD. It’s the only vegetarian eatery that heavy meat eaters say is good and they are so right!! Veg*n burgers and sandwiches and veg*n desserts. Ooooo, speaking of which….

I got a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuge cookie. Perfect to split in 3! This was made with whole wheat and oat flour, which gave the cookie a nutty texture in addition to the already nutty walnuts in this chocolate chip cookie. Hands down one of the best vegan cookies I’ve ever ever eaten. Great taste, not too crunchy or soft, and the lack of enough chocolate chips is overshadowed by the walnuts.

Veggie Grill locations:

8000 Sunset – Los Angeles
8000 W Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90046 | map
Phone 323.822.7575 | hours 11am to 11pm

Plaza El Segundo
720 Allied Way, El Segundo, CA 90245 | map
Phone 310-535-0025 | hours 11am to 10pm

University Center – Irvine
4213 Campus Drive, Irvine, CA 92612 | map
Phone 949.509.0003 | hours 11am to 10pm

Irvine Spectrum Center
81 Fortune Drive, Irvine, CA 92618 | map
Phone 949.727.9900 | hours 11am to 10pm

Also great were the slaw and carrot cake. I would suggest passing on the mac n cheese.. that just tasted weird.

• Taste: 9
• Crust and center moistness: Great texture, not dry at all but not soft either
• Value: err.. i forget. sorry!
  
• Overall: I love this restaurant, and I love this cookie. I’m going to rate this a very high 9, as I still haven’t found a cookie that beats Michelle’s Naturally Vegan cookies.

Ok, so we went over Trader Joe’s Chocolate Chunk Cookie. How does their vegan chocolate chip compare?

Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies - Trader Joe's

In a few words: it falls short. Their vegan cookies are in white paper bags to differentiate them from their non-vegan counterparts which are in brown paper bags (see previous blog post linked above), possibly to indicate purity… but I’d rather not be a Puritan.

Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookie - Trader Joe's

As you can see in this picture, the 135-calorie non-dairied and non-egged cookie is slightly smaller than the palm of my hand. Also visible in this picture is the grainy texture; it was a bit dry and crumbly, but not hard. The taste was lacking in some ways: no smooth flavor to go down nicely. Bland even. The chocolate chip + some nuts in every bite helped spice up the flavor some. But not enough.

• Taste: 5
• Crust and center moistness: dry, crumbly, soft
• Value: around $4 or so for 11 small-ish cookies, $0.37 / cookie. 7
• Overall: This is one cookie not to have in your cookie jar. 6. Stick to their Trader Joe’s Chocolate Chunk Cookie. But, I reiterate, if you gotta go vegan, do Michelle’s Naturally Vegan Chokolada Chip Cookies.

Organic Vegan Cuisine. I heart Real Food Daily, both the ones in West Hollywood and Santa Monica. Yesterday, my stunningly handsome date took me to the one in West Hollywood (is northish La Cienega considered WeHo?) where he got the TV Dinner and I was craving noodles so I got the Soba Noodle dish. I couldn’t wait to chow down on one of the HUGE cookies they have in the front! Their bakery is in Santa Monica and mine came wrapped in plastic:

Chocolate Chip Cookie -- Real Food Daily

After seeing that his IPA beer bottle still had some beer in it, I made a deal: I’d sit there and wait for him to finish while I indulged in my vegan cookie. (You’ll remember that I had another vegan cookie earlier, Michelle’s Naturally Vegan, and the review is here.) As shown above, I was not kidding when I said the cookie is HUGE! The thickness is about the same size as a regular cookie. When I bit into it, my very first reaction was, “whoa…that tastes different…” It’s much more granular and crumbly than a regular cookie. Smells just like a regular cookie, looks just like a regular cookie, …the taste took a bit of getting used to. My date compared it to chalk. It is dry, grainy, WAY WAY WAY not enough chocolate chips. There’s no real “bite” or “crunch” to the cookie. There were many times when I bit into the cookie that I had NO chocolate chips, and I’m a huge proponent of having at least a chocolate chip in every bite. I ate some more this morning in the car and left the cookie in the sun for a bit; I think it would have tasted better warm as it provided some moisture.

I found out that besides lacking dairy and eggs, this cookie has buckwheat flour and agave in replacement of sugar. The agave does a good job in sweetening up the cookie. I’ve tasted sweeter and I might have actually preferred even sweeter to get over the buckwheat flour taste. The only time I’ve had buckwheat flour was in soba noodles (coincidentally, my meal for the night!!) and it tastes NOTHING like the taste of the noodles. I still have some left actually. …I don’t think I’ll finish it. This can pass as a cookie, but that’s all I’m gonna say about it.

• Taste: 5
• Crust and center moistness: dry and grainy
• Value: $3.25 for an organic vegan cookie the size of my hand. Considering the size, organic veganness of it and how rare it is to find a vegan cookie, it’s a pretty good value. Considering taste, it’s much overpriced.
• Overall: PASS. Michelle’s Naturally Vegan cookies still reigns supreme in my book for vegan cookies. Go to Real Food Daily for the food, not the cookies; if you want dessert, I HIGHLY suggest the brownies; it’s DELICIOUS!! Overall I’ll give the cookies here a 4.

So I told you this review was coming up. I’ll just go ahead and break the suspense if you didn’t read my last Pepperidge Farm cookies review, Michelle’s Naturally Vegan cookies are the BEST vegan cookies I’ve ever eaten. And they’re better than some cookies out there too!! (Ahem, Chips Ahoy and Togo’s, I’m talking to you).

At any point in time I will usually have this stash of cookies in my drawer at work:

::grin::

Michelle has the cutest picture of herself on the front and touts that her cookies are all natural with nothing artificial, contain no trans fats, are fruit juice sweetened and are made with organic ingredients.

I’ve only eaten the Chokolada Chip cookies, but there’s a Peanut Butter Apricot that intrigued me. Now, on with the review!

A standard sized cookie, about the size of my palm. I’ll point out one negative in that the cookies are very crumbly. They take a tiny bit of effort to bite into, and it can get a bit messy but from then on it’s just heaven!! I don’t know how she achieves that “buttery” goodness in a vegan cookie, but somehow she did. This cookie always disappears too quickly Also worth noting is that I’m usually really picky about my chocolate chips in my cookies. I usually like more chocolate chips than less, but this cookie — as you can tell from the photos — don’t have as many as I would normally like. However, in this special cookie the ratio is very well balanced due to the very tasty dough. I can tell these cookies are sold much more fresh than other pre-packaged cookies (a downside is that one time I think I bought a bag of these cookies that had gone a little stale…). And might I mention that one of these chocolate chip cookies is a mere 135 calories??

When I first ate these cookies, I was so impressed that I actually emailed Michelle herself. She ever-so-kindly emailed me back, thanking me for the compliments. That’s another great thing: the customer service of a self-starter is wonderful! I gave one to my meat-eating friend and even he admitted it was one of the best he’s had. Unfortunately, you may not be able to find these cookies everywhere. I get mine at Miss Winston’s on 31st and Ocean Park in Santa Monica for $4.99 (my last post stating that these cookies were $4.69 needs to be corrected but it still doesn’t change my opinion about them!). The Whole Foods on National and Barrington sells it at a monstrous $5.69, but the Whole Foods on Lincoln and Rose doesn’t sell it at all which was appalling.

• Taste: 10
• Crust and center moistness: A little dry, but it’s buttery at the same time
• Value: $5 for 8 almost-fresh cookies, each at 135 calories; GREAT!!
• Overall: If you don’t do eggs or dairy or either, this is a MUST HAVE in your pantry. If you don’t steer in that direction, it’s still a REALLY REALLY good cookie. 10!!

So what do you think of the vegetarian / vegan trend getting into your baked goods? Do you believe that something lacking eggs and dairy could be this good?!