Vegan Day Out in Fitzroy is back! I had a good time at last year’s VDO (you can read about that here) so I was looking forward to today (and tomorrow, though I’m not sure if I’m going for day two).
Like last year, you get your VDO map with the specials from the fab Cruelty Free Shop in Fitzroy. Check out some of the specials! I had lots of fun using my voucher (yay for relatives who give great gifts!):
  
  
Throughout VDO there are tastings in store. Vegan Perfection had this Soypresso coffee drink. I don’t like coffee as a hot beverage but iced coffee rocks. I also sampled the Provamel pudding and the three Vegusto cheeses you see in the back there:
Vegan Lebanese sweets from Al Nada in Coburg:
This was the first time I’ve tried Miyoko’s Creamery cheese, even though it’s been available here for a while. I loved it:
This chocolate by The Chocolate Yogi is the nicest I’ve tried. I gutsed myself on samples but resisted the urge to buy some because I knew I would just eat it all in one go before I got home. Which isn’t a bad thing I suppose so I’ve just decided I need to get my hands on more!
Pura Veda coconut yoghurt mixed with their blend of goodness:
Zebra Dream Ice Cream! I love the peppermint flavour which is a collaboration with Pana Chocolate:
There was some vegan chocolate being served but I didn’t catch the name of the brand. Delicious though:
Some of the beautiful Matt & Nat bags for sale at The Cruelty Free Shop:
Soon it was time to say goodbye to the Cruelty Free Shop and get some lunch!
I haven’t been to Radhey Kitchen and Chai Bar so a fellow vegan I met today and I decided to go there. We both ordered the VDO special which was Vietnamese salad and meatballs. A lovely meal and I really liked these (no)meatballs:
After lunch, I caught the tram in to the city to attend the Melbourne Against Horse-Drawn Carriages protest. You can learn more about how badly these horses are treated here. Horse drawn carriages are rightfully banned in some cities around the world and I sincerely hope Melbourne catches up. At one point there was an onlooker yelling at us a little aggressively. One of the participants went and spoke to him and whatever she said had an impact, because he went and signed the petition!!!
When the protest was over, I met up with Husband, Arthur and DeeW at Southbank. There were a lot of food stalls (mostly dessert things) and I thought mehhh no way anything here will be vegan. Then I saw a Mantra Lounge stall! It was a hot day, I was thirsty, so I went for the refreshing lemon mint drink:
And that was this vegan’s day out! Here are a few pics taken outside the Cruelty Free Shop:
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And here’s where I met up with the fam:
Many thanks to the organisers and volunteers for Vegan Day Out and Melbourne Against Horse-Drawn Carriages!
Vegan Day Out is on again tomorrow (Sunday March 1st) so still plenty of time for you to score some deals!
That looks fantastic, wish I could go!!! I haven’t heard of Chocolate Yogi,sounds like something I could get addicted too, same goes for peppermint Pana Zebra Dream!
Heh I could easily see myself getting addicted to those too 😉
Wow. What an amazing selection of treats, and a great day out! Such a worthy cause to protest too.
There were a few tastings I would have missed but regardless it was all pretty good. Cruelty Free Shop did it really well, with the tastings table and staff carrying other samples around 🙂
Wow there are so many businesses in Fitzroy participating! My parents are in Melbourne right now, they said they’d go check out Magic Milk Bar -I’d sent Mom the link to her vegan pavlova recipe to show her if pavlova can be veganized then anything can! Our Canadian west coast cities need to ban the carriages too. Sarah Kramer recently blogged about calling out people on a carriage ride and getting in an argument with the driver. Even though I work with horses at our rural theatre company; I one hundred percent do not support horse carriages in the cities. I love your vegan day out posts, makes me feel like I’m in Oz.
thank you! I hope your parents are enjoying Melbourne and the crazy weather. We had a hot day yesterday then in the evening a short but severe storm. Though sometimes ‘severe storm’ in Melbourne is a few lawn chairs getting knocked over. Horse drawn carriages are awful, I’ve seen the horses here in horrible weather without water or shelter, standing on the hot road in the sun for ages, or the drivers running red lights etc. Just urgh.
Busy day – didn’t even know it was vegan day out as we have a busy weekend but nice to read about it – sorry to hear about the horses in the city being mistreated – now I will feel sad when I see them – sylvia loves their plumes. And funny you went to Mantra lounge stall – my mum went there too yesterday and was telling me about it and I just heard of the place last week – it must be new as I used to know the area where it is very well.
yep new-ish I think, I still haven’t been there (in Grattan Street). Sydney Rd event on today but I’ve decided to stay home 🙂
I wish we could have such a day here in Brisbane, but that would actually depend on us having enough places in a small enough location to do it, which will never happen because we are not allowed nice things. *sobs*
move to melbs! 😛
Oh, we were at the Melbourne Against Horse Drawn Carriages rally too! Arrived a little late though, I wished I’d seen you 🙂
I was standing at the M in Melbourne (at one point I got to be the ‘ME’ in Melbourne 😛 ) Other times I was using the signs to hide my face when I saw people taking photos, ha ha!
I had such a busy weekend that I totally forgot about this! I’m bummed, it looks great. There’s some bargains at the cruelty free shop, I wish I could have remembered to pop by!
lotsa bargains but I think a few things sold out. I went back today and couldn’t see any Miyoko cheese for instance.
What a brilliant idea! I hope you had an awesome day 🙂
thanks 🙂 We’re lucky to have cool events in Melbourne like this and World Vegan Day 😀