YES. YESSSSSSS. Thank you Native Foods Cafe.

Ok, so here's the punchline: Native Foods Cafe is bloody amazing. They have multiple branches in CA, and they are opening branches in the Loop and Lakeview in August and October. Their Wicker Park location just opened, and based on the queue at 3 PM on a Sunday afternoon, they are going to be doing some excellent business in Chicago. The important point here is that everything on their menu is completely vegan. So here's the lowdown on what we got.

My friend got the Rockin' Moroccan Bowl ($9.95): two big pieces of tofu and a pile of grilled veggies with quinoa, currents and toasted almonds.

I got the pizza ($7.95) : pesto, grilled vegetables and kale, pumpkin seeds and balsamic dressing on a thick focaccia bread.

They have a range of vegan desserts, here I got the Rose Cardamom cupcake, which had a very sweet pile of frosting on a cake garnished with rose petals. The frosting was good, however the cake was the best vegan cake I've had: more moist than at the Chicago Diner, and a very unique flavor. In addition to the cupcake, my friend was quite excited at the prospect of having a vegan parfait, especially since they had a peanut butter parfait, which ended up being quite tasty. We also got their watermelon agua fresca and their lavender lemonade (for free with their rewards card.. !). This place is a solid 5/5. Great addition to the Wicker Park neighborhood, especially given the recent closing of Earwax Cafe, one of the other places to get a vegan meal and dessert around here. Native foods might not have non-vegan offerings like Earwax did, but it has enough range in the menu that omnivorous friends would probably enjoy this place too. 

Joy Yee!!

After a particularly tiring workout at the gym, me and my friend Alissa were craving a seriously delicious dinner. Not wanting to stray too far from the south side, we thought Chinese food would hit the spot, and Alissa recommended Joy Yee. There are multiple locations in Chicago, including in Evanston and Naperville, though we went to the original Chinatown location. The place was pretty swagged out, and it was brighter than the surface of the sun in there - CFLs every 30 cm on the ceiling. Anyway, they seem to be quite popular for their smoothies and bubble teas. Huge selection, and all but three of their fruit flavors are vegan (we asked). I got the mango and passionfruit smoothie with tapioca pearls, and it was one of the best smoothies I've had yet - and for only $3.50. 

Look at those freaky tapioca pearls. 

However, the best part of this meal was hands down the Vietnamese spring rolls ($4.50). Tofu and vegetables wrapped and dipped in a delicious peanut sauce. We also got the Korean spicy fried vegetable dumpings ($4.95), but we weren't overly impressed. I liked them because they were fried and I basically like all fried foods, but they weren't spicy and didn't have a great deal of veggies inside. The dipping sauce was great however.

Our main course was red curry with vegetables and tofu. This came with white rice and was actually quite good, nice and creamy from the coconut milk. It was also a massive portion - we split the one entree between the two of us and were totally stuffed.

I will say that the service was very good, we had many questions about the vegan-ness of various items, as well as wanted to add tofu to our main course, and they were very chill about everything. They also have a nice mix of Asian foods: some Vietnamese, some Thai, some Korean. Verdict? 4/5. Pretty damn good. Definitely recommend.