Special to the Vanguard
There’s never been a better time to try vegan! The inaugural Yolo County Vegan Chef Challenge is here, and available the entire month of April. Local chefs will be competing for your votes with creative and delicious vegan menu options. Veganism is on the rise, and you’re invited to see why!
In honor of Earth Month, we encourage everyone to try vegan for the environment! Animal agriculture is one of the largest contributors of human-made greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation, water pollution, and air pollution. With so many alternatives available, it’s easier than ever to make choices that help the environment. The Yolo Vegan Chef Challenge is here to provide you with more vegan options!
It’s easy to participate.
GO! You have one month—from April 1st to April 30th. Go to the Yolo County Vegan Chef Challenge Website to see the list of participating restaurants and menu items.
EAT! Sample the unique vegan dishes being offered by your favorite local restaurants!
VOTE! Vote for your favorites either at the restaurants or by April 30th on the Yolo County Vegan Chef Challenge Website.
The list of current businesses with new vegan menus for this month is: Let Them Eat Cake, Bones Craft Kitchen, Davis Food Co-op, Red 88 Noodle Bar, ZimCuisine, Upper Crust Baking, Bare Juices, and Manaao Thai Cuisine. UC Davis campus cafes are also involved—you can get new vegan options at The Gunrock, Spokes Grill, and Scrubs Cafe.
You can see the menus for each business at our website: veganchefchallenge.org/yolo.
On April 3rd, a Vegan Chef Challenge menu from Bones Craft Kitchen was tasted by Cool Cuisine Davis—a group of diners who hosted a meetup. The new menu included dishes like karaage oyster chick’n and tsukemen ramen. About twenty diners tried these dishes and raved about them.
A Cool Cuisine diner submitted their feedback encouraging everyone to try the new karaage dish: “The texture of the tempura-fried oyster mushroom was delightfully crispy and chewy. Yuzu aioli was the perfect foil to the rich fried mushroom. The fried brussel sprout leaves were an unexpected touch that added more crisp texture and nice color contrast.”
The Bones Craft Kitchen menu is a wonderful example of how creative the chefs are getting for this Vegan Chef Challenge. UC Davis Scrubs Cafe is offering mushroom carnitas tacos. The Davis Kitchen Co-op is offering a new black bean burger and a strawberry rice crispy treat. So many great new vegan options are here to try for this entire month. Votes will be taken into consideration and winners will be announced next month.
We encourage everyone to try the new vegan options at these participating businesses for Earth Month. Menus are available on our website at veganchefchallenge.org/yolo. All businesses are ready to serve the public.
If you’d like to dine outside with a group, the next Cool Cuisine meetup is at Red 88 Noodle Bar Tuesday, April 18th at 6:00 pm, to RSVP go to meetup.com/cool-cuisine.
