Vegan Dinner Parties!

Well this recap is a bit overdue, ok a LOT overdue, but why spend time focusing on my faults? Let's just let bygones be bygones. You're here, you're reading lets just put the past behind us agreed? Good? Good. Yes I do talk to myself, but thats another story...

VegSarasota has had a storm of events over the last couple few months so I thought I’d jam multiple reviews into this Blog. Our restaurant events are always some of the most fun, as the work is mostly done ahead of time coordinating, planning, taking the phone calls, answering questions and emails. The night of, we show up, sit down with a big group of friends, and enjoy a delicious meal while connecting with new people in the spirit. We like to stress that, as with all of our events, it is really the atmosphere, conversation, and community building that is important at these events. The great food is just a bonus :)

April 27th was a sight to see, a pack of veggies stormed the local mall restaurant/bar Cosimo’s Brick Oven for a vegan dinner party. The fun began well before the event as we had to keep asking the restaurant to add more seating capacity for us. Eventually they just took the lid off by moving us from the veranda 'outside' to the main dining room inside, which we absolutely filled. Our good friend Cynthia did most of the coordination with the staff, and it turned out really well. We educated them about vegan alternatives like Follow Your Heart Mozzarella Cheese Alternative and Tofurky brand Italian sausage links. The kitchen staff used the ingredients just like their cruelty filled analogs and made several fantastic dishes for our group to choose from.


Check out the gallery on the meetup.com website for all the rest from this event!

A little more recently, Taste of Asia hosted us on a Sunday evening (6-22-08) during a time when they’re normally closed. We did an event here at the end of January that got good reviews. With the slow summer season we were glad to partner with this award winning veg friendly restaurant to do another event, which turned out even better than the first! They responded well to some feedback about the dishes last time and provided each guest two appetizers and a choice of four delicious entrees, all served with an exceptional brown rice.

They were kind enough to donate a couple of gift certificates and two bottles of wine for a 50/50 (raffle) which helped raise some additional money for our volunteer vegan/vegetarian community group VegSarasota. Congrats to Mary on winning the Cosimo’s gift certificate, and Julia on winning both bottles of wine! If you can attend our next restaurant event, we have a $25 gift certificate for Taste of Asia which we’ll be giving away.

Check out the photo gallery for more pics like this!

A big thank you to Celina, her husband, and their staff for making great food, and providing great customer service.

In the last couple of months, we've held a couple of our meetups at local restaurants on a more casual basis. These worked out great because the more intimate gathering provided more opportunity for mingling amongst the members.

July 24th was our first experience at Island Time Grill in Sarasota, and they did a great job hosting us. The chef made a few special vegan selections, and offered them along with the couple basic vegan offerings on their standard menu. The ambiance was good, and the company and food were very pleasing (as you can see in these photos)




For the rest of the pics, check out the photo gallery

Veggie Magic, Sarasota's only all raw/vegan cafe teamed up with us for a happy hour on August 1st. There was a sampling of raw food and healthy drinks, John was on piano, and we got to spend some time getting to know the staff and enjoying very tasty food. Thanks to Jenna, Natalia and her very friendly co-workers for making the partnership a fun evening. It was a BYO wine event, and as you can tell by the second pic, the message was received :)




Raylon & Robert were just 'guarding' the wine

Then recently, on 8/17 we launched yet another partnership with a new restaurant. Cynthia coordinated a great menu at Broccolini's in Southgate. This proved to be a quaint spot with a good sized dining room and good wine. Vegan Italian is not easy to come by in this town, but Chef Luca has a great interpretation of the genre incorporating wine reductions, stuffed mushrooms, and polenta into the selection of dishes for our group.


Steve from My Green Buildings enjoying dinner with the fam, veggie style!


Daniel knows the right table to sit at

Well that brings us up to speed, thanks for checking out this jam-packed blog, and if you haven't checked out a VegSarasota event yet, please join us soon!

Thanks to our very special friends; Restaurant Coordinator Cynthia P. and Staff Photographer Laura Marie who provided most of the photos and photo galleries linked here.

Check out the vegsarasota.com restaurant page for more info on these and other vegan friendly restaurants in our area. We encourage you to support these restaurants and try the products we mention in the blog. Please leave comments and feedback we love to hear from you!