Vegan's in the name

I got a last-minute invitation to something tonight, but I realized we were going a few blocks away from a vegan place I love, so I was excited for the invitation but also for the amazing dinner that was sure to follow. One of the friends who also got the last-minute invitation decided to join me. (The picture is of her dinner, since I always get the same burrito and frankly, neither a whole burrito nor a half-eaten burrito are particularly photogenic.) The restaurant is Hot Beans, in my beloved Toronto’s Kensington Market. Part of what I love about this restaurant—and the other one from the same owners, Hogtown* Vegan—is that vegan is in the name. I also love restaurants like Fresh because there isn’t the same emphasis on the fact that mostly-vegan food. Its brand is more about being natural/healthy/often organic. Those types of restaurants are omni-friendly because they’re not so in-your-face about being vegan, it’s just delicious food that happens to be veg. But Hogtown Vegan and HotBeans Vegan are letting you know—this food is vegan and it’s effing delicious so just eat it already!
 
*I know, it’s a weird nickname for a vegan resto. “Hogtown” is an old nickname for Toronto. Supposedly, pigs used to run in the streets a couple hundred years ago. I think it was shocking to the old-worlders who moved here back in the day to see how primitive it was here. Sheesh, with pigs running in the streets!