Every 1st and 3rd Sunday of the month, Killer Vegan in Union hosts a brunch buffet. This most recent Sunday, Vegan in NJ hosted a meetup there and about 30 of you showed up! It was such a great time! You can catch their menu on their website. If you don't feel like looking, here's the brunch menu:
Buttermilk Pancakes
French Toast
Biscuits
Cashew Gravy (gf)
Scrambled Tofu (gf)
Home Fries (gf)
Breakfast Sausage
Tempeh Bacon (gf)
Steamed Greens (gf)
Arroz con Gandules (gf)
House-made Berry Syrup (gf)
Bottomless Coffee and Tea
I recommend showing up early, as it tends to start filling in around 11-12 and there may be a wait for a table (especially if someone is hosting a meetup and 30 hungry vegans show up - oops!). It's $22.50 plus tax and includes the entire menu listed above. Everything was really good! It wasn't fancy or anything, but it was just solid good food. It filled us all up with no complaints and many of us went back up for seconds... maybe thirds... maybe more. I did mention we came hungry, right? I would say my favorites were the pancakes (so light and fluffy!) with berry sauce. Seriously, put the berry sauce on everything. You see that picture up there? There's pancakes and french toast under that pile of berry sauce. You might need more berry sauce than this. I also really loved the seasoning on the potatoes. Even though roasted potatoes are something I can easily make at home, I just really appreciated how perfect these were. I thought the biscuits were a bit dry, but after smothering in gravy, they turned into one of my favorite things as well. Definitely recommend that cashew gravy! Moral of the story: if there's a sauce, get it. Trust me.
We had a few guests from Royal Vegan Treats come by with some cookies that one of the attendees ordered and shared with everyone. I definitely recommend checking them out. These chocolate chip cookies were excellent! They were soft and just the perfect texture. You can find some food porn and their selection of treats on their Instagram page. I'm definitely interested in checking out their gluten-free options and their coquito!
I love hosting and attending these meetup events. You can see a full list of events (including others' events, protests, vigils, pop ups, etc) on the events page. All of our meetups are organized through the Facebook group. Definitely join that if you are interested in attending more meetups or just maybe making some friends. We're currently working on branching our meetups out a little bit and we're planning our first ever volunteer day at an animal sanctuary. I can't wait to keep meeting all of you and making more connections, especially over food since that's my favorite thing!
The best part of all these meetups is the people and the conversations. We all are like-minded in one major way and it's such a nice change of pace to be able to sit down and have a conversation about veganism or related topics and have the other person understand where you are coming from. I know, for some people, making the lifestyle change to veganism is hard. The one thing that I have found that made it easier for me is having a support network. That's really what this is all about.
Before I get all sappy, let's finish this up! I hope to see more of you at future meetups, etc. Make sure you head over to the events page and see what NJ and surrounding areas have going on! New Jersey is really starting to make way in the vegan scene and it's only going to get better from here!