This past Saturday, Ant and I headed into Philly for the first ever Philly Veg Fest, hosted by The Humane League. If you remember, back in March, we popped our veg fest cherries by visiting the NYC Veg Fest and had such a great experience. Free stuff, great food, lots of cool things to learn about — what’s not to love!? So, when we found out that Philly would be holding its very own, we knew we had to be there.
We got into the city nice and early, a little after 10am, and made our way over to the festival location. It was held in the area known as “The Shambles,” in the Head House Square District. I’ve never been in that part of the city before, but it’s a really cool area with lots of interesting architecture and cobblestone streets. I made Ant stand in line with me until 11 — the official opening of the festival — so we could get our free swag bags for being among the first 300 attendees. We got our bags and began making our way around. The crowd wasn’t bad at first, but it quickly grew and became a bit of an annoyance. More than 5,000 people showed up for this inaugural event, and while I don’t blame anyone at all — even the organizers couldn’t have known how many people would turn up — it was way too small of a venue for that size crowd. We had to squeeze through bodies and bags and strollers and people waiting in lines for food to get to where we needed to go. Not the most pleasant experience, but we didn’t let it bother us too much.
Had to take a veg fest selfie, of course!
We bought some stuff, mainly a few shirts from The Humane League‘s table and some lip balms from The Fanciful Fox. We chatted with Catskill Animal Sanctuary‘s Outreach Manager and told her how excited we were about our upcoming trip in October. She’s going to hook us up with some volunteer duties while we’re up there! Yes!! Put us to work, please! I love farm life! I discovered a really interesting vegan spiritual group, which helps people learn to navigate as a vegan in a carnist world and they hold retreats throughout the year which include lots of yoga, meditation and vegan food. Sign me up! I’m definitely going to try to connect with them in the near future. We also got a chance to talk to the folks from VegOut!, a Food Network-esque show that’s in the works, which will highlight delicious veg eats in cities around the country. We so need something like this on tv! Ant and I have been saying it for years. Too bad we didn’t capitalize on the idea, because I think it’s brilliant, but please, please, please send some funds their way, if you can, so this brilliant idea can become a brilliant reality.
Of course, we did a ton of eating. It was a veg fest, afterall, and the food was at the center of the spotlight that day. A few of our favorite Philly dining establishments were there, including Miss Rachel’s Pantry and HipCityVeg. We tried Miss Rachel’s cheesesteak hand pies and thought they were super yummy! I’m going to try to figure out how to recreate them at home. From the HipCityVeg booth, we got a club sandwich bite and a tempeh rollup, both of which were really good. Oh, and we split a green lemonade, too. Lemonade is one of my favorite drinks and I thought HipCityVeg’s version would ruin it by adding, of all things, kale (yuck — not a fan!!), to it. But it was refreshing and delicious, just like lemonade should be.
We were also super excited to learn more about V Street, the newest endeavor from Chef Rich Landau, of Horizons and Vedge (and Chopped!) fame, and it definitely didn’t disappoint! We ordered some trumpet mushroom tacos from their table and oh my God, were they good! And it was really cool to see Chef Rich manning the grill and laughing with his employees — that guy is just so super cool and down-to-earth!
Show that grill who’s boss, Chef Rich!!
There were a few companies offering free samples, but not as many as I’d hoped. We tried vegan scrapple, which was awesome! I never had the real thing, so I don’t know how it compares, but Ant said although it was really, really tasty, it didn’t taste much like real scrapple, but the texture was pretty accurate. We also liked the samples we got from the Just Mayo table and the Sip ‘n Glo Juicery.
We missed the few cooking demos that we wanted to try to see — we were too busy stuffing our faces. Whoops! There’s always next time, I guess!
After we’d made our rounds and filled our bellies, we (sadly) called it a wrap. We had a family function to attend back home, or we probably would have stayed for the rest of the evening, enjoying the beautiful weather and all the sights and sounds of the city. Before leaving, though, I did get to finally meet up with Carmella and Carlo, otherwise known as The Food Duo, who had made their way down from NYC with some friends to check out what the Philly veg scene has to offer. Hope you enjoyed your time in our city, guys!!
All in all, we thought this event was a huge success. Hopefully it will return next year — bigger, better and in a more appropriately-sized space! And if it does, we’ll be sure to be there!
Did you attend the Philly Veg Fest? What did you think of it?
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