Providence and Boston.

After spending four amazing days in New York City we picked up our hire car and headed East towards Boston. We planned in a couple of stops along the way and the first was at the Pez Factory in Orange, Connecticut.  I've been collecting Pez dispensers for about 12 years so I was super excited to get to visit this collectors mecca.

I spent a silly amount of money in the gift shop & got incredibly overexcited when I spotted this picture & signed Pez gun from the band that started the obsession, Less Than Jake. Less Than Jake are still in my top 5 favourite bands of all time and I really wanted to break the glass & do a runner with that ray-gun!

We stopped in Providence, Rhode Island that afternoon and quickly found a cafe bar with free wifi so that we could fire up the internet & work out where to find food.

Happy Cow came to the rescue as always and this time it directed us towards Thayer Street where we found Nice Slice. There were two vegan pizza options that day. First I picked this mushroom, red onion & BBQ sauce topped slice...

...and then after realising that these guys make damn fine pizza I grabbed another slice. This time, Arugula and Cherry Tomato. Both pizzas had the perfect amount of toppings and had my favourite super thin crust.

I loved that you could get vegan pizza by the slice here, so many places sell by the slice but if you want something vegan you have to order a whole pizza. I loved it even more when the dude behind the counter gave me two slices for the price of one because they were the last two slices of that pie, score! I was surprised to find that the Arugula & Cherry Tomato slice was my favourite & I really hope that I find myself in Providence again one day so that I can try some more of this awesome pizzerias slices.

After our late lunch we turned left on Thayer Street and almost immediately stumbled upon the Like No Udder vegan soft serve truck. We knew that the truck would be somewhere in Providence but we were't expecting it to be right there!

Like No Udder sell vanilla and chocolate soft serve, milkshakes, floats, Go Max bars and vegan jerky. They have loads of great toppings including peanut butter sauce, coconut shreds, Oreo crumbles, coffee syrup & sprinkles. I got a chocolate soft serve in a cone topped with Oreo crumbles.

This ice cream was so much more epic than I was expecting! It was huge & I loved that the whole thing was rolled in the Oreo crumbles. The woman working at the truck was super friendly and helpful too, she gave us some great tips on eating in Boston and was just super lovely in general.

The next day we were due to check into our hotel in Boston, we hadn't really planned to book hotels along the way but when we realised that our visit coincided with Harvard university's commencement weekend we thought we'd better get on it! We drove by Harvard Square and decided to stop & have a wander around, it was pretty fun because it was super busy, full of excited looking students and proud parents & it was cool to see a real American university, or should I say college, campus.

We managed to work up quite an appetite walking around Cambridge which was perfect because we had Veggie Galaxy plans! Veggie Galaxy is your classic American diner minus the meat, this all veggie diner even has an entirely vegan bakery.

Unsurprisingly for this trip I started the meal with a root beer.

This was swiftly followed by a build your own omelet. I chose to fill mine with tempeh bacon, leeks and home made vegan cheese. The omelet came with two sides, toast & home fries.

Such perfect breakfast food, I loved how stuffed my omelette was and I think crispy home fries have to be one of my favourite ways to eat potatoes. This was from the all day breakfast menu which is one of my favourite kinds of menu, I always get so sad when I see a great looking breakfast menu that stops at midday.

I knew as soon as I sat down and glanced at the menu that I would be ordering the Lemon Meringue Pie for dessert. Lemon Meringue pie was my absolute favourite dessert before I went vegan, I've always been too lazy to attempt to make it myself despite my best intentions so this is the first time I'd eaten it in around 6 years. Honestly, this is the best vegan dessert I've ever eaten. Ever. And I eat a lot of dessert.

This perfect pie has an untraditional but nicely crisp biscuit base and the tart lemon curd filling comes topped with tonnes of fluffy meringue. Of course I got a second slice to go! If you're ever in Boston, hell, if you're ever in the North East, I would insist that you take a trip to Veggie Galaxy to eat this dessert.

After that amazing lunch we finally drove into Boston, checked into our hotel and headed out for a walk around beautiful streets...

...with one destination in mind! Somewhere I've always dreamed of visiting, the Cheers Bar!

I got to drink a beer sitting in Norm's spot at the bar! It was pretty cool! 

After a whole lot more exploring we settled upon My Thai Vegan Cafe for dinner, mainly because it was right around the corner from where we were standing when we realised how goddamn hungry we were!

My Thai Vegan Cafe is located up a somewhat dubious looking stairwell in Chinatown and because we arrived shortly before they were due to close we had to move fast, we skipped a starter and ordered two dishes to share. We picked the Tofu and Vegetables...

...and the Pad See Ew with veggie chicken.

Pad See Ew is quickly becoming my favourite noodle dish, I love the version from Pukk in NYC but this was also excellent. I really liked their veggie chicken, the thick rice noodles were cooked perfectly and there was plenty of broccoli. I enjoyed the Tofu and Vegetables dish we ordered even more though, this dish came with steamed jasmine rice & whilst it sounded pretty unassuming the mystery sauce coating the tofu & veggies lifted this stir fry to another level. I loved the slivers of soft tofu, they'd clearly been deep fried before being sliced up & thrown into this tasty stir fry & the veggies were some of my favourites, carrot, broccoli & mange tout...we won't talk about that damn baby corn! I'll definitely re-visit My Thai next time I find myself in Boston and I really must learn how to make Pad See Ew at home.

Sadly we only had a short amount of time in Boston, as is often the way with a road trip, so we got up bright & early and headed out to check out the harbor.

It was a beautiful day and we managed to find time to grab lunch at Clover Food Truck before heading to our next destination. This vegetarian food truck can be found in several locations around Boston & we found them by Summer Street & Atlantic Avenue. I was amazed at the huge line of people queueing up for the truck but we happily waited as a line that long can only mean one thing, great food. The line moved really quickly thanks to the super efficient staff and the great ordering system they have set up. I was just planning to grab a sandwich but I spotted someone else's Rosemary Fries and had to get a portion for myself.

These were seriously good fries, I love fries, or chips, that are fancied up with a topping like cheese or gravy (or both!) but tossing them in salt & herbs isn't something I'd ever considered before. Delicious.

I picked the Chickpea Fritter sandwich after asking advice on what's best and this was definitely a great choice.

This is essentiallly an enormous falafel sandwich stuffed to the brim with delicious vegan coleslaw and tahini sauce. The bread was amazing and the chickpea fritters were perfectly crispy. We really enjoyed sitting on the patch of grass near the food truck and doing a spot of people watching. It was lunchtime & it was cool to watch people in their fancy work gear eating, chatting & playing frisbee during their midday break.

After filling up on food we headed to Salem to check out spooky witchy things but that's a story for next time!