Even though they have been open for nearly two months, my new favorite breakfast place, Flore Cafe, is having their Grand Opening tonight. They are going to be providing food plus booze and bands for anyone who wants to stop by between 6:30 and 9:30 PM. As you may have guessed, this is not happening at the restaurant since it only holds about 20 people, but down the road a piece at Descanso which is located at 3206 W. Sunset Blvd. The pic of the restaurant where this event is not happening is from Yelp, which was originally uploaded by quarrygirl.

The Potsticker Salad. The most expensive thing on their menu, but my favorite of their 5 salad options.

I’ve spend most of my morning watching LA Animal Services new Valentines Kitty Cam.

These 7 five-week-old kittens are looking to find forever homes by Valentine’s Day. Watch these adorable little tikes tumble and play LIVE until they are available for adoption on February 8th @ 8am at the West Los Angeles Animal Care Center.

Trying to capitalize on the Prop. 2 victory in California, animal rights groups FARM, IDA, APRL, and the Animal Rights 2009 National Conference have launched the new website livevegan.org (not to be confused with the old-ish SoCal site livingvegan.org). You can keep up-to-date on their website about all their California campaigns including placement of ten billboards across California informing people about a vegan diet, 700 bus display cards, letters to the editors of over 120 California newspapers and a major leafleting campaign. You can download all their literature including a vegan starter kit and their global warming literature here.

If you’re looking for something to do this Friday night, there is not one, but TWO veggie Meetup events happening in the greater Los Angeles area. First is the weekly Santa Monica Vegetarian Meetup who are dining at The Veggie Grill in El Segundo. I have not been to one of their dinners, mainly because I live on the other side of town and there are few things I hate more than driving over to the westside after work during rush hour. Typically they get over a dozen people to show up, eat good food and have a good time.

The other event happening tonight is the United Animal Advocates Meetup in Long Beach at the Zephr Cafe. It will be an opportunity to meet other animal activists in the Los Angeles area as well as Nina Beas and her group, the Animal Protection & Rescue League from San Diego. Find out about what they are doing to ban the use of Foie Gras in restaurants.

Check the calendar for all the details.

About.com has a great video on how to make your own Tofurkey. They say it’s delicious and it certainly looks tasty, but I haven’t tried it so if you make it let me know how it turns out. I really like how About.com has the video plus the directions down below, very handy! It’s much more informative than just a picture, especially with something as complicated as a Tofurkey with stuffing. Here’s the link to video.

The Club at Tierra Cafe. Make sure to ask for it vegan so you get the vegan bacon and cheese.

PETA’s new rejected Super Bowl ad is causing quite a stir on various blogs but I was surprised when I navigated to CNN.com this morning and saw that “Vegetable Ad Too Hot For TV” was one of the top items on their “Latest News” section. Despite what you think about PETA or their exploitation of women (or men), they are by far the best at getting big time media coverage for animal rights. The CNN link takes you to a short video clip of their anchor Christi Paul fielding reactions from the “general public.” It’s worth watching the video to see how shocked (shocked!) and insulted people are about the video, never mind that two years ago they had Paris Hilton washing down a Bentley for Hardees or the girl from GoDaddy.com busting out of her top that got rave reviews. Well, I’m insulted that the “general public” thinks “exploitate” is an actual word. Maybe if they were having better sex they wouldn’t be so easily irritated. You can see the CNN video here or the original PETA ad here.

The Vegan Collection is getting ready to add belts to the list of stuff we sell. We will have a simple non-leather plain black and plain brown option, but what do you think of the black/brown combo belts? I’m kind of digging them. Would you wear them?

Vegan Collection Blog contributor and man about town, Prabhat Gautam, and his good friend Rebecca Smith are organizing a veg networking event. If you are interested in meeting veg friends for dating purposes or business purposes, you can fill out the questionnaire below and submit it to prabhat_gautam@hotmail.com. He tells me that even if you’re not looking for a date it will still be a great event to meet other veg*ns in Los Angeles. So bring your favorite non-alcoholic vegan snack (apparently Vodka doesn’t count as a “snack”) and meet your new business partner or life partner. Questionnaire is after the jump. (more…)