When talking to our customers, one of their most requested items has been a more “formal” looking belt. Something that would work with a suit or a pair of dress pants as well as dress up denim. To respond to that request, we are proud to introduce “The Garrison” to our current line of belts. The Garrison has a rounded brass buckle and fastener as well as exposed stitching around the edges/ loop for standout style. The belt is exactly 1″ wide to accommodate the small sized belt loops found on many dress pants. It comes in both black and brown, costs $23 and is available now in our shop. Click on this link to see more photos or pick one (or two) up today!

More than once we saw dogs lying fast asleep on the edge of the street with traffic flying by not more than 2 feet away. They wander in and out of cars at intersections or stop lights and have apparently learned to deal with the incomprehensible Indian rules of the road. After doing a bit of research, I came across this page on the PETA India website that explains that it is now illegal to use a vehicle to hit and injure a stray animals (dogs/cats/cows). Apparently that used to be a big problem in cities with large driving populations.

In the mid-90’s, most of India switched from a policy of extermination to a policy of sterilization in an attempt to control the population. No longer is it legal for municipalities to kill stray dogs by leaving out poisoned food, starving them, electrocuting them or burying them alive. They now seem to rely heavily on non-profits and charities to spearhead the reduction of stray dogs across the country by trap, neuter and release.

The truly sad fact is that if an animal does find itself sick or hurt, it wander around without treatment until it presumably starves and dies. There are “Please don’t feed the dogs” signs all over, but we still attempted to feed a few strays that we came across. Most of the time they wouldn’t approach us so we just dropped food and walked away hoping they would get it when we left.

After seeing the plight that these poor animals face, we realized that a few US Dollars could go pretty far towards helping dogs in India. Much further than it would here in the States. And as far as we are concerned, helping a dog nearly 8,000 miles away is just as good as helping one in our local shelter. As you may or may not know, The Vegan Collection donates 25% of the profits from every sale to one of four charities. It’s about to turn into five. We are currently researching organizations that have implemented mass sterilization programs for stray dogs in India.

We have a couple of great candidates and we hope to announce our new charity soon. Keep checking the site and the blog for more info.

They would not let us take pictures inside the restaurant, so I had to sneak a photo of this sign next to the menu:

The “Beef and Pork Products Not Sold Here” sign must be an easy way to explain to tourists why they can’t get their Big Mac, Quarter Pounder or McRib. McDonald’s have two completely different menus, food prep stations and sets of servers for the veg and non-veg options. Even the people who work at the counter either wear red outfits for non-veg or green outfits for veg. It’s amazing that they are more concerned about cross-contamination there than most veg-friendly restaurants here in the states. The non-veg menu is loaded with chicken items like the Chicken Maharaja Mac and the Chicken McGrill, but we weren’t there for that, we were there for the vegan options.

We opted for the McAloo Tikki Burger meal, hold the “sauce” which was some kind of mayo/ketchup concoction I’m guessing.

There were a bunch of strange options on the menu if you ate dairy like the Veg Pizza McPuff, the Paneer Salsa Warp and the McCurry Pan Paneer. The two medium drinks, two sandwiches and a medium french fries ended up being 285 Indian rupee, which is about the equivalent of $6 US Dollars, which is actually pretty expensive compared to the much larger and much better Indian food meals we were used to eating.

One thing that was really nice is that anything that was completely vegetarian is denoted with a small “Veg” label on the wrapper. So unlike the McDonald’s french fries in the US which contain beef flavoring, the same french fries are veg in India. To tell you the truth, it has been over 15 years since I’ve had McDonald’s french fries, I can’t tell you if there is any noticeable difference in flavor between the two.

After eating our meals we were still a little hungry. We figured since we didn’t know when the next time we would be making it to another Indian McDonald’s, we’ll be true Americans and overeat, so I ordered a McVeggie Burger with no mayo.

When it came out it was basically the same thing as the McAloo Tikki Burger, but instead of tomatoes and onions on a patty made out of potato, onion and peas, you get lettuce on the same patty. A bit of a letdown, but I think the difference comes in the sauce or the mayo, neither of which we had.

We added a bit of ketchup (no mustard was available) and choked it down.

All in all, the meal was probably the worst one we had the entire time we visited (not counting the vegetarian meals on the flights, yuck!). The last thing to mention, and something that I didn’t catch until we were leaving, is that they ask you to deposit any unused condiments, a.k.a. ketchup packets, back into a small box. After I got to thinking about it, who knows how many times that same packet has been handled before you touch it, open it, use it, then use your hands to pick up your food. That worried me a little bit.

After we were done, we decided to go kill some time at a coffee shop around the corner. This was a pretty big deal because coffee in India means boiled water and Folgers Crystals. The fact that we were able to have coffee made from real beans after drinking Folgers sounded extremely tempting. We stopped in Cafe Coffee Day and much to our surprise, they offered an item called a “Vegan Shake.” We ordered it and it tasted like an overly sweet soy latte.

As you can see from the picture, it came with ice, so we drank it as quickly as possible (even at a “western style” restaurant you don’t know if the water is filtered or non-filtered) and spent the rest of the afternoon chatting and waiting to go to the airport.

So as much as I hate supporting McDonald’s in any fashion, I can now say “been there, done that” and have visited a veg friendly Mickey D’s. Now never again.

This week we will have a series of posts about our experiences while in India including our visit to the factory that makes our products, our first time trying the fabled veg friendly Indian McDonalds, and our impression of India’s out-of-control stray dog/goat/boar/cow population. India is a fascinating country that is so drastically different than anything I could have imagined. Hopefully you will find our stories and photos interesting.

Saturday, February 13th

Party/Fundraiser for Animal Cruelty Investigations: Join Jane Velez-Mitchell (of HLN’s “Issues”) and Rory Freedman (bestselling author of “Skinny Bitch”) at this swanky cocktail party to benefit Animal Cruelty Investigations. A minimum donation of $100 is suggested, which all goes to this great cause. Space is limited so you should RSVP now to info@acinvestigations.org or call 310.383.9777.

Sunday, February 14th:

Compassion Over Killing Valentines Fundraiser: If you look at the post before this one, you can get the full details. But the quick scoop is vegan food, drinks, prizes, music and karaoke all for $20 at 2 Headed Horse Gallery in Los Feliz. You can RSVP here.

For even more events happening this weekend, check out the calendar.

Here’s all the info you need:

WHERE: 2 Headed Horse Art Studio at 1770 Glendale Blvd. LA, CA 90026
WHEN: Sun., Feb 14 at 7:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m.
TICKETS: Advance tickets are $15 online, $20 at the door.
RSVP: On Facebook or info@cok.net
Buy your tickets online today at http://bit.ly/3w0CPR

Saturday, January 30th

Vegan Drinks at Pizza Fusion: Alcohol, vegans, and pizza. Three of my favorite things all rolled into one awesome event. We’ll be making the trek all the way over to the westside to finally check out the Pizza Fusion pizza that everyone’s been raving about. As of right now, there is one RSVP spot left, so if you’re thinking about going, you best get on it. You can find out all the details here. Also note, it’s an early event, from 2 PM – 5 PM.

Sunday, January 31st:

Haiti Fundraiser Vegan Bake Sale: If you find yourself in Hollywood this Sunday, stop by Locali (5285 Franklin Ave) to pick up some of the finest vegan baked goods known to man. ALL proceeds from the bake sale will be going to Doctors Without Borders. We’re making a few items and if previous vegan bake sales are any indication, get there early with a lot of cash because you are going to want to take some of these items home with you. Here is the Facebook event page.

For even more events happening this weekend, check out the calendar.