This was my first time at Nature's Food Patch and I was impressed as soon as I walked in the door. It's an average-sized health food store - bigger than Richard's or Chuck's, smaller than Whole Foods - but very clean and modern-looking and well-stocked. Their cafe is smaller than Whole Foods, but their vegan options are 100 times tastier than anything I've ever eaten from a WF's hot bar.
Unlike any random mish-mash meal I've put together at Whole Foods, I totally ate and enjoyed every little thing on my plate at Nature's Food Patch.
My #1 favorite was the broccoli peanut salad (far right, above the delicious blackened tofu). Holy guacamole, I could have eaten a plate of nothing but that broccoli peanut salad. For some reason, every time I make something at home with Vegenaise, I never like it and can never eat it, but anytime I've had Vegenaise-y foods made by someone else, I tend to love it. This salad was by far the BEST Vegenaise-involved salad EVER. I'm still dreaming about it.
My other favorite was the Southern Kale on the far left. Made with stewed tomatoes and black-eyed peas and the perfect spices, it was such comfort food. Loved it! Of course, I thoroughly enjoyed everything on my plate and if I'm ever out in the Clearwater area, I'd definitely return to Nature's Food Patch if for nothing else than to buy 5 pounds of broccoli peanut salad.
NFP hosts vegan (and gluten-free!) cooking classes a few times a month, as well as speaking events. You can check out their calendar here. If you like what you see, or you already know and love Nature's Food Patch, check 'em out on Facebook, as well.
Looks absolutely delicious! My wife and I are vegans and a huge problem we have when traveling is trying to find something great to eat. I feel like too often we are picking through bad salads! We are busy planning a trip down to Florida so it's great to see there is a decent health food store in the area. We are planning on renting one of the Clearwater vacation rentals so we should be able to cook and prepare some of our own meals. Definitely is great to see the area has a food store worth checking out!
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