(upbeat music)
- Hey guys, it's Candice, The Edgy Veg
and I am so excited because we're trying
another vegan restaurant in Toronto,
except this one is a fast food place, not like,
"Oh, you can go into a diner and eat vegan-like fast food."
No, no, this is, like, an actual fast food place.
So, we are here at Globally Local
and what they do is take all of your favorite fast food
places and make vegan versions of it.
So they have, like, a vegan Whopper, and a Big Mac,
and, like, Dairy-Queen-styled sundaes,
and breakfast sandwiches.
So let's go and eat.
I'm hungry, are you?
Oh, and I have my friend.
- I'm tagging along behind you.
(relaxing music)
- All right, so we're here at Globally Local
and it is a vegan version of fast food.
So, their menu's kind of set up,
it has, y'know, a breakfast menu and then chicken burgers,
beef-styled burgers, dessert, also Euro,
so it takes your favorite portions
of your favorite fast food places but veganizes them.
So, we ordered a little bit of everything
off of all the different styles of menus
and I'm very hungry,
and I'm very excited to give them a try.
I always judge a place by their chicken burger.
So I'm excited for that.
Our first course, is the maple breakfast sandwich.
So it has maple syrup, what looks like a hash brown,
tofu with black salt, tempeh bacon,
and a vegan cheese on an English muffin.
Oh my gosh, so good.
It's kind of like, McGriddle vibes from McDonald's.
It's not overly sweet which is really nice,
it's a nice balance of like sweet and salty,
that bacon is really good
and you guys know I don't usually like tempeh at all.
(mumbles)
- This is required.
Wore a white shirt, tend to be a little bit of a messy eater
Just precautions.
That's just the right amount of sweetness to it.
- [Candice] That's what I said.
It's, like, sweet and salty, it's a nice.
- I used to love McGriddles from McDonald's.
That was, like, one of my hangover necessities.
But it was always, like, a little too sweet.
That's really goddamn good.
(exotic music)
- So this is the Preposterous Burger
which is their version of a Beyond Meat Burger
so all of their food is made in-house,
they're not bringing in any other third company's,
like, products, so this their version of that and it is
ketchup, mustard, pickles, onion, the patty, lettuce,
and what looks like a vegan mayo.
So this is a seitan,
and I believe he's also said a chickpea-protein base
to this guy, so,
and this bun is so nice and soft,
it's like a brioche-style bun.
Oh, that's good.
- See, I'm interested to try this
because I find some of the Beyond Meat options out there
have been kind of hit-or-miss at some of the chains.
Or restaurants, not chains.
- [Candice] So, this, they make their own version of it.
There's, like, a distinct fast food burger taste
that I'm getting, right?
- Yes.
There's a familiarity with that.
- Yeah.
- In a big way.
I don't know if it's, like, the fact that the patty,
there's not the spices that are necessary, like,
it's not necessarily overbearing
so you kind of get that classic, like, burger
with the mayonnaise and the pickle and the onions,
and then enough of a meaty patty taste that it kind of
completes that classic burger flavor.
That's really goddamn good.
- Look at this.
- [James] So this is our famous burger.
So, this is kind of like,
we actually started with this burger in fast food.
So, this burger, like, we launched it at Ribfest 2016
in London, we sold out.
- [Candice] Oh wow.
- And it was like, kind of made big news
because it was the first time a vegan vendor
had been at the Ribfest.
- Thank you, everything's so good so far.
So, this is their version of the Big Mac.
And James, the owner, was saying that this made it's debut
at a Ribfest, and a not-vegan Ribfest.
Like a meat, carnivore Ribfest,
they debuted this and it sold out,
and it was mostly bought by non-vegans.
Let's see.
Oh.
That's really good.
- [Friend] Yeah?
- Mmhmm.
This was a bad day to wear lipstick.
- I haven't had that flavor in so long.
It's really good.
The quality of the bun on both?
- Because with the vegan places, you always get, like,
a wholewheat bun and nobody wants that.
Stop doing that.
(laughs)
- The only fast food that tossed on, the whole, nuh,
what are you doing?
- We're not here for that.
Our next course, yes, I called it a course.
These are Korean-sesame wings.
Apparently, this is one of the most popular items
that they have, are their wings.
They're called Wing-a-Lings.
♪ My Wing-a-Ling ♪
Oh that's really good, it's not,
I was expecting it to be spicier
and it's actually really nice.
It's crispy.
I don't know what their chicken's made out of but
It's like juicy and tender.
It has, like, a tang to it, it's really, really good.
Like really good.
- I'm not a huge wing guy to begin with
but I am a nugget guy.
Oh yeah.
The chicken's really nice.
That actually tastes like that's chicken.
Yeah, give me a box of these.
Easy.
- All right, next up we have the Buffalo Chicken Burger.
It's on a sesame seed bun, lettuce and mayo, buffalo sauce.
All right.
This is one of my favorite things, I love buffalo sauce.
(muffled) It's so good.
I love chicken burgers.
I remember eating so many chicken burgers as a kid.
So the mayo and the lettuce kind of mutes
the spiciness of the buffalo sauce.
Which is great, which is the same reason why you get, like,
a side of ranch with your hot wings.
- Now
That's pretty damn good.
You know why?
Because it's not too much buffalo sauce.
(exotic music)
♪ Onion rings ♪
- So, these are red-onion-ring onion rings
as opposed to white or sweet onion.
I haven't had an onion ring in a long time.
Because most of the time the batter is made with eggs.
Very nicely seasoned.
(laughs)
- How generous.
These are one of my favorite fast foods, period.
- [Candice] Fast foods?
- Fast foods, fast foods.
So I'm excited to try this because I've never had one
with red onions.
(bag crinkles)
(laughs)
- I think he likes it.
Bitch, fuck me up.
(laughs)
- All right, let's get into this.
- What is that?
That's Euro meat.
Tzatziki?
- Yeah.
- This pita is, like, butter.
Sex is great, but have you eaten at Globally Local?
I've been wanting to do, like, a Euro Doner situation
on this channel, so if you wanna see something like that,
let me know.
Because this is just motivating me even more.
- [Friend] Yeah, that pita is incredible.
- I might be able to make this at home.
All right, guys, we just had a delicious lunch
at Globally Local.
And I'm here with James McInnes, who is the owner.
How would you categorize yourself?
- Yeah, founder, co-founder along with my wife.
- Wife and husband team, that's awesome.
So, can you tell us a little bit about, like,
with the concept, how you came up with it,
kind of, what your mission is?
- So, I mean our concept initially
was to get people to eat plant-based foods.
I mean, that was just how, our company's always been vegan
We've been vegan for four years
and we weren't always doing fast food
but we kind of got into fast food
because it was a way that we found that connected with,
like, the average person that wouldn't normally eat many
fruits and vegetables or many plant-based foods.
So, it started really at Ribfest 2016
and that's where we introduced our famous burger
which is, like, a vegan Big Mac knockoff burger.
It was super successful, it sold out,
and kind of proved that there's a lot of demand
among non-vegans for vegan food.
- So you were at a Ribfest.
- Yeah.
- Like, carnivore fest?
- Meat festival, exactly.
- And you brought a vegan version of, like, a Big Mac
and it sold out?
- Yeah.
- That's amazing.
- Yeah, so it was pretty crazy and honestly,
we didn't know what to expect, like, it just kinda happened
and I think from that point on,
it kind of set the tone for us to, kind of,
go in that direction.
We just had so many people trying it,
so many people loving it, and so many people going vegan
because of what we're doing.
People come in and say,
"Wow, if it's this easy, I can do it at home,
"I can do it at other restaurants."
- Well, that's exactly, y'know, how The Edgy Veg started too
It was make food that people can relate to,
like, make food that they recognize,
flavor profiles that they recognize,
and then they're kind of like,
"Oh, I can have the same thing?"
And now they don't even have to make it at home
because they can come here.
- Yeah, exactly.
Although, we still do, like, really encourage people
to, like, obviously cook at home because that's like
I think what you do is so important and stuff
because I mean, eating out is, like, part of it,
but eating at home is super important.
We have to do something for the planet,
we have to do something for animals,
we have to do something for our health,
something has to change
and I think that's kind of like what our mission is,
it's to, kinda like, help to lead that change in the world.
- I could not agree more.
And how did you come up with all the different,
like, how did you pick your favorite menu items
from different fast food places to veganize?
- It started with the famous burger,
then we kind of realized that chicken is a huge thing
and we moved into chicken big time
so we spent a tremendous amount of time
researching and developing our chicken
and our chicken actually is our top seller.
Overall, we've sold the most chicken out of anything we do.
And that's our chicken burger, buffalo chicken, cordon bleu,
we have our wings, our tenders,
and as we kind of developed the, y'know, the technology,
and that kind of stuff and how do we scale it,
that's always the hardest thing with food for us is
how do we provide something that's the same
to not just two restaurants, but 1000 restaurants.
Making all of our own food is really important to us.
We didn't want to use, like, third-party products,
we wanted to have control over our food,
something that's made locally.
We think that really connects with people
that when they come in
and know that this is not something you're gonna get
at a grocery stores, it's something that's completely made,
like, homemade in our own food factory.
- And unique to you guys.
- Yeah, exactly.
And that was also really important
I think to kind of have that out there so.
Yeah, and I think so far in Toronto.
- I mean, you guys have been open for, what, two weeks?
And it's, the lunch rush was huge,
so you're sitting on something here.
Monsieur.
(laughs)
All right, guys, let me know what dish
looked the most delicious to you
in the comment section below.
If you like this kind of highlighting
of local vegan restaurants, give this video a big thumbs up.
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I make new videos every Tuesdays and Thursdays at 4pm,
and I'll see you next time, bye.