Vegan Options at Fuel Pizza and Red Velvet Cupcakes

Last week, I bought a Living Social Deal for Fuel Pizza.  Fuel started out with one store in Charlotte, NC, has since expanded to eight stores in that area.  Recently, they opened two locations in DC, one on K and one on F Street.

The DC locations offer daiya cheese (the NC locations' menus do not appear to have daiya as an option - let me know if you spot it there!) so the DC Fuel locations are an option for vegans.  You won't be able to get pizza by the slice, but you can easily order a custom pie and have leftovers.

On Friday, before seeing a movie, my friend and I visited the K Street location.  I opted for a 12" multigrain crust topped with daiya, spinach, mushrooms and red onions.  While Fuel isn't as generous with the daiya as Pete's, District of Pi, or Fresh Pizzeria are, the sauce was good, the toppings were fresh and I liked the multigrain crust.  Also, the staff were extremely friendly and made us feel very welcome.

My friend was able to order pizza by the slice and enjoyed two vegetarian slices - a spinach-ricotta and a mushroom.  She said that the spinach-ricotta was perfect and that she would get it again, and that the mushroom was good, but could have used more mushrooms.

For those of you who are gluten free, Fuel offers gluten free pizza, and even gluten free beer!  Note that the gluten free pizza is only available in the 12" pie, so no slices and no larger pizzas.  It would be great if more pizza places offered vegan and gluten-free pizza options by the slice.  I know you can get vegan pizza by the slice at Whole Foods and Washington Deli (where they use soy cheese rather than daiya).  Any other leads out there?  In the meantime, let's thank local pizzerias who have vegan options and let them know there is a demand out there for vegan slices.

We had some time to kill before the movie and were craving something sweet, so my friend and I hit Red Velvet, a small cupcake store in Chinatown which I knew would have at least one vegan option on the menu.  Turns out they have two vegan options on the DC menu - the black velvet, which is a chocolate cake with a vegan chocolate "buttercream," and the white velvet, which is vanilla cake with vegan vanilla "buttercream."  The vegan cupcakes are also gluten-free.

I opted for the black velvet and liked it.  The cake on its own doesn't have a strong flavor, but paired with the icing, it was very good.  I prefer my cupcakes not to be overly sweet, and these definitely fit that bill.  If you want to bring vegan cupcakes to your next staff meeting or social gathering, you can special order a dozen for $36.  You can also get vegan cupcakes at Red Velvet's Clarendon location and Reston location.

To make up for the subpar picture I took of the cupcake, I'm sharing a picture of the cute box it came in.