Today I’m sitting down with the owner of Organic Food Kings in Miami, Florida, my guy Alex. Iheard this is the best vegan place to come in the city. Sotell me what your name is, what’s the name of the restaurant and how this got started. My name is Alex. This is Organic Food Kings, the best vegan spot in Miami. I’ve been vegan 11 months man, ain’tcounting. A little bit about my story man, I had a life threatening situation where they found four stones in my gallbladder. And I had to hit close to home in order for me to kind of switch it up.
What made you decide to?
You’ve been vegan for 11 months. What made you decide, you know what, I’m going vegan and have you seen any changes, any benefits? I always used to be tired, druggie, exhausted. I used to drink three cups of coffee a day. A Red Bull because I was always exhausted. I feel better. I feelthe correct word, I’m not cloudy anymore, I’m not druggie, I’m not exhausted.
I found out that veganism wasn’t walking around the house eating carrots all day like my wife. A doctor when I got the operation saved my life. After the operation he showed me a jar with four stones the size of half a quarter
So I’m like so what do I do from here? Man he looks around like this, like I’m looking because I’m going totell you something that I could lose my license for. He goes black brown people, people like us, we in danger, they’re poisoning us with the food. So Isaid so what do I do? I eat organic? He goes no you go plant based. So when he said plant based I’m like oh shit dog I’m not even going to waste your time. Pull the plug, I see the light, I see the tunnel. I said don’t even charge this hospital bill because I know it’s going to be big. And he goes nah man I’ve been vegan for 15 years, they got meat, theygot pork, they got chicken. And I said shit well why don’t we eat that in my house? I said my wife walks around with these bowls with salad and carrots and he goes she’s a raw vegan. I’m a vegan vegan.
So what I did was I spent about $15 ,000 in three months. But I went to every vegan restaurant you could possibly name and I saw that everything tastes like cauliflower, everythingtastes like mushrooms. Everything on my menu is something that I used to love. I used to love the Big Mac, that’s the Yeti burger, the chicken sandwich I got that from Chick -fil -A. Right. Our cake I got it from Chili’s, the empanadas there’s a famous Spanish restaurant here that everybody goes and there’s lines to eat empanadas. My vegan food tastes real.
Man I’m excited to try this food man tell me what we got coming up. We got the Yeti burger and grandma’s empanadas. We got a pulled pork made out of jackfruit and we also got the chicken one. They both fired. The Yeti burger I want to say it’s the best burger we got rated the number one vegan burger in Florida. It’s all about the seasoning.
Yo my brother listen last night a lot of people are like yo but you’re vegan why are you a little thick? I’m like my grandmother wants to do all her taste testing at 11 30 12 o ‘clock at night. I’m like grandma we got to do these testing at like 6 5 in the afternoon. My brother I didn’t know about the soy thing till I started researching it because like I went to the I went to Burger King.
I tried the impossible burger. I went to a very famous restaurant in Atlanta and a lot of their products have soy in it. And I’ll mind you I didn’t there’s a thing with good soy and bad soy right. To me soy soy whether it’s a little bit good or a little bit bad. And I went back to my grandmother and I said grandma is there any way that we could do vegan food with no gluten and no soy. She said of course. So she started breaking it down about the almond milk about little things about the oatmeal and just everything she sheshe educated me on it.
And I’m like well what I could do to be different than everybody out there. Now that I’m looking into the research of all the restaurants that I’ve been eating they all got soy they all got gluten. My brother we opened up six days before the pandemic. We opened up March 6th. We’re a little bit over a year we got two locations we’re going on the third.
Only reason is why we haven’t expand a lot more is because we make everything in -house every night. Everything is fresh organic we don’t use stairways we buy this from a farm. Behonest with you I don’t think nobody’s doing it better than we are.
Look the food’s ready. Taste test about to go down. Taste test man. All right so that’s the Yeti burger that has egg bacon two pieces of meat lettuce tomato pickles onions.
We call it the healthy Big Mac. All right taste test it’s about to go down. Take a bite don’t be shy. Can you believe that ain’t real bread bro. Hey I promise you. Shitain’t real bread. My first thought this ain’t vegan. But it’s different man and it’s like man I gotta give graces to my wife and tomy grandmother man. They made this possible I can never imagine really eating a burger that is not a real burger and it tastes better than a real burger. I will never lie to you about the vegan food. I guarantee if you come to this spot you are going to enjoy it.
Grandma’s famous empanada
But before I take another bite of this burger we got to jump into grandma’s famous empanada. Allright I heard good things about this. So that one we got chicken cheese cilantro grandma’s secret seasoning. I want to say man if we could compare this to music we’re like the jay -z of this man.
I’m not gonna front my very first thought when I brought when I bit into this it’s no way that this is not like a real beef burger. Now that’s another thing that we were trying to master my brother that we didn’t want. I wanted my whole goal is to make vegan people people that are not vegan become vegan and not miss it. You know what I’m saying like a lot of people like me I was scared because we’ve been programmed to eat meat you know and a lot of people think that you need a 16 -ounce steak to get protein but a lot of people don’t know that you get the same protein from a big bowl of beans if not more. But since we’re carnivores since children and you really start thinking about it I feel that my whole goal if I can make one vegan a day my job is done.
I want to say I think so much clearer now man I feel better I’m always I’m not exhausted man I used to have a lot of headaches I don’t get headaches no more I just feel the differences man I feel so much better and if you look at me man I’m on the vegan plus size you know I’m saying I’m on the on the chunky side so that that just goes to show you man that vegans all shapes all colors all sizes.
