Opened in May, Yamchops is a new vegetarian butcher located in the heart of Little Italy. I was intrigued by their seemingly paradoxical title, but the concept is sound. Yamchops offers a variety of plant based protein alternatives with prepared foods, meals, fresh pressed juice and lots of gourmet vegetarian food products.

Disclaimer: All drinks and dishes were provided free of charge by the restaurant. All opinions expressed below are wholly mine.

I had the opportunity to visit the store and sample their wares during a recent media event with my friend who is vegetarian (for a second opinion since I’m quite the carnivore). We started with samples of Au Jus, a line of fresh pressed juices. I loved the watermelon juice with a touch of lemon. It had a strong, full flavour and not overly sweet. All of the juices tasted exactly like their name from Pineapple to Salad Days.

The selection of prepared foods at Yamchops range in flavours from Asian to BBQ. In general, I found that none of the food substitutions tried to mimic the meat directly but more in flavour and texture. I liked that you could still taste the natural ingredients in every dish and it wasn’t an unknown soy mixture. We tried many of the offerings including:

• Carrot lox, made with cured organic carrots
• Raw pad thai made of spiralized carrots, zucchini and beets
• Coconut Ba-con
• Tuna-less Tuna made with chickpeas
• No Pork Pulled Pork made with cabbage
• Roasted Pineapple Chutney
• Shawarma “beef”
• Korean BBQ “chicken”

The flavour and seasoning of each dish was authentic and I really loved the tangy and sweet Korean BBQ “chicken”. The No Pork Pulled Pork was like a slaw with a great BBQ sauce and coconut ba-con was a great treat reminding me of coconut candy I had in Maui. I was impressed by the international breadth and creativity of the menu selection at Yamchops. The dishes were truly unique and satisfied this carnivore.

Each dish can be purchased by weight in addition to set lunch boxes. Yamchops is open daily from 11am to 7pm and also takes orders online at https://yamchops.com/collections/all.

Disclaimer: Products reviewed below were provided complimentary by Ely Products. All opinions expressed below are wholly mine and not indicative of the opinions or positions held by Ely Products.

The Basics:
Imported from Latin America, Natural Sins is a baked, dried fruit snack that is 100% natural with no preservatives or dyes. The fruit is sliced very thin and each re-sealable package contains 1oz of the snack. There are 6 fruits available; mango, coconut, apple, orange, beetroot and pineapple. Each package of Natural Sins is 100 calories or less, with the exception of coconut at 168 calories.

My Experience:
When I’m bored at home or work, I look for a snack. While I love to eat fruit naturally, I will also gravitate towards fruits that are easily accessible. It’s why I have to pre-peel my oranges, and pre-slice my apples in the mornings. Otherwise they’ll sit untouched on my desk for days. With Natural Sins, it was super easy to throw a package into my purse or leave them at my desk and have a healthy snack ready with no preparation required. Natural Sins can be purchased online through Ely Product’s website or at a wide variety of stores in the GTA, including Rabba’s fine foods and Starsky.

What I liked:

• I liked 4/6 of the flavours. Coconut, mango and beetroot were amazing.
  • I assumed I would like mango but I was surprised at how sweet beetroot was.
  • I’ve never been a fan of coconut and again was surprised at how good the Natural Sins version was. Each package of coconut also provides 8g of natural fiber, which is amazing.
• The ease of having a healthy snack that’s ready to eat, tasty and needs no clean up.
• The idea of the re-sealable package was great. The execution needed some work.
• Beetroot, seriously I wouldn’t have thought of it as a fruit but it was one of my favourites.
• The texture of each fruit slice was super crispy. The mango slices were reminiscent of chips.

What could use work:

• The apple thins were only ok, I found the slices weren’t as crispy as the other fruit.
• I really didn’t like the orange thins. The entire fruit was used in each slice, including the peel and albedo (the white stuff) making each crisp quite bitter. I’m sure it’s healthier but not so tasty.
• As mentioned above, each bag has a re-sealable zip stripe. However, some of the packages were sealed very close to the zip stripe. Therefore using the tear away indent didn’t actually open the bag.
• At over $3/bag, it is more expensive than buying fruit.

TL;DR: Conveniently packaged, Natural Sins fruit thins offers a quick, delicious, accessible, healthy snack choice at a gourmet price point.