Sneak Peek of Vegan Options at the Germantown Whole Foods!

The Mid-South area (that's Memphis and our surrounding suburbs) is getting a new Whole Foods! For years, we've only had one Whole Foods in the area, and it served a ton of people. So it's often crowded at peak times, despite the store's massive size. But on Tuesday, a second Whole Foods is opening in Germantown, a little suburban town on the outskirts of Memphis.

I'll be honest. Midtowners (those of us who live in the city's urban core) like myself spend a great deal of time poking fun at uppity, well-to-do Germantown, and when we have to drive out there, it's like, "OMG, I have to drive ALL THE WAY OUT EAST!" I even have a tee-shirt that says "A Bad Day in Midtown Is Better Than a Good Day In Germantown."

But for real — it's only about 30 minutes away on the interstate, and with this new Whole Foods, the new Germantown Sprouts store, and the rumored, soon-to-come G-town Trader Joe's (!!!!!!!), well, I may have to stop whining and start frequenting the 'burbs more often.

On Friday night, the new Germantown Whole Foods hosted a special sneak peek tour and tasting for local bloggers. So I was there! Of course, product-wise, this store will carry much of the same stuff that the East Memphis Whole Foods does. But the in-store food counters are very different, and dare I say, better, than the East Memphis store in terms of vegan options. While the East Memphis Whole Foods has a BBQ joint inside (with no vegan options ... sigh), this new store features a very vegan-friendly Korean place called Genji Kei Jei Kitchen.

They serve ramen bowls, and the wheat noodles are vegan (the others have egg, so be sure and ask for wheat noodles!). They also sell Sushi Burritos! And for vegans, they offer a Tofu Inari Sushi Burrito. Inari (fried tofu skin) is basically my favorite thing ever. So this makes me very happy! Besides the inari, this is also stuffed with brown rice, spring mix, beets, carrot, teriyaki sauce, and fried shallots.

And they have bao (steamed sandwich buns)! The Angry Soy Bao is made with soy chicken and lots of fresh greens!

At the end of our blogger tour, each blogger was given a personal charcuterie board filled with meats and cheeses from the Whole Foods deli. But they made me a special vegan board featuring some of the vegan cheese products and other specialties they'll be selling. On the top are two jams from Blackberry Farms (a cherry jam and a smoked onion jam), pickled cucumbers and pickled tomatoes from Doux South, and candied walnuts. On the bottom are Kite Hill Almond Ricotta (my fave!!), eggplant tapenade, and Heido Ho Smoky Chia Cheeze.

Sampling my way around the board was so much fun! And so tasty! Another cool feature about this store are the dining tables. They reclaimed the wood from the trees cut down to build the store, and a local company called City Wood fashioned the wood into tables.

This Germantown Whole Foods may be quite a haul for city folks like me. But I'll most certainly be making the drive back after it opens to the public on Tuesday. I need more sushi burritos and bao in my life!