My girlfriend recently finished a 21-day yoga and dietary cleanse at Deep Yoga. While I did not join her on her daily 5:30 a.m. yoga pilgrimages, I went stride for stride with her on the dietary portion of it.

The first week we were allowed fish, but from the second week on we were no longer allowed any animal products. Or corn products. Or wheat products (I cheated here. I wouldn't have made it without soy sauce).

It was not easy for this lifelong omnivore to give up meat, and even harder to give up cheese and grains, but I did, and lost nine pounds in the process.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad it's over. But I'll also concede that I both look and feel better. There is something to this veggie/vegan lifestyle.

With this in mind, I was pretty amped to check out Vegfest 2011, hosted by the Del Paso Boulevard Partnership at the Artisan building in the Boulevard.

I arrived a little before 1 p.m. to find the Artisan building already teaming with people. A few highlights:

The Loving Hut (formerly Au Lac Veggie)
They had a booth and were giving free samples of their noodles and spring rolls. Easily the most popular sample table, it was hard to even make out where their line began. "Yonder" was my best guess. Everybody who braved the line seemed to be happy they did. "Was it worth it?" I asked an older gentleman wearing a ponytail and scarfing his bowl of noodles. "Absolutely," was his immediate response. I chose not to venture into the abyss, but I will certainly give the restaurant a try sometime soon.

The sweets
Several of the booths offered sweets, and for the most part the vegan sweet offerings were very good. I tried a vegan, gluten-free, organic chocolate from Bicycle Bakery that was delicious. Another table offered a yummy vegan peanut brittle. A third had a solid vegan chocolate chip cookie (relatively; Mrs. Fields need not lose any sleep).

Michael Marks, "Your Produce Man"
The ubiquitous TV personality was on hand to talk about — what else — produce. He was his usual charming self and got the audience involved in his demonstration, giving away books to members of the audience who correctly answered questions. They don't call him The Produce Man for nothing. He was full of tips for preparing and storing your fruits and veggies, like always store your bananas stem-side down, or better yet, hanging. And always rinse your vegetables in ice water. And do you like apples? Keep ‘em in the fridge if you don't want them to get mealy. How you like them apples?

The crowd
All shapes and sizes were in attendance. Of course the hippie tree-hugger crowd was well represented, but it is abundantly clear that vegetarianism and veganism have gone mainstream. Larry Groves of the Del Paso Boulevard Partnership estimated that they had over 1100 folks turn out for the event. "This was our first time doing this event," Groves said. "We were amazed and overwhelmed with the attendance." In conjunction with this, two neighboring businesses, Top Dawg restaurant and The Green Boheme Raw Food Cafe, reported having their busiest days ever.

The festive atmosphere
Beer and wine were sold in the Artisan Cafe, which doubled as one of the entrances to the festival. The other entrance was through the Artisan Gallery, which featured live bands and art from local emerging artists on the walls. It all made for a fun, festive ambiance.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention a few lowlights:

The crowd
It was a little too much at times. Combined with the line to get the noodles, the crowd for The Produce Man's presentation got to be prohibitive. I got caught up in the maelstrom, and the crunch of humanity was uncomfortable. They were a victim of their own success.

The "Vegan Nazi"
"To be healthy you have to be vegan" was the mantra of a particular booth barker. "Meat is murder and dairy is worse" was another line I heard. I appreciate the passion, but I could have done without the rhetoric.

Veggie dogs
I love veggie burgers and have even come around on tempeh. I had lunch at Sugar Plum Cafe on Day 14 of the cleanse, and Jess and I split a vegan BLT and a vegan Reuben. I thought they were great, especially the Reuben. That being said, I have never in my life tried a veggie hot dog/sausage that was any good. This sad streak continued, apologies to Top Dawg.

Overall, the highs far outweighed the lows, and the event was a success by almost any measure. It was such a success, in fact, that Mr. Groves says  "The Del Paso Boulevard Partnership is looking to host another VegFest later this year, expanding the venue and including cooking classes and more demonstrations."

We'll keep you updated.