Saturday, May 10, 2008

Communal Dining

Food always taste better when eaten with friends! But since I live alone, I usually eat alone. This weekend, however, I've had the pleasure of two communal meals with fellow vegetarians. Today, our local veggie group Food Awareness meet up at Pho Hoa Binh, my very favorite Vietnamese restaurant. They have a $4.50 tofu lunch buffet during the work week. But on Saturdays, you have to order from the menu and the food is served family-style. So of course we all sampled each person's dish.

For starters, we split several orders of spring rolls. These come stuffed with fried tofu, vermicelli, tomato, and lettuce and a side of peanut sauce:


I ordered the Tofu Mushroom (this is soooo yummy! Its probably my favorite dish):


Stephanie from Poopie Bitch had the Hunan Wheat Gluten (mock duck with veggies in a sorta spicy sauce). She was a little freaked out by the texture of the wheat gluten because it's a little too close to feeling like real meat when you bite into it. But I thought it was pretty tasty.


Leslie had the Lemongrass Tofu (fried tofu in sweet and spicy stuff). This is one of my other fave dishes at Pho Hoa Binh:


Amberlyn, who isn't fond of tofu, ordered the steamed veggies (baby bok choy, mushrooms, baby corn, and carrots):


Vaughan had the Snow Pea Pods with Mushroom:


And then Stephanie surprised us with super-yummy Banana Cupcakes with Vegan Cream Cheese Frosting!!! Oh my freakin' god were these good! And adorable! They had walnuts in them and she used whole wheat flour, so they were a little bit healthy ... um, kind of.


Last night, I was invited to a vegan dinner at Judith's house. She's a close friend of my friend Vaughan's and she has an amazing condo out in East Memphis. She made vegan chili using TVP, and it was really, really tasty:


And she also made vegan cornbread with jalepenos, which I crumbled up in my chili:


Vaughan was in charge of the salad bar. He did a great job with a veggie mix, spring greens, mushrooms, walnuts, and blueberries (not pictured):


Tomorrow, expect pictures of some yummy strawberry treats! I picked five quarts of organic strawberries this morning at Windmere Farms in Raleigh! Yea for spring!

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

It sounds like you had a yummy day!!

Theresa said...

Both meals look really amazing! Hoorah for vegan communities!

LizNoVeggieGirl said...

It's always nice to dine in the company of others - especially veg-heads ;0)

Wow, all that Vietnamese food looks wonderful; and that cupcake is positively gorgeous!! How nice of Stephanie to surprise everyone with them!

Can't wait to see the photographs of the strawberry treats!!

J said...

Dining with others is always better.

And all that food, it looks amazing! I especially like the snowpeas and mushroom one!

Alicia said...

It looks like you're having a great weekend!
And that's a lot of tofu! hehe.
I wish I could sample the cupcakes, they look gorgeous!

Anonymous said...

This all looks soooooo wonderful! I wish I could've sampled all of it! I'm about to go to church with my parent's for mother's day. I'll probably see your Momma and MeMom. Yay! Are you coming to town? Call me!

Anonymous said...

Oh, and I'll take a spring roll and those steamed veggies please! I LOVE bok choy. Ha!

Anonymous said...

Wow - Vaughan's salad spread looks even better now that I can see it full-sized!

I'm glad you liked my cupcakes, and yeah, they totally count as healthy :)

Anonymous said...

Haha! I totally decided to leave the cake pictures for another post because that one was SO pic heavy. I'll put them up today!

I'm emailing you now...

Jess said...

Holy crap! The food from Pho Hoa Binh looks AMAZING! I love Vietnamese food, and it's been AGES since I had any. :( Send me some!

Anonymous said...

Oooh look at that cupcake! Yum. The meetup sounds fun, wonder if they have something like that here.

Vegan_Noodle said...

I love dining with fellow vegans... it means you can all try a taste of each others dishes.

Cupcakes look yum even if they are a bit healthy. Just gives you an excuse to eat more!

Anonymous said...

My husband and I LOVE Pho Hoa Binh! Thank you for introducing us to this place via your blog! Otherwise, we may have overlooked it.

Veggie said...

Wish I could try those meals.