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!