Big News!

We will miss this view. We are heading back to America in a couple weeks. Cost saving yada yada. I had just started making progress in job hunting, and we both felt like we finally had a reasonable quality of life here (friends, social events, etc).

Vegan Buffets in Tokyo

The Tokyo Vegan Meetup page has experienced a burst of buffet events at various restaurants around town. This is good for little fatties like us. We have been to many international themed buffets, including Indian, Irish, Spanish, French, Mexican, and good ol' American food. :)

Vegan Cooking Class!

The Tokyo Vegan Meetup hosted a cooking class to make warabi mochi. We covered the red bean paste in our starchy mochi and then coated in roasted soy powder. That soy powder was bitter and not very good, I wish we had left the mochi plain after preparation.

Temple in Asakusa, Tokyo, Japan

We walked over to a temple after the festival. Our tutor mentioned Sensōji, also known as Asakusa Kannon Temple. It's a Buddhist temple, and was pretty similar to others we've seen. There is a market area outside the temple with lots of small shops and crowds of people. There are SO MANY PEOPLE sightseeing at this temple.

Small vegfest in Asakusa, Tokyo, Japan

We went over to Asakusa for a small festival. It was hosted inside a building, so the temperature was well controlled. We split a bento box of adorable sushi pieces, an assortment of steamed goods from Loving Hut, a tofu quiche with soy ham pieces in it, a cold piece of pizza with soy cheese, and a falafel plate (not photographed for some reason).

Houston Eats

We went to Aladdin's, our favorite falafel place! We had to, since we based our wedding menu around our favorite meal there. :) We also went to Quan Yin, an all-vegan pan-Asian place, with my vegan brunch crew. Afterwards, a few of us went to Frozen Cafe in Bellaire for vegan gelato. Nom nom. We went to Benihana one night too, because they accommodate Dan's giant circle of friends. We have the photo from Benihana framed in our apartment.

Trip to NASA in Houston

A friend that works at NASA in Houston gave us a tour of NASA, we got to climb through these giant replicas of the ISS for training purposes. We even saw Morgan Spurlock doing a CNN piece!

Vegan snacks in Portland, OR

There are plenty of places to stop for vegan snacks in Portland when you get hungry while out exploring.

Back to Eden donuts

Vegan cheese plate from a food truck on Alberta!

Chicago deep dish pizza, VEGAN PIZZA CRAVINGS!

Voodoo Donuts - Portland, OR

We went to Portland for vegan donuts. Yes, we're that fat. Voodoo was totally worth the wait in line. :)

AND Cafe - Portland, OR

I'm more a sweet breakfast person, but I chose the savory waffle at AND Cafe for brunch one morning. It has soy sausage and Daiya cheese in the batter, and is then covered in gravy and tofu scramble! We both had this entree, but I had a root beer shake too. (Fatty, I know.)

Portobello - best meal in Portland, OR!

Another delay as things got busy around here. I'll finish off our Portland photos and try to get this blog up to date.

I'm just going to leave the photos here to do the talking. This meal was incredible! Perfect for us to celebrate our wedding and mini honeymoon trip. We each got the 5 course tasting menu, so we could try all the options.

Kale Caesar salad and panzanella salad



Gnocchi and cashew cheese-stuffed raviolis



Mushroom steak with roasted potatoes and cauliflower steak with olive tapenade



Canoli and chocolate lava cake

Eb & Bean - Portland, OR

Around the corner from Blossoming Lotus is Eb & Bean. They have vegan soft serve fro-yo! Nom nom. I got a chocolate magic shell, coconut flakes, and sprinkles for toppings. Nom nom! It was awesome!

Blossoming Lotus - Portland, OR

We went to Blossoming Lotus for lunch one day. I ordered the lentil-nut burger with cashew cheese. It is the best vegan burger I've had at a restaurant! They were quite generous with the cashew cheese. The dude ordered tacos. We split an order of pesto mac and cheese. This place was so good, I wish I could get a burger like that every day!

Vegan pizza in Portland

We went to two pizza places while in Portland, they were quick meal ideas. The first place was called Sizzle Pie, and they had 4 vegan options and several vegetarian options. I got two slices of vegan pizza. The second place was a Chicago style deep dish place on Alberta. We were walking around, expecting to go to the vegan bar on that street, but they did not accept the dude's Japanese ID. Whoops. We kept walking around looking for a new spot to eat, and we passed the pizza shop! Great save!

Homegrown Smoker - Portland, OR

Success! We made it to Homegrown Smoker for lunch. I got a mac-no-cheeto burrito that had BBQ soy curls, mac and cheese, and baked beans inside the tortilla shell. It was AWESOME, but it was so big and I felt so stuffed all afternoon. The dude ordered a smoked Beyond Meat chick'n sandwich with fries. He thought it was tasty. Again, it was a rather big sandwich, so he didn't finish his and still felt beyond stuffed.

Veggie Grill - Portland, OR

Our first night in Portland, we walked down to Veggie Grill. It was close to our hotel, a key factor when you're tired from flying all day. I ordered the Field Roast harvest bowl and an order of fried cauliflower. The dude ordered tofu buffalo sticks and a chick'n sandwich with fries. Everything was good, and I felt good for getting in some veggies and seitan. Protein noms!

Walt Disney World

During the Florida part of our 3 week trip, we went to Disney World and had lots of vegan food! There are plenty of resources about vegan food at Disney online. I did have to say I wanted an allergy request and a manager showed me the ingredients before allowing me to order. A minor step to get vegan eats! We had ice cream, the famous Dole Whip, and a veggie burger with fries. After going around Magic Kingdom, we went to Downtown Disney for a Babycakes vegan donut. I got the Samoa donut.

Plant - Asheville, NC

One of the best meals we had in NC! I would go back to Plant in a heartbeat! We had the smoky hummus and cashew cheese appetizers to share. I ordered the tamale with breaded oyster mushrooms, soooo good. A couple people ordered the mushroom steak, and one person ordered these Indian rollups. We split chocolate cake and carrot cake slices amongst the table for dessert. The cashew cheese was incredible, the mushrooms on my dish were amazing, and the chocolate cake was unbelievably rich!