MoFo #6: Pizza Addiction

When I was downloading photos from my phone for MoFo posts, I noticed I have several photos of Whole Foods' vegan pizza. Hahaha. In the close-up shot, the pizza was made using Follow Your Heart's new gourmet shreds, not Daiya. I normally see Daiya on the pizza at my WF store, but the one close to the dude's house chose FYH cheese for some reason. It was really tasty though! After lifting boxes all day, that pizza hit the spot! I ate my half of the pizza and a brownie while the dude was in the shower, haha.

MoFo #5: Weekend in Austin

The dude was in Japan for the first two weeks of August, so I tried to spend a lot of time with my friends. I knew things would be very busy when he returned. I went on a day trip to Austin with several friends. We went to the Mueller's farmers' market to get Red Rabbit vegan donuts, I immediately inhaled 3 of them (jam filled, peanut butter with marshmallow, and another flavor that I can't remember). We walked around the market for a bit, then headed over to Bouldin Creek for brunch. I got the migas with beans and avocado. We waited forever for a table, but that let us all digest our donuts. We hung out at a friend's house after lunch because she just moved to Austin for work. We played with her cats and vegged out for a bit. We eventually got motivated to be active and saw the Animals in Art exhibit at the UT museum. That was cute and air-conditioned. After the museum closed, we went to Mother's Cafe for dinner. I got the tempeh enchilada plate. It had that distinctive bitter taste of tempeh, even the guacamole couldn't hide it. Maybe one day I'll like tempeh more, but my friend recommended the dish.

MoFo #4: Radical Eats for Restaurant Weeks

The night before the movers arrived, the dude and I went out for dinner. He wanted something a little fancy to serve as a last date, so we picked Radical Eats. Turns out Radical Eats was participating in Houston Restaurant Weeks (basically a whole month of deals at restaurants around town). The menu is online here. In the past I could never find a vegan option on the Restaurant Weeks website, so I was excited to find out Radical Eats participated. It was $45 per person for a multi-course meal and $7 of that was donated to the Houston Food Bank. I started with a watermelon margarita. The special menu had two veg options in every course. For appetizers, we ordered fried squash blossoms stuffed with vegan cream cheese and Cajun tempeh cakes. For the soup and salad course, we ordered the white gazpacho soup made with almonds and the checkerboard salad made with watermelon, avocado, tomato, and cucumber. For the entrees, we ordered the kale ravioli (the beet pasta was so pretty!) and the carrot risotto with spice-rubbed tofu. For the dessert, we ordered the chocolate cake (they were out of mousse) and the crepe with vegan cream cheese and peach slices (tasted like their breakfast omelette thing). I forgot to photograph the cake because we had to wait a while on the crepe to be made. The cream cheese in the crepe should have been whipped with sugar to make it taste better, but it tasted like it was scooped straight from the container.

Welcome!

Hello, friends and family! After many requests, we decided to set up this blog to share our adventures.

The Dude headed to Tokyo last week, but I'm currently on vacation in Florida. Right now, I do not have a job to earn my own work visa. (Boo.) This means that I can only visit for 90 days as a tourist. Because of the holiday season, we decided it would be best for me to go in the first week of October. That would allow me to stay in Tokyo through the holiday season. The Dude's boss does not want everyone leaving the office at the same time, and he reiterated that yesterday. The Dude plans to take vacation in January, but I may leave Japan before him.

I wanted to share a photo from our new place. The Dude gave me a tour using Facetime over the weekend, but he sent me this photo the other night. Our new place is on the 20th floor of a high-rise tower. During the tour, I could see Yoyogi Park in the distance!



- The Dudette

MoFo #3: True Food Kitchen - Galleria, Houston, TX

The dude and I enjoyed our last dinner together for a while at the new True Food Kitchen in the Galleria area of Houston. After the movers took away all of our things, we stayed in a hotel in the Galleria. The hotel had a veggie burger on the room service menu, but we weren't sure if it was vegan. Instead of just asking, we decided to go out to True Food Kitchen, since it was so close. We ordered the tofu lettuce cup appetizer to share. For the entrees, I ordered the tofu teriyaki bowl and he ordered the spaghetti squash with dairy cheese. Overall, the food was good and the place was quite busy. They offer wine and cocktails, but we were both too tired for alcohol. We decided to go to Crave Cupcakes in Uptown for dessert. There is a nice outdoor seating area there, so we sat under a tree and chatted for a bit.

MoFo #2: Road Trip Stops

On my way to Florida, I rented a Tahoe to bring stuff to my mom's. It's the largest vehicle I've ever driven, so I was very cautious about driving it in parking lots. I normally stop at Truly Free Bakery in Baton Rouge and Sweet Pea Cafe in Tallahassee. The parking lots at those locations are small and would have required me to drive in reverse. I decided to stop at Whole Foods in Baton Rouge and Tallahassee, knowing I could pull through the spots at WF and park very far away from other cars. I hit up the hot bars for quick but healthy meals. There was a noodle bar at WF BR, but I ultimately decided to go with the hot bar. In Baton Rouge, I picked green falafels (peas and chickpeas), herbed green beans, big butter beans with lemon and olive oil, pistachio and chickpea couscous, quinoa salad, and a scoop of hummus. I also snagged a bag of vegan gingersnaps and a couple bags of chips for snacks. In Tallahassee, I picked purple rice, black beans with peppers and spices, and steamed broccoli and cauliflower.

MoFo #1: Labor Day Plate

Welcome to 2014 MoFo! I'm home in Florida for the month, so I decided last minute to participate this year. I have a ton of photos from the last couple months to share. I'm sure there will be another period of absence in October as I move to Tokyo. The dude is already there. We used Facetime the other day so I could see our new apartment in Shibuya.

Labor Day is an unofficial end of summer, meaning people try to BBQ and swim one last time with friends. However, I live in the south and our weather is hot enough for swimming until October at least. I made some veggie dogs with chili-spiced beans and Daiya cheese, corn, and watermelon to eat. The beans came with some southwestern sauce, but they weren't very saucy. I added a bunch of cumin, chili powder, paprika, minced garlic, and onion powder. I debated adding tomato sauce, but didn't feel like heating everything together. For a snack, I had spicy boiled peanuts. Don't laugh that I forgot to buy buns at the grocery store, so I used regular wheat bread instead.