Dinner at Home - Mix-up

We went healthy for dinner tonight:

• Couscous salad with lentils, fresh mint, raisins, olive oil, lemon juice, cinnamon.
• Steamed kale with a bit of soy sauce & red wine vinegar for flavor
  
• Whole wheat bread made in our machine
• Roasted veg - sweet potato, squash, onion, beets, zucchini, green pepper, brussel sprouts
  

Ian cannot resist making his meal into a sandwich. He's got some chicken on there too.

Dinner At Home

From Moosewood Restaurant New Classics, chipotle-cornmeal tilapia and orange-saffron rice.

And acorn squash inspired from Vegetable Dishes I can't Live Without by Mollie Katzen. Some orange-maple syrup glaze with pumpkin seeds & raisins.


Dessert also from the Moosewood - middle eastern type pudding (milk based with vanilla, cardamon and cinnamon flavors).

Falafel Burgers

Instead of the usual fish or steak dinner at home on Saturday night, we went veggie...

Chickpea/tofu burgers (that tasted a lot like falafel) from Moosewood New Classics.
Lemon tahini sauce from Moosewood New Classics.
Swiss Chard - sauteed with olive oil, garlic & red pepper flakes
Roasted Sweet potato fries & peppers


You know you have a vegetarian winner when Ian goes back for round #2, he wonders where he can get more sauce and he doesn't seem adverse to leftovers the next day!

Lola Rosas Round 2 (Montreal)

Nachos are moderately tasty with lots of black beans, salsa and avocado. Could use more cheese & less sogginess.


Brownies still tasty!

Lola Rosas (Montreal)

Time in Montreal is possibly winding down a bit, but on the plus side this means more Toronto postings for our faithful blog readers!

My coworker & I went to Lola Rosas in the heart of the McGill student ghetto. It is vegetarian that leans toward Mexican, although there were a few others cultures represented. The garage that houses Lola's was well renovated and the tables were especially cute & antique-like! Check out the notes in the drawers for some wisdom from past customers.

My black bean burrito was alright, nothing special, but the included side salad had a delightful peanut/orange flavored dressing. My coworker enjoyed her hemp burger with salad, chickpea salad & side of beets. Both dishes about $10. Big eaters will leave hungry. Next time I will try the nachos- they looked awesome with big hunks of avocado thrown on top!

Dessert was a highlight - a warm brownie with chocolate sauce and ice cream for the very moderate price of $3.50.

Le Commensal (Montreal)

This joint was a bit confusing for a first timer, but I eventually figured out that it was weighing buffet style.

I picked up some green salad fixings with some tasty add-ons like sesame seeds and balsamic dressing.

Main course as an assortment of things - 1" piece of lasagna (good), tofu korma (decent, but stick to Indian restaurant), mashed sweet potato (yummy) and wild rice pilaf.

For dessert - little pieces of maple pie, chocolate coffee mousse cake and date square. All basically in-edible.

Total bill about $8.50. Next time, I would just get some soup, bread and salad. The rest of the crew in the joint seemed to be going with that more or less.

Fresh/Juice for Life on Crawford

Ian and I were walking around Queen Street today and stopped in at Fresh on Crawford. I have been pretty desperate to go for about 6 years, but laziness and Ian's indifferent/meat lover attitude have won out...until today.

This joint seems to be one last stronghold of the Hippies/granola eating/vegan types - a close rival to it's neighbor Fressen.

Ian had the "breathless" smoothie which included banana, strawberry and mango tastiness all blended up for $5.

I went with the soup, salad and cornbread combo for $9. The soup special was Moroccan chickpea. The flavor was ok, but was unfortunately way too thick and hearty to eat any more than about 1/3 of it at a sitting. Hopefully Ian can bail me out of my leftover problems tonight at dinner. "Save the whale (Ian's expression)" style, they put the leftovers in a sketchy paper type container with an ill-fitting lid covered with a flimsy rubber band. Perhaps not the most practical, for all but the most steady handed type person. I'm not too sure what the problem is, at work we have the same soup containers, and they have very solid fitting lids.

Salad was the highlight of the combo - a whole whack of assorted fresh greens, shredded carrot and beets. I ordered it with the house dressing - which I found to be delightful, but they did not put anywhere near enough on there in order to fully enjoy the salad.

Cornbread was dry and non-descript. Pretty much impossible to eat without a healthy layer of butter and a swig of water after each bite.

Ian's main was the basic rice bowl ($5) with an add-on ($2) tofu "steak". The tofu was delightfully flavored, and the rice bowl was also quite good. They had some pretty yummy dressing on the brown rice and the carrots and parsley added to the whole thing.

I liked the serve yourself water that came in wine bottle type thingy's, at least until I somehow poured it all over the table and my sweater. Then, I wished that they would serve me water. They also had a lemon slice floating around in there, but unfortunately, the lemon looked as though it had seen better days a few weeks ago.

They would be wise to invest in a better kitchen exhaust system. Sweet potato fry fume permeated the entire restaurant and in fact, 1 hour later as I type, I can smell it on my clothes.

Total including tax and tip was $26.

Veggie Burger Harvyey's Style

On Thursday night, I take a class and am unable to go home after work. Thus, the need for fast food of some sort to tide me over till 9:30 when I get home. As far as fast food joints, the least objectionable item seems to be the Harvey's veggie burger.

- 317 calories (perhaps a normal amount of food for a non-obese person to eat for dinner)
- 9 g fat
- 5 g fibre
- and an all important 20 g of protein to keep me awake while the teacher is droning on in a language I do not understand

I wouldn't rate it as a "beautiful thing", but the tasty factor is moderate. At over $4 for a burger though, it's not a great value.

The service at my joint last night was rather poor. They seemed to have the burger kinda precooked and only needed a light grilling, but despite that, they didn't let that stop them from taking about 15 minutes to hand me my burger. Some problem about them typing in cheese and me not wanting cheese? Now that I think about it, I hope they did not charge me extra for that cheese???

I do like that they seem to use a designated green "flipper" that hasn't been tainted by meat! Not that I really care, but I do appreciate the concept.

Fressen

I went with some friends last week for brunch at Fressen. All was well with the organic loose leaf blackberry/blueberry tea in the fun tea-maker thingy except for the price at $3.50!!!

There were 5 of us in total and I convinced them all to order the ultra-tasty corn fritters (usual post Run for the Cure staple). It went a little wrong when they came out kinda burnt and a bit more pasty than usual :(

Potatoes, salsa, guac, fruit, bread etc that came with the fritters was good. Price was right at $9 for a rather hearty plate of food!

Waitresses were rather overworked but the food came out extremely quickly! So at least they have improved in the speed department on one front!

Bhuda's Vegetarian Food

Last night Ian and I ventured out to Bhudda's Vegetarian on 666 Dundas (by Bathurst) as recommended by cheap eats. For the low low cost of $24 including tax, tip and tap water (TT&TW) we got 2 orders of spring rolls, a "small" hot and sour soup that we enough to feed a family of 4 and a humongous plate of curry noodles and an equally large plate of veggies, tofu with roasted cashews. I estimate another 3 meals in left-overs for me. 0 for Ian since he wasn't a huge fan.

The low price was certainly reflected in the food. Spring rolls were ok, but soup was only so-so. I though the noodles were really tasty, but the stir fry veggies were a bit weak - too much undercooked celery and the tofu was a bit iffy. I guess we might go back - this seems like the sorta place where you gotta go through the menu once and try and decipher what the tasty stuff is.

Cafe 668

I will try and use small words for our "challenged" readers out there.

On the advice of Now newspaper's cheap eats special, we went to Cafe 668 located at 668 Dundas St. We had some pan fried veggie dumpling things to start, pretty tasty but kind of expensive for 8 skinny items with some so-so dipping sauce.

Then I had a tofu veggie stir fry in coconut sauce with rice on the side. Lots of tastiness. Ian had some pad thai which was so-so. Not as good as Spring Roll's but still pretty tasty.

So that's the story. Hopefully I have kept it nice and simple!

Run for the Cure

Ian ditched me at the end for a time of 24:45, I came in at 25:45! Pretty decent considering neither of us is in great shape.

As per tradition, we went to Fressen and had some corn fritters and other assorted yummy stuff. A "very tasty" rating and one thumb up in value ($9 each).

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Fressen

Went with the brunch crowd to Fressen (Vegan, Queen West). Three people had my usual brunch item, sweet potatoe with corn fritters (come with about 8 side dishes and fruit). I tried a more lunch type item, a black bean avocado wrap with brown rice, dahl, salsa, guacamole, fruit. Quite tasty overall, the rest of the crew seemed to like their waffles, stews etc. The tea is kind of a fun item to get. Same with the fresh fruit juices.

Final verdict is Very Tasty with a 1 thumb up for price (most dishes $8-9 for ALOT of food).

Bo De Duyen

Ian has left a week ahead of me and gone back to Edmonton, so this will be a vegetarian food review bonanza for the next week!

Bo De Duyen is a chinese vegetarian restaurant on Spadina near Dundas. I arrived about 12:30 and was the only one there so I was a bit concerned that everyone else knew something about the place that I didn't! By the time I left at 1:15, the place was getting full, so I felt a bit better.

I have been to Be De one other time about 4 years ago and had a veggie, tofu, mushroom hot pot which was pretty tasty. This time I went with Lunch "Combo B" which included hot or cold soy drink, hot and sour soup and braised tofu, mushroom and veggie with rice. Also a pot of good green tea. I am normally not a fan of soy milk, but this stuff was alright. Same goes for the hot and sour soup, it was actually pretty tasty...much better than, for example, the spring roll chain's soup. Stir fry was good, rice was good. Lots of different mushroom and bok choi varieties as well as my favorite, deep fried tofu. As far as the deep fried tofu is concerned, it was only average. All that food for $6.84 tax included. A "Tasty" on the Ian scale with a "1.5 thumbs up" for value.

Also of note, this place a huge menu with all sorts of faux chicken, beef, seafood, duck etc. Have never tried it, but perhaps next time.