Fatty's Restaurant -- YUM

Close to our home, is a wonderful vegetarian restaurant called Fatty's. Last night was our fourth visit there. Honestly, I don't know why I haven't blogged about them prior to today; the food is excellent, and many dishes are or can be prepared vegan.

We thought we'd tried all the restaurants close to home. We knew Fatty's as a coffee shop, which it was until about a year or two ago. Then they changed over to a dinner-only restaurant, by that I mean they are only open for dinner, and that only Wednesday - Saturday. Too bad! Anyway, we discovered they were serving dinner while walking by one day. What a lucky coincidence for us! Jane and I decided to go there for dinner last night, there was no arm-twisting involved.

We started with the Carrot-Ginger Soup. The presentation was a little better than this. We forgot to take a photo before I dug in! Sorry.

Jane ordered the Sloppy Joe which is an entree and came with a small house salad (or cup of soup, your choice). It was fantastic. It's some kind of veggie meat (we're guessing there's TVP in there) with a wonderful tangy sauce. The "bread" is some kind of phyllo concoction, stiffer than regular phyllo sheets, but definitely not something to eat with your hands. Although we did see someone trying, but his technique involved holding the sandwich upright and bringing his mouth to the food. Well, kudo's to him for trying.

I had pizza. When we were non-vegans, we used to order pizza for dinner one time a month. Often we'd order on the first, being unable to delay our gratification. Since this was the first weekend of the month, I was craving pizza. (I still haven't gotten past that and I'm not sure I ever will!) Anyway, I ordered The Zeppelin pizza (8" size). It was topped with mushrooms and vegan cheese and very good. Jane's thinking she could probably make it at home, and that's her criteria for whether she'd order something out or not. But I would have it again, and probably will!

As a side note, one of our previous visits was with our non-veggie cousins. They're very well off and used to the better things in life. We didn't realize it was a vegetarian restaurant, or we'd never have invited them; they love their steak. But they really enjoyed it and suggested we put it in our rotation. I mention this in case any of you are in the neighborhood...

We were very satisfied with our dinner, but couldn't leave without dessert. We brought "Fudgey" home with us. We'll have that later tonight, and you can read about it tomorrow!

Vegan Chili

Jane used to serve home-made chili and beer to me and my friends during football season. (Have I mentioned how great my wife is?) Prior to this vegan diet we were not red-meat eaters. Jane would have the occasional cheeseburger or pork product (she was completely addicted to bacon when we went out for breakfast), but other than that it was poultry or fish for us. During games, Jane would make ground turkey chili for us.

I had a few guys over on Sunday for the Patriots / Redskins game and dinner. We've told a few people that we're vegan, but none of these guys knew. So, Jane served us guacamole and chips and beer early on. We have plenty of non-vegan beer on hand and we still have loads of Guinness from our pre-vegan days. And here's my confession: I had three bottles of Guinness. Do I feel guilty? Kind of, but hey, it's Guinness...

(See this post for the disturbing news on non-vegan beer.)

For dinner we had vegan chili with brown rice and a salad. No one noticed the chili was vegan. Jane used red, black, and pinto beans along with TVP (that textured vegetable protein stuff). The TVP provides a little chewy meat-feel to the chili and since everything is smothered in sauce and spices it's not easy to tell you're not eating ground beef/turkey. (I'd say impossible, but I haven't had red meat intentionally in 20+ years.

Needless to say, everyone liked the chili a whole lot more than the game as the Patriots crushed the Redskins.

There's Some Weird Stuff In My Kitchen

These days there are some weird things in my cupboards. I was going to make myself some oatmeal for my breakfast yesterday morning, actually I did. But before I got around to making it, I had one of those "what the #$@#%! this?" moments. I reached into the cabinet to grab hold of the oatmeal container and this package of Textured Vegetable Protein was staring me in the face (actually, it was unopened at the time).

Just bizarre. I asked Jane if we were having other astronaut food as it reminded me of the astronaut food I'd heard of: freeze dried ice cream, tang crystals, etc. Needless to say I was not looking forward to consuming this stuff.

Then we had spaghetti for dinner and I commented to Jane that the ground soy product was good in our pasta sauce. She had an odd look on her face and when I asked her about it she laughed and told me that was the TVP. I don't know how it tastes in other recipes, but it's pretty good with pasta and tomato sauce.