The Hubz, the Rents and I headed out yesterday afternoon to Stamford CT, where we are staying this weekend. By the time we got there we were pretty hungry and decided to try a place called Little Buddha. The place and it’s sister restaurants have received great reviews from the NY Times and the reviews were right on AMAZING food.
Now the place leaves a little to be desired like it only has seating for 14 people and you are crammed into a small place. However the restaurant is more focused on it’s take out orders and the food makes up for the not so ideal dining space. Here is what we shared:
So the Hubz and I are headed out today to CT/MA and the NYC tomorrow for a Yankees game and to eat good food and visit one of my BFF’s. I will hopefully be blogging about the start of our adventure tonight but you’ll get a full recap Sunday evening. Until later lets reminisce about past NYC trips.
Friday after work I headed downtown to meet the Hubz and grab a bite to eat before we headed to our spa appointment. I decided that I we should try a place we had never been, New Moon Cafe, at first glance I thought the place was super tiny but when we got in a little further we realized the place was huge! We have decided that with the free wi-fi we probably will be spending a lot more time here, except strangely they are not open on Saturday’s.
The Hubz and I shared the grilled veggie sandwich (sundried tomato pesto is vegan!), a Gus soda and a bag of Zapp’s Spicy Cajun Crawtators chips. Everything was delicious!
After our bite to eat we went for a walk to kill some time before our spa appointment.
Finally it was time to enjoy our spa treatment! Since there were no cameras or cellphones allowed I didn’t get any shots but let me tell you it was amazing! Here are some photos from the Jivana website:
Entrance
Entry and Massage Room
The Sugar Scrub Table
After the amazing Balinese massage I had a sugar scrub and left the spa feeling refreshed, renewed and so relaxed. I decided to go with the lemongrass massage oil and body scrub and it really did smell wonderful.
After our spa appointment it was getting pretty late so we decided to go out for some yummy Asian Food. We got the avocado roll to share and then I got a big bowl of tom kar soup with tofu, veggies and udon noodles. The Hubz got this great dish which was almost like a deconstructed sushi roll both amazing and ridiculously filling.
The other night the Hubz and I decided that we wanted to have a date night out on the town with drinks and a fun meal at a restaurant neither of us had been to, Daily Planet. We have walked past here a number of times and have always wanted to stop in so we decided to branch out and try something new. We inquired first to find out if there were going to be any vegan options for us and they had a few so we decided to try.
Maura’s Salad $9 with baby greens, roasted garlic, red grapes, toasted pecans, balsamic and grilled tofu
Summer Vegetable Crepe $16 with grilled tofu, baby arugula and balsamic
Dirty Martini
Overall the Hubz and I weren’t too impressed with things although the Hubz just kept telling me how much he loved the pancake. That’s right pancake! The “crepe” was this big fluffy pancake and it really changed the dish completely. The best part of the “crepe” dish was the massive amount of chanterelles that were on top of it the “crepe”; however it was otherwise expensive for what it was. As for the salad it was pretty blah. I really didn’t enjoy that the greens had become super wilted and it was small for the $10 it cost me. Neil had a beer which was great and I had a dirty martini which was pretty awful. We haven’t totally written the place off because we did enjoy the atmosphere but it is a one more chance type of place.
The girls and I went to Nourish in Lexington MA for dinner last night. The restaurant prides itself on being responsibly sourced and respectfully priced we are working with area farms and other small businesses to work as much local and organic food into the menu as possible. It also is vegan friendly which obviously made this place extremely appealing.
Laura and I started with a glass of the house white wine which was delicious!
Then we shared the rice paper rolls which were filled with Asparagus, seaweed salad, red onions, toasted sesame sauce & cucumber salad. These were really good; the sesame dipping sauce completely made the dish.
Finally it was time for the entrees: Laura loved her black bean burger and Monica enjoyed her stir fry; Although mine sounded good it definitely wasn’t great. The tempeh sauce was a little salty and the dish was well…missing something….like um a vegetable! Over all things were good.
As you read in my last post the Hubz and I took a quick trip to Massachusetts to have a night away and to do a little shopping at The Container Store and Ikea to outfit our new apartment. Our goal is to have everything organized and beautiful ….but first we need to be able to move in. On our way down to MA we shared a Twist drink that the company sent me to try. These beverages are certified organic and are basically flavored waters. The first flavor we tried was West Indies Lime which was delicious! It tasted like key lime pie and was almost creamy just like a pie and brought me back to Key West…..aww I dream of the beach.
Once we arrived and checked into the hotel we were hungry and decided to head to The Pulse in Somerville for dinner which you can read all about here. Since we were not satisfied or full from our meal at The Pulse we walked down the street to Joshua Tree for a beer and sweet potato fries.
We woke up early the next morning and decided to head to Watertown to the Deluxe Town Diner for some yummy vegan pancakes. However when we arrived we saw a new breakfast wrap filled with tofu, soy cheese, veggie sausage, avocado and black beans and we both decided to go with that and coffee.
The food was really good but the homefries were a bit cold and the coffee was some what watered down. The service was slow and my bottomless cup of coffee was bottomed a number of times. I loved the atmosphere though; it is an old diner and still seems to have the original fixtures which brings you back to a different time. Overall the food was really good and their pancakes are delicious as well.
Rating:
Value: 4/5
Food: 4/5
Atmosphere: 3.5/5
Vegan Friendly: 2.5/5
After breakfast we headed out to The Container Store where we picked up some great items to organize our new place and then we were off to Ikea where we found a great new dining room table. I can’t wait to show you all when we finally move into our new place and put it together. After hours of shopping we decided to have a quick and super inexpensive lunch at Ikea; we both got the organic pasta with marinara sauce for only $2 each! It wasn’t the best food but it did the job.
After Ikea we headed home which felt like forever so we stopped for iced coffee and finally made it to my grandma’s where we made dinner and got ready for our garage sale which was extremely successful. The rest of the weekend has been spent relaxing.
Over the long weekend the Hubz and I made a quick overnight trip to the Boston area for a little getaway and to visit a few stores in search of items for our new apartment. The first night we were there we decided to try The Pulse Cafe; a vegan restaurant in Somerville that was rumored to be good.
The cafe is a small cafeteria like place with table service, we were greeted and seated immediately as there was no one else there. After looking over the menu we decided to ask our waitress which two items she recommended and based on her recommendation we went with the BBQ Seitan with slaw and cornbread and the Veg Burger with a mixed green salad.
At this point we are seeing the food and thinking wow this looks pretty good….however our eyes were deceived. The seitan was like eating a sponge, the texture and consistency was awful and I couldn’t finish my half it was that bad. The bbq sauce on the seitan was like sweetened tomato paste, the cornbread was dry, and the slaw was AMAZING. The slaw was the highlight of both dishes which is pretty disappointing considering it is just a side.
As for the burger it was was bland even with the chipotle mayo which you couldn’t even taste. The burger was mushy and with the bun and tomato there was a real lack of great texture, it needed something crunchy and more seasoning. The greens were boring and under a few leaves we found a piece of tomato and red pepper. There was dressing on the salad leaving it very bland as well; just a little lemon juice, salt and pepper would have made the salad 100x better.
The food was disappointing, the prices were expensive ($13 for a veggie burger? come on) and to top it all of the seating was horrible. The dining area has two levels that are separated by a railing; we were seated on the lower level. A group of 3 people came in and were seated on the upper level right next to us so the only thing separating us was the thin railing. The group then proceeded to look down on us and watch as we ate which made both of us extremely uncomfortable. To top it all off we were the only people in the cafe so there was no need to seat someone so close to us.
Overall I would not recommend or visit this cafe again. I found that there was as lot of hype on the internet over this place due to the pure fact that it was vegan. All though it is vegan the food and prices were not worth the visit, especially with a number of great vegan friendly restaurants nearby. To top off the whole experience both the Hubz and I left hungry since we were unable to finish our food.
