Recent-ish Eats

A week ago, my veg-blogger-buddy Jen was in Florida! (You may recall her guest post from last year.) This was actually the first time we'd met in person and, as I suspected, she's a hoot! We strolled around Eureka Springs (pics to come) and then had lunch at Taco Bus, a must-visit if you're only in the Tampa area for a short while.

I got a tempeh taco and the butternut squash tostada. I forgot to photograph the tempeh taco, but here's the oh-so-pretty tostada. I know I shared a picture of this about a year ago, but who cares. It's beautiful!

After last Friday's photoshoot, I went out to dinner with two friends at Lemon Grass Thai Kitchen.

I ordered the tofu & veggie saute' with cashews.

Goodness, I love fried tofu. And all vegetables!

Also on the table was a dish of tofu & veggie saute' with extra-hot garlic sauce

and pumpkin curry (with tofu & veggies).

Yums all around.

After Saturday's Save 90 conference in Tampa, a group of us descended upon the nearby Rollin' Oats health food store to clear out the vegan dishes in their cafe. I had never been to Rollin' Oats before, but I have had their kale salad a number of times at get-togethers and potlucks. The store itself is adorable and they have a lot of products that I've never seen sold in any other health food store, including Whole Foods. Their prices seem to have no rhyme or reason to them, but there were a few good deals to be had.

I was excited to find that a little over half of their chilled case in the cafe was vegan! I went with...

[clockwise from the top] kale salad (with tomatoes and avocado), eggplant rolletini (divine!), sesame green bean salad (needed more green beans, less cabbage), and curry tempeh salad (very good!).

One of the products at Rollin' Oats that I'd never seen anywhere else before were these tarts from Hail Merry. I remember when Amber at Almost Vegan would gush about Hail Mary on a near-daily basis, so naturally I was intrigued when I finally spotted Hail Merry-anything in the Sunshine State. It was hard to choose flavors, but I went with the chocolate-almond butter (because I'm a sucker for anything resembling a peanut butter cup) and Persian Lime (because it reminds me of key lime and I like Florida).

The coconut flavor is almost overwhelming in this little tart. I could handle it, but if you're kind of on the fence about coconut (or you just don't care for it), you might want to bypass this little treat. I also felt that it could have used more almond butter to better balance the extreme decadence of the raw chocolate, but it was still a fabulous indulgence.

I ended up liking the Persian Lime tart more than the raw chocolate almond butter (which is surprising because of my deep, deep love for chocolate). The coconut flavor is clearly evident in this, but nearly as overpowering as in the chocolate one. The lime center was smooth and delicious.

What good eats have you had recently?