Happy Birthday to Me!

It's my birthday today! This means I am not promising a very substantial MoFo post. Not only am I sick AND working today, but it's raining like crazy outside. I actually don't mind the rain, though. When I was growing up in Connecticut, most of my birthdays were rainy. The only thing missing are the autumn leaves, but I'm quite fond of palm trees, too.

On Friday I cashed in my free birthday meal at Moe's Southwest Grill. I got the usual: the tofu rice bowl. Not the prettiest dish you've ever seen, I'm sure, but free food is automatically beautiful, amirite?

The green tomatilla salsa is the BEST. Chock full o' cilantro-y goodness.

Yesterday, Lisa and I met up for tea at Kaleisia. We split a carafe of their PHENOMENAL iced soy pumpkin chai latte. You can taste and feel and SEE the pumpkin in it!

I have some sad news about my beloved tea lounge, though. What I always loved about Kaleisia is that they're super veg-friendly. Their small food menu was all vegan, and they offered cow's milk (as well as soy) for their drinks and the majority of their baked goods had dairy and eggs, but they were always a meat-free cafe. Until recently. Now, all of a sudden, they're serving FRIED CHICKEN. I was so disappointed when I read this on their Facebook page, and I'm still disappointed. They lost a billion cool points with that decision. I realize that they are still veg-friendly, but now they're not as friendly.

Moving on.

Next was the monthly vegan buffet at Trang Viet Cuisine. I totally forgot to take pictures, but the offerings were pretty much the usual. For me, the soup and rolls are the best. My dinner at Trang was also free, as they do complimentary meals for your birthday, and they're closed today. Score! My buddy Amber (who blogs at Zombie Cats Eating Plants) and I share a birthday, so we both scored free birthday meals last night.

From there, a group of us went to the Improv theater in Ybor City, as a friend had free tickets. Little-known stand-up comics can be a little iffy -- they're often a bit too sexist or prejudice for me to find funny, but other than a couple offensive (to me) jokes, the opener and headliner were pretty funny. There were a few moments when I could barely breathe because I was laughing so hard, so that's always a good sign. Plus, the headliner - Godfrey - has been on 30 Rock, so this brings me a little closer to Tina Fey.

After the show and parting ways with the group, I dashed over to the Orpheum and was able to catch the last half of the Mates of State show, which was lovely and made me feel warm and fuzzy, which was nice after scurrying through the rain.

I'm so glad I didn't miss this song, as it holds a special place in my heart.


And then this morning, I woke up barely breathing, this time from congestion, so I just laid in bed for awhile, listening to the rain. I pushed myself out of bed and made a birthday cake for myself because I'm pretty sure it's bad luck to NOT have cake on your birthday. I used this basic Gluten Free Pantry brand of cake mix that I had on hand and added chocolate chips.

Batter up!

While it cooled, I whipped up just enough peanut butter frosting: peanut butter, melted Earth Balance, trickle of vanilla extract, and some confectioner's sugar. I didn't use any precise measurements; I just added until the consistency was right.

And here's my quick and easy birthday cake / breakfast!

And since it's my birthday, I'm going to shamelessly plug my blog's Facebook page. Go ahead and give it a like! It's another way to stay up to date on my blog posts (another option is following with Google Connect), plus I share other fun links, videos, pictures, and other goodies from time to time over there.

What did you do over the weekend? Who else has a birthday during Vegan MoFo?

A Trang Double Feature

The first time I visited Trang Viet Cuisine was while I was visiting in Tampa a year ago, following a tip from someone online that they had an impressive vegan menu. They sure did! Four pages of vegan options definitely qualifies as "impressive," in my book. Since becoming a Florida resident again, it still took me a few months to make it out there again.

Following the Colleen Patrick-Goudreau speaking event was Trang's monthly vegan buffet. I had heard so much about this since moving back to the area, but this was my first time partaking. The monthly buffet draws a large crowd of hungry people. Look -- I even spotted a vegan roller derby girl!


As far as buffets go, I can't say I was over the moon about the selection at Trang. I'm just not crazy about buffets. I'd say half of what I put on my plate was good.

The summer roll was good, the stuffed pepper was mostly okay (the squishy texture took me by surprise), the stir-fry was decent (though a bit too bland), and I didn't care for the shredded salad at all. The best part of all the offerings was the coconut soup.

Chunks of sweet potato, white potato, carrot, pumpkin, string beans, and peanuts in a creamy coconut-veggie broth. Next time I think I'll skip the buffet and just order a bowl of this.

I ended up returning to Trang on Valentine's Day to dine with a group of single ladies. This time I had the menu in front of me, all four pink pages of vegan offerings staring back at me. It's kind of a shock to the system to be faced with so many options in a restaurant for a change! I knew for sure that I needed more of that soup.


I decided to go with something different for my meal and, after much debating, went with the vegan Happy Pancake. With a name like that, how could I say no?



One girl at the table accurately said it when, upon tasting it, declared, "Wow, that is surprisingly flavorless." The sparsely-spiced rice flour pancake was stuffed with tofu and bean sprouts, but mostly it just tasted greasy. The Happy Pancake is a process -- it comes with a little plate of lettuce leaves and herbs. Chunks of the pancake go into a lettuce leaf with some herbs, and then dipped into a sauce, which comes on the side, if so desired. The dipping sauce didn't lend much flavor, either.

Meh.

I didn't completely give up hope, though. Since the prices at Trang are beyond reasonable, I grabbed a slice of vegan chocolate and rum cheesecake to go.

This was not a disappointment. It was creamy, not overly-chocolatey (not a "Death by Chocolate" situation), and it had just a hint of fruitiness/floweriness (perhaps from the rum?). Either way, this was pretty good.

So at this point, my recommendations at Trang are the summer rolls, the southern coconut soup, and the cheesecake. With four pages of vegan options, I intend to return and do some more exploring around their vegan menu and, of course, report back with my findings.