I’m off ‘to Live and Eat in San Fransico’ for the weekend, so you won’t see any new updates for a couple days. Rest assured that I’ve got a full plate of culinary adventures ahead of me and will be photographing the progress as I eat my way through the bay area. Thank god my hotel has a 24 hour gym.

In other news, my humble website here just had it’s first spam comment make it through the filters. I suppose I should be annoyed but I must admit it was almost exciting there for a minute (before I deleted it), felt like a real turning point. After all, if I’m worthy of getting spammed by a Paris Hilton website, that must mean I’m important, right? (Don’t answer that).

See you all when I return. In the meantime stay hungry and stay healthy!

This is the vegan Bánh mì (veggie-sandwich) at Vinh Loi Tofu. The traditional Vietnamese version is usually made with chicken, egg or pork but the yummy rendition at Vinh Loi uses all vegan fake meat (I think this is their mock-ham) and the classic vegetable stuffings of carrot, daikon and lots of cilantro.

You might be able to spy the green chilis poking out near the edges there… those little buggers were so damn spicy, WOW! Too spicy hot for my delicate palate I tell ya (and I’m not very delicate at all). I had to pick them out after the first unwitting bite because it was just too much… my lips and tongue were burning long after I’d finished eating. Order it without the chili unless you are a hardcore heat lover (they will ask you when you order if you want ‘em or not). Don’t let my warnings scare you off from trying this though… it’s delicious.

Oh these were so tasty! Vegan Plate serves up this lovely appetizer dish of vegetable steamed dumplings slathered in a delicious green curry sauce. The sauce was rich with curry, coconut and basil… truly one of the tastiest green curries I’ve ever tried.

For this dish I used some pre-made rice that had grilled seitan and basil in it. Mixed in some cannellini beans, along with steamed broccoli and asparagus. This was then topped with some lime juice, nutritional yeast, salt-free garden kim-chi (Rejuvenative Foods), gomasio and sambal.

The money shot.

The ‘Potato Samosa Quesadilla’ at Hugo’s is fantastic. It’s a whole wheat tortilla stuffed with Indian spiced potatoes, carrots and peas… basically everything you’d usually find inside a samosa. It was served with a delicious mint chutney that was both sweet and spicy, the sort of thing you start to salivate about when you think about it later on, attempting to translate it’s flavor into a blog post.

Up close and personal.

Mochi is one of my favorite treats. I don’t buy it often because it’s another one of those addictive food items that I can’t just have one or two servings of… it takes every ounce of willpower that I posses not to eat the entire batch all at once.

These little yums are made by Grainaissance, the same folks who make the equally awesome Amazake rice shakes. Mochi is described as:

“a nutritious bake-and-serve rice snack made from whole grain brown rice. Mochi is all-natural and without additives, preservatives or colorings. It’s also wheat-free and gluten-free. Mochi can be eaten in a variety of ways. Just cut into 1-1/2″ squares and bake in a pre-heated 450° F oven for 8-10 minutes. Watch them puff up before your eyes!”

If I only had a glass front stove I’d actually get to enjoy watching the live puffing action in real time, but alas, I must instead wait eagerly for ten minutes will these small squares of magic do their thing hidden from my watchful eyes. Ah, but true joy is not far off when the oven door opens and these previously flat and hard squares reveal with Cinderella like quality that they’ve now blossomed into puffed-out pillows of overflowing grainy love… well, there’s nothing quite like it. My favorite flavor (pictured above) is the date-cashew variety. They’ve got others, including even one that’s flavored like pizza… and that’s good too… but I most enjoy these as sweet treats. In fact I make them even sweeter by topping them with agave nectar. Fresh out of the oven they are soft, smushy, stick-to-your-teeth good.

Note: I would have posted this sooner, but upon writing this post I had to stop in the middle to go gorge myself on the leftover mochi. Yeah, they’re good cold too.

Dinner tonight consisted of the leftover pineapple curry rice quinoia/tvp from yesterday, along with steamed kale (underneath everything), carrots, asparagus and enoki mushrooms. The observant among you might also notice some currants, whose absence yesterday was sorely missed, and therefore since corrected. I drizzled some organic shiitake-sesame omega-3 dressing (made by Spectrum) over the veggies. Simple and satisfying.

At the market today they were sampling this vegan Horchata made by Rice Dream. It was so damn good… just like the real thing. Horchata is normally made with rice, milk, sugar and cinnamon, so I guess it’s not a stretch of the imagination for Rice Dream to have come out with a fantastic rendition. Seriously, you gotta try it (and no they’re not paying me to say that).

It’s not a good idea for me to keep treats like this around the house (I’m likely to drink that whole carton in one sitting), but it was so tasty and such a novelty that resistance was futile.

This is the ‘Hot Spicy Green Beans’, aka, Prik King, at Vegan Express. What’s great about Vegan Express is that they serve both really good American style food like burgers, sandwiches, wraps and salads along with real Thai food… made by real Thai people.

The Prik King was excellent, made with tofu, red peppers, Kaffir lime leaves and served with a heaping portion of brown rice. The flavor was just right, nice and spicy… the absence of traditional fish sauce was not missed one bit.

I’m so impressed with myself for pulling this off. I had a lovely organic pineapple that was nice and ripe, so in its honor I concocted my own version of Thai style pineapple fried rice with vegan shrimp.

I used quinoa mixed with TVP instead of rice. While those were cooking I whipped up a stir-fry of mock shrimp, chunks of the juicy pineapple, raw cashews, baked tofu and fresh cilantro. This was all in a combo of sesame oil (peanut oil would have been more appropriate but I used what I had), lime juice, lite coconut milk, sambal (spicy-sweet Asian chili paste), curry powder, cumin and dried onion flakes. This was then combined with the grain mix. I nailed the flavors, and while I was worried the quinoa/TVP would make it kind of funky, it turned out to be just right. A nice addition would have been some currants or raisins but I forgot to get some and was anxious to try this out. Next time.