Fake Chicken and Other Rooms

Evening all! I’m blogging at 12:26AM, I have a 6 mile run in the morning planned. I s’pose I’m dedicated to this thang.

This afternoon, while cleaning my apartment and dancing like a heathen to the Eurythmic’s Greatest Hits, I had a light snack of these babies:

My first experience with the tasty, light chips. It definitely won’t be my last.

Afterwards, I got all dolled up like a Sex and The City character:

…to have a foodtastic Saturday evening with friends, as one should. My best friend, Jodi, and I met up at my absolutely favorite vegan restaurant in the city (possibly world, I’ve yet to find one to top it. However, it’s a big world out there.) The joint is called Red Bamboo, there’s two locations-one in the West Village, as well as one in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. The latter location is my favorite of the two due to it’s incredibly lavish and chill ambience, however, Jodester and I dined at the West Village locale tonight out of logistics (we were meeting up with our friends for drinks to celebrate Jerin’s birthday).

Let me just say, the fake meat at Red Bamboo tastes more authentic than real animal flesh. I don’t know what the method to their fake meat madness is, but the result downright magical.

I ordered a glass of Shiraz which unfortunately tasted like nonsense, I only drank half of the far too full glass:

My Cup Nearly Runneth Over With Bad Wine

My dinner was the Grilled Bourbon Chicken, Steamed Veggies, and Steamed White Rice:

The “chicken” was so yummy. I don’t even know how to summon up the proper foodie vocabulary terms to describe how delicious and impressively meaty it was. Red Bamboo is a great dining option for a vegetarian that still misses meat. The veggies and rice were pretty plain (I doused that mystery sauce all over them to give it some flavor).

Jodes had the “Crab Rangoon”:

Dessert was Vegan Peanut Butter Cheesecake:

Notice There Are Two Forks. I Don't Fork Around With Huge Slices of Cheesecake.

It. was. unreal. Jodi and I did our best to eat it all but we were both so stuffed halfway into the rich, intensely thick cake that we had to call it quits. After unsuccessfully trying to convince to take the remaining half home with her (she lives with two hungry boys, so I thought they could take care of it), the remaining half is now sitting in my fridge, whispering sweet nothings to me…this could be dangerous.

We then trudged on over in the annoying rain mist to The Other Room, a pleasantly dark beer and wine bar to celebrate and toast our buddy, Jerin, for his 40th birthday!

We all shared a bottle of white, of which I had one glass:

I also had one unphotographed Anchor Steam beer, a great San Francisco brew.

Yay friends:

Jerin, The Birthday Boy, and Me In Some Dramatic Lighting.

Jodi, John, and Jerin

Summer, Jerin, and John.

Jason was there, but as per usual, he dodged the camera’s eye.

While we all walked to the subway, we happened upon the most gorgeous purse I’ve ever seen:

This Looks Like It Was Made of Muppet Hearts

Don’t worry, if red’s not your preferred color, they also have one available in white:

The White Version Is Useful, As It Was Clearly Made of Cotton Balls. The Person Who Wears This Can Just Rip Off Chunks of The Hideous Bag To Touch Up And Blot Their Hooker Make-Up.

Alright, I’m beat. Night!

What’s the best fake meat/vegetarian substitution you’ve ever tried?

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