who doesn't love fake pork products?

Fastmiso heads off to LA tomorrow sans me (Manhattan Beach to be specific - shout out to em c) so tonight we did it up big time at his new favorite restaurant, which just happens to be completely vegan. Happiness abounds.

The place is called Garden Fresh (or Fresh Garden. I can't remember. It might just be the most nondescript vegan restaurant name ever. No pun, no shiny happy people, no nothing in the name), and it is one of those 'fake meat' Chinese places that seem to exist all across America in this quiet, unassuming way. Just like Harmony in the ATL (Buford Hwy, what what), the place in Chinatown in Philly, the place on M street in Georgetown, and even the Chinese place in historic Doylestown, this place is filled with young punks and older hippies, but, unique to Silicon Valley, Garden Fresh also has Yahoo, Google, and Facebook employees wearing their 'team training ski trip 2007' Northface jackets. Ick. The food, fortunately, is much better than its clientele and we are slowly working through the whole menu (sweet and sour pork=good; pepper chicken=excellent; veggie rolls=a-mazing). I did still have that moment of panic and dissected a piece of 'pork' to make sure it was, in fact, totally not meat.


The evening also confirmed fastmiso's ability to charm older Asian women. He once ran into our alteration's lady at Nordstrom Rack and chatted her up about the bargains. Now she calls him by name when he brings in pants. We are also now on a first-name basis with the owner of the Thai restaurant by our apartment. And tonight the Garden Fresh owner ending up bringing us free soup while we were waiting on our take-out order. He's a keeper.

I think I'm going to use my lonesome weekend to try out some more recipes and possibly read the new Oprah book club book that she won't shut up about. Though I am completely mortified about going in to Borders to buy it. 'Awakening to your life's purpose, are you? You just let me know how that works out for you.' Maybe I can get Amazon to expedite...