Belatedly Thankful

On Thanksgiving day, I tried my first whole Tofurkey. I wasn't that impressed; I really like the slices that are hickory smoke or pepper flavored, but the "real" Tofurkey wasn't that great. However, the vegetarian gravy that came with it was quite nice and went well with the stuffing and mashed potatoes.

This is all an excuse to provide a link to this article about decorating your Tofurkey, which I found amusing.

In local eating-out news:

Baby Greens has a new website. I've still not gotten down there when they are open, but everyone who goes there says that it's quite awesome.

Dog Almighty has a new pizza dog on their menu with pizza sauce, mozzarella cheese, and oregano, and it's mighty tasty.

Sampaio's on Burnet has Brazilian cuisine, which isn't known for being very veggie-friendly. However, when I visited for dinner a few months ago, they were able to make a meat-free version of their banana leaf-wrapped tamal featuring mashed yucca and coconut curry sauce. They also have some great salads and the patio is a nice dining experience. The Austin Chronicle gave them a nice review back in July.

The Austin Chronicle also had nice things to say about the new Asia Cafe on Spicewood Springs road in northwest Austin. It's a Sichuan restaurant, serving a different take on Chinese than the usual fare in town. While the review was fairly meat-centric, I sent mail to the owners of the cafe and got a nice response:

Unfortunately, we do not have a specific section on the menu that is designed for vegetarians at the moment, but we do have a lot of dish of which you could choose from. For instance, Ma-po tofu as you mentioned, it does have meat in it, but we could make some modification such as not adding the meat in it to accommodate your needs. We also could use new vegetable oil for your dish if you wish. Last thing, some dish require to be cooked with chicken broth, make sure you ask the cashier if the dish you want contains chicken broth as well, if it does and you do not want it, tell her you don’t want the chicken broth. Most dishes under the Vegetable section do NOT contain meat, except Ma-po tofu, Home style tofu, Braised tofu, and Asia eggplant to my knowledge. The best way to ensure this is to talk to the cashier who is taking your order. Make sure you tell her exactly what you want, and don’t want.