Darkoshi

In the airport, leaving, Qiao's hat almost got left behind. But Forestfen valiantly sent it through the security checkpoint after us.

I already mentioned the beverages in the plane and the alarming car. (Dasani sparkling lime, like unsweet Sprite).

I had planned to have my name added to the rental car contract as an additional driver, but the person at the counter in Boston said it wasn't necessary; that we were "domestic partners" even though not married, as we live at the same address.

First stop after leaving the airport: My Thai Vegan Cafe for dinner. Google Maps told us to take an exit that didn't exist as we were driving through the tunnel from the airport. Then it directed us to drive all the way across town, and would have had us turn around and drive back the same way. I decided not. We eventually got to the right place. The staircase up to the restaurant, which reviews had described as being so sketchy, turned out to be a perfectly fine staircase. Though admittedly not so great for someone with a bad foot and knee.

The ambiance in the restaurant was nice (not fancy, but pleasant enough), with large windows looking out on downtown Boston after dark. The food was delicious. Appetizers: Tofu Cigars (crisp! fried! tasty!) and mango salad (tangy! zesty! fresh!). For an entree I had a creamy tofu & mock meat curry served over avocado. They had vegan bubble tea and chocolate layer cake too. The cake was to-go, and oh was it good the next day. So good, I'm still thinking about it.

Then we drove to our hotel (smelling petunias before seeing them), checked in, and slept. At home, we sleep with fans on. Qiao likes the wind. We both like that it drowns out other noise. On the trip, I used the Simple Noise App on my phone along with a small portable speaker. In brown noise oscillating mode, it sounds ocean-like. The speaker takes 2 AA batteries, and we used it 7 nights for at least 8 hours each night. The batteries surprisingly never died.

In spite of getting good sleep each night, my eyesight didn't seem to improve any during the whole week.

The next day, we scouted out the concert venue early in the day (saw a giant cruise ship) and returned to the hotel for lunch. I would have liked to walk around downtown a bit, but Qiao's foot (or hip?) was acting up badly. Later we went to the concert. Tweety Bird got to watch the concert too, tucked into Qiao's shirt pocket.

On Monday we drove to my dad's place and spent the rest of the week there, taking it easy. My dad puts the rest of us to shame, the way he's exercising and staying in shape. My step-mom had tools for making hand-made cards, and showed me how to use them. She also showed me how to play Word Jewels. I played a bit of pool. Walked around the circle a few times. Went to a Lebanese restaurant. Listened to a recording of my grandma that I hadn't heard before.

On a grocery trip, I came across some Maya Kaimal ketchup, so I promptly got 2 bottles to take home with us. To avoid a nasty mess should the bottles break, I carefully wrapped them in clear bubble wrap, and put each in its own ziplock bag. Then I further wrapped them in clothing when packing my suitcase.

On the trip back home, I was worried we'd miss our connection in DC as the layover was only 40 minutes, and we had to switch terminals via one of those sandcrawler buses. But we made it to our gate just as the plane was starting to board - luckily about ten minutes later than scheduled.

We had a night flight to Columbia. I had forgotten how pretty towns and cities look from up above, lit up at night.

On one of the flights, there was an intercom announcement before landing, "If you leave behind any items on the plane, you can check for them tomorrow on eBay."

At home, unpacking my suitcase, I found a notice that it had been searched by the TSA. That wasn't a big surprise - I had suspected the carefully wrapped bottles in my suitcase would look suspicious through a scanner. Even though the ketchup labels were visible through the bubble wrap, they had sliced apart the cellophane tape I had used to keep the bubble wrap in place.

( Photos... )

I'm in Atlanta for Thanksgiving. Yesterday after arriving in town, we had a delicious vegan dinner at Cafe Sunflower. Then we checked into our hotel. This is one of the nicest hotel rooms I've ever had, even though the price was reasonable. It has a walk-in closet, a full kitchen, and a great view from the windows. This morning when I opened the curtains to check out the daytime view, I was surprised to see a marathon in progress. Bunches of people were running by, and more and more people kept on running by, for about an hour.

Today we visited one of Qiao's relatives for lunch, and later went to see a Cirque du Soleil performance of Amaluna, which was fantastic.

What is the meaning of the word "mix" in the following sentences? These are from a southern U.S. restaurant chain.

"Served with cornbread, rolls or mix."
"Country dinners are cooked to order and include a tossed salad, French fries or cheese potato, cornbread, rolls or mix."

Hmm. I was planning to email them anyway to ask if any of their menu items are vegan. So I'll just ask about that too.

Update: Qiao's been known to eat there, and he had the answer. They serve either 2 rolls, 2 pieces of cornbread, or 1 of each.

Qiao and I drove to Massachusetts to visit family last week.

The HappyCow App was very useful in helping me find nearby vegan/vegetarian restaurants to stop at for lunch&dinner on the way there and back. I'd highly recommend the app and website for other traveling vegans. (However, the app starts automatically in the background when I turn on my phone, and apparently tries to connect to the internet right away. Why? I don't know. In case you don't like it doing that, you may want to search via the happycow.net website instead of installing the app.)

One highway rest area, in Virgina I believe, had a nice big building. One of the vending machines had oranges in it!

You know how the motels have little soaps and bottles of shampoo and such? One motel also had a packet labeled "Deluxe Vanity Kit". Curious, I opened it. It contained 2 cotton swabs, a cotton ball, and a tiny emery board. Deluxe, indeed.

Another motel had a cute rubber ducky in the bathroom to greet us.

Lately, I've acquired a taste for this "Synergy" line of kombucha drinks. They have a slightly sour flavor like apple cider vinegar, but are also slightly sweet, and naturally effervescent!

List of Restaurants with Vegan Options - updated to add Mojitos Tropical Cafe.

Their yuca con mojo is surprisingly yummy.

I've also made some other updates to the list since it was originally posted.

This is a list of restaurants in the Columbia area, which to the best of my knowledge have at least some vegan options available.

In some cases, the restaurant explicitly states that certain items are vegan.
In other cases, the restaurant has menu items which appear to be vegan, but I haven't confirmed that they actually are.
In a few cases (where noted), the menu doesn't have vegan items, but you can request that items be made vegan.

Since many of the restaurants listed on this page are not specifically vegetarian or vegan, it is always safest to make it clear to your server that you are vegan, and to ask details about the dishes you plan to order.

Please do not rely on this information to be up to date - I haven't visited many of these restaurants in a long time, and things change.
Page last updated on April 14, 2024.
I'm not likely to update this page going forward,
as better info can now be found on other pages such as HappyCow.

( Restaurant List )

Oh wow. Brixx Wood-fired Pizza supposedly has vegan cheese available for their pizzas! They also have a pita-chip appetizer with 3 different kinds of hummus. I'll be checking them out for sure.

I recently tasted the new Tofurky Cheese Pizza, and it was very good. It is made with "Daiya" brand vegan cheese.

I also recently tasted Amy's new vegan Rice Macaroni with non-dairy cheeze. It was also very good and made with Daiya-brand cheese. If you are vegan, be careful, though - Amy's has several different macaroni and cheese products, and only this one is vegan.

Amy's also has a spinach pizza with vegan cheese which is quite good. The vegan frozen pizzas are always so expensive that I don't buy them often, though.

The only vegan American-style cheese slices that I've found which taste good to me are the Tofutti-brand ones. Kroger used to sell them here, but for whatever reason, they seem to have stopped. So now I think they are only available at Rosewood Market.

*All* the stores in town seem to have stopped selling vegan salami. I don't know why. While I was down in Jacksonville, I was at least able to pick up several packages of Yves' vegan Canadian bacon slices, for sandwiches. That doesn't seem to be sold around here anymore either.

Oh my gosh, this sandwich looks good. I'm too lazy to make my own vegan salami, though.

Q and I went out to eat yesterday at a Mediterranean-cuisine restaurant. We were looking for a different restaurant, but as we didn't find it, we chose to go to this one. It appeared to be very new. The food was good, and the ambiance was very nice. The walls looked to have been recently painted - a warm orange on top and red on the bottom, with nice metal decorations artfully placed. The white napkins were folded into tall columns at every plate. Nice music was playing.

But Q and I were the only patrons there, during the whole time we were there. And this was on a Friday evening, in a crowded shopping area. Other restaurants we had driven by appeared to be packed. When Q joked to the waiter, as he often does, about our bill and whether the chef was paying for our meal today, the waiter responded about how, with business like it was, they needed every dollar.

It makes me so sad thinking about it... someone put a lot of effort into opening a nice restaurant, and probably had high hopes of it being a success, and it's really a nice place, but ... this. Hardly any customers. They will probably go out of business. It makes me want to cry, except I know it's a silly thing to cry about. That is just how things are. Some ventures succeed and some fail.

Oh wow. Columbia has a vegan restaurant again. Lamb's Bread Vegan Cafe

That page has the address wrong, though. It is at 2001 Hampton St.; according to another page, it is a block from Harden, right before the railroad tracks.