What I Ate Wednesday – Birthday Edition!

Yesterday was a busy day, which also happened to be my birthday!  I think everyone should get to take off work as a holiday on their birthday – wouldn’t that be fun?!

What WIAW isn’t about

Comparison – Judgement – Restriction – Guilt

What WIAW is about

Celebrating one of the glorious things we all have in common: We all eat!

WIAW is about food and fun! It’s about making new friends, breaking out of a food rut, inspiring yourself & others, embracing fruit & vegetables, finding new ways to eat your favorite foods, and so much more <3

Celebrate blogging. Celebrate Food. Celebrate Individuality.

Breakfast

I prepped a jar of overnight oats on Monday night – my first attempt. We’re running low on food in the house (must go grocery shopping!), so this was a mix of what was left. I combined steel cut oats, chia seeds, maple syrup, pumpkin, and almond milk. After stirring, it soaked in the fridge overnight.

Maybe steel cut oats aren’t the right choice for the overnight recipes, because I thought this was still a bit crunchy in the morning. The flavors were good, but it just didn’t taste done. The jar-ful was a LOT of oats, so I saved the last quarter of the jar for my late afternoon snack.

Lunch

A random lunch today! I made up a batch of rice and topped it with dandelion greens, the rest of the seitan, a big scoop of cranberry sauce, and a 1/4 slice of roasted pumpkin. Nothing amazing here, but very filling. The amount of pumpkin I brought was a little over-the-top, so some of that went uneaten. :)

Dinner

With Kirk traveling, I had Birthday Dinner with my parents at R. Thomas Deluxe Grill. I heard about this one from someone at the Atlanta Blogger Meetup a few weeks ago and decided to give it a try. It’s not a veggie restaurant, but they can make anything on the menu vegetarian or vegan.

The restaurant is almost hidden along Peachtree Street (despite all the neon) and it certainly doesn’t look  like much inside or out. I wasn’t a fan of all the birds in cages surrounding the building. I’m not opposed to pets in cages, but it didn’t seem right to have all those birds exposed to the elements on a cold night (although I read they are heated?).

I forgot about Laura’s cool trick of using the phone for lighting until the end of the meal, so excuse my poorly-lit food pictures. :)

We sat on the porch, which was screened in plastic with lots of heaters to keep it warm. My dad  started with a big cup of Yerba Mate (thank you Foursquare special!), which was pretty tasty. I haven’t tried this tea before, but it was very similar to a Chai in flavor.

I asked the waitress for her recommendations and she listed several choices that sounded delicious. I settled on the Portabella Melt, which they offered with a house-made cashew cream (instead of cheese) and a spinach warp (instead of bun). I also had a collard kale salad from the huge list of vegan-friendly sides.

The wrap was tasty! The cashew cream seemed to have a bit of a red pepper flavor, which complemented all the grilled veggies in the wrap. The collard kale salad was good enough, but not something I would order again. I saved half my sandwich for lunch today – I’m hoping it tastes as good as leftovers as it did fresh from the kitchen!

For dessert, I had hoped to try their vegan truffles, but someone else ordered the last ones. :(  They gave us the two other vegan desserts to share (on the house!): chocolate cake (from Dulce Vegan Bakery) and apple pie. I’m not usually a cake person, but chocolate shounded good.  I really enjoyed the cake – very light and airy with rich chocolate frosting. The apple pie was not my favorite, but I think it may have been too many nuts in a dessert for my taste.

Look how much better that cake picture turned out with the “phone flash” trick on the chocolate cake!

Overall, I really enjoyed my dinner at R Thomas and will be back! I know Kirk would like this place too and with so many things on the menu to try, it’s worth another trip. Hopefully they’ll have enough truffles to taste next time. :)

No birthday post would be complete without presents, right?!

I got TWO new cookbooks (woohoo!!!) that I’ve been eyeing for a while: Vegan Yum Yum & Blissful Bites!! I also got a Hydros water bottle, which is this really cool water bottle with built-in filter. You know when you fill up your bottle from a water fountain that just tastes off? This should help with that – I’m so excited to try it out!

I haven’t had a chance to really look through the cookbooks recently, but I’m hoping I’ll have a few minutes tonight.  That sushi on the cover of Blissful Bites is calling my name.

And that’s What I Ate on My Birthday! 

Tagged as: birthday, r thomas, restaurant review, Review, Vegan, Vegetarian