Frapto 365

A neighbour down the street was nice enough to drop off a bottle of “economy” sparkling wine on New Year’s Eve.  So we decided to not waste it and just chug it down as fast as possible as the countdown started.  It was super super sweet and was pretty much flavourless beside the sugar.  It was definitely not one of the highlights of 2009!

I hope I didn’t sound too unappreciative .  But getting this bottle proved that giving is better than receiving.

both asleep LOL

Steamed this beast of a Xmas pud for 2.5 hours, but then still felt to ill to eat it! Sod’s law strikes again.  It is shop bought, but absolutely packed with booze and goodies. I will let you know how it tastes, once I get round to tasting it.

The sister and fiance finally made it back to their home in highlands, only to be greeted by the fact that their oil had been syphoned! So no central heating for them and it was apparently very very cold

The cough was to0 wretched to inflict on anyone else, so I stayed in with the folks, gazed at the blue moon, watched the remake of the day of the triffids and had a few snowballs.

I am not prone to making New Years resolutions since I prefer to address things as they come up and I don’t really get the concept of trying to improve oneself on a certain date.   However, while shopping for tomorrow’s dinner I saw something that inspired me to make a resolution.  I will not be a lazy consumer monkey in 2010. (more…)

My friend Jake, who is seen in this photo, joined Heather and me as we took the train into Chinatown this evening. Rather than dealing with crowds and insanity on New Years Eve, we had a very quiet train ride (at times we were the only people on the train) into the city. We then walked a few cold and wet blocks to the restaurant, Kingdom of Vegetarians on 11th and Cherry in Philadelphia.

I have been going to this place since JD, Brian, Heather, and I stumbled into it on our way to Singapore Vegetarian, just a block away (Race St.). We saw this place and decided to give it a try. That was a couple years ago (maybe several?) and I have still never even made it to Singapore Vegetarian!

We had my favorite meal… Vegan Dim Sum. The Dim Sum is $12 for all-you-can-eat, but you can never eat everything that they bring to you! Since I have been going there for so long, and through the years I’ve been in there pretty often, I am friendly with the staff. They gave us a special dish tonight, which can be seen in this shot. It was a dish with broccoli, peppers, and onions, with a “meat” that was made from soy and mushroom, which had a ton of seasonings on it and a strong anise flavor. We all agreed that it was the best dish of the evening, though we had many, many different items.

In this shot you can also see bean curd skin rolls (delicious!), fried tofu, scallion pancake, dumplings of all sorts (in the steamer toward the back), not-pork buns, turnip cake – as well as many sauces, dips, etc.