Restaurants: Mirth Cafe

The Mirth Cafe is a coffee shop that has transformed into a full cafe. The wife and I went here twice during our weekend trip to Lawrence.  We had breakfast both times, and service was definitely a mixed bag.  The first morning, we got a server that we only saw to order, get our food, and for the check, with getting the check coming about an hour after getting our food. It was to a point that we wanted to lay down some cash and just leave.  Especially since I had not asked for soy milk for my granola, and was left with a bowl of dry granola to munch on for most of the meal.  It's partially my fault, since he asked when I ordered if I wanted milk or yogurt, but I forgot to ask for soy milk.  Still, it should be customary to check on your guests about 5 minutes after they get their food.

The second visit had much better service, probably because they weren't as busy.  The food was about as mixed as their service, with the granola being way too sweet with not nearly enough fruit on top.  For the record, slicing a single strawberry on top does not count as granola and fruit.  I expect at least a cupful of fruit for it to be counted.

The second visit yielded better results, with me reverting back to my ovo-lacto diet and ordering the vegetarian biscuits and gravy.  They were spicy and satisfying.  The perfect hangover cure, not that I was hungover.  My wife got the French toast, which looked really tasty and she seemed to enjoy every bite of it.

Overall this is a very friendly vegetarian place, with a couple of vegan options including the granola and red beans and rice for breakfast.  It's sure to impress the meat eaters in your life as well, with the usual bacon and sausage options.

Score: 3/4 stars
Pros: Awesome vegetarian biscuits and gravy
Cons: Service left a lot to be desired
Location: 745 New Hampshire Lawrence, KS 66044

Restaurants: New Start Veggie Garden

The New Start Veggie Garden was a vegan buffet that my wife found online as we were driving through Dallas.  It's a very interesting concept and is the ultimate place for vegans, as everything there is vegan.  No worrying about does this have cream in it, or can I get this without cheese, or any of the other worries at restaurants.  They take the time to produce each dish without any animal products.  For that alone they should be commended.

I went on a Sunday, and didn't realize that it was all vegan at the time, I thought it was just mostly vegan, which led me to not really dig into the main dish of the night, cashew chicken.  Which is a shame, because my hesitation caused me to miss out.  I tried a bite of it, not knowing if it was really chicken or not.  It had a decent flavor, and I didn't detect chicken-ness, but I stayed on the safe side and refrained from it.  Boy was that a mistake.

The main dishes range from dumplings to "steak" to lentils and tofu, and on their site they look delicious, unfortunately, I only had the experience with the cashew "chicken", which was tasty, but my trepidation about if it was vegan prohibited me from enjoying more than a bite.

Other things on the buffet are cooked with light oil and seasoning, making them healthy and light.  I had a plate full of some of their spicy noodles and spinach, which were flavorful.  You can really taste the veggies when they aren't smothered in some type of sauce or over-seasoned, and that was a good thing.

Though I think I would enjoy it more on a second visit, my omnivorous wife wasn't that impressed with the fair.  Great for your vegan and veggie friends, but don't bring around your carnivorous acquaintances, as they are likely to be disappointed.

Rating: 2.5/4
Location: 2330 Royal Lane, Dallas, TX 75229

Day 11: Missed Opportunities

So yesterday we were in the car all day, but managed to work out.  Tomorrow we'll be in the car all day, and plan on skipping the workout.  One would think that the easiest day to fit in our workout would be the day where we don't have anything going on until the wedding at 4.  You would be wrong.

We started off the day by finding some breakfast.  I had scoped out a place called The Mirth Cafe.  I saw vegetarian biscuits and gravy and wanted to try them out.  I don't know what I was thinking when looking it up before, since it's over BUTTERMILK biscuits.  Then, I made things more complicated by overlooking the red beans and rice and instead going for granola.  Even worse, I instinctively said no to milk or yogurt when asked, and didn't see the waiter again till we got the check.  Upon forcing down half a bowl of dry granola, another waitress came by and I asked her for some soy milk, which made it tolerable, but still way too sugary for my taste.

Once we were done with breakfast, we headed back to the room and talked to my brother-in-law, who we planned to meet for lunch.  Our workout was yoga, which is an hour and a half, and by the time we got back from our almost hour long breakfast (thanks to the poor service) we only had 2 hours before lunch.  We made the call to opt out of the workout and try to do it after lunch, which didn't work out.

Local Burger again was the location for lunch and I must say, I love this place.  I got a Buckaroo salad with tofu, since it has vegan ranch dressing.  Score!  I also tried the baked tofu fries, which were just heavenly.  I have never eaten such delicious tofu in all my life. It brought me back to my high school days with the chicken fingers from the cafeteria.  I mean that in a good way.  The texture was right on, and the orange sauce was so tasty I wanted to drink the rest of it.  A great lunch to be sure.

Like I said, we skipped the workout after lunch, since we had just eaten and wanted to see the town for a bit.  So we instead walked around downtown Lawrence with my brother-in-law and his wife.  Not a bad little town.  That means a lot coming from a Mizzou graduate.

We found a bicycle shop that sells Cliff bars and I discovered a new type of Cliff bar called the Builder that has 20g of protein per bar.  I picked up one of these for a snack and I think it's going to replace my normal snack bar, because this thing rocked, and you can't beat the protein boost.  So tasty.

The wedding was nice, besides it being seriously hot outside during the ceremony, but the one thing I was worried about was what I was going to eat.  In a Kansas wedding, it's tough to find something without meat in it.  Hell, even the green beans had chunks of ham floating around with them.  Really?  Is it really necessary to take a vegetable and cook it with pig flesh?  Fortunately, my sister-in-law was in attendance and is also a vegetarian.  So she made one of my favorite dishes, the same one she made for her wedding.  It's a red pepper stuffed with a mixture of orzo, zucchini, tomato, and cheese.  She said she was sorry for not leaving out the cheese for mine, but I didn't mind.  It beats the heck out of eating iceberg lettuce salad for dinner.

Another problem with weddings and dieting is the drinks and deserts.  They had a whole bar filled with tasty treats, as well as another bar filled with tasty beer.  So tough to resist, but I think I did fairly well.  I had only two little morsels and limited myself to 2 Shiner Bocks and 2 Bud Lights (when the Shiner ran out).  It's a bit of a carb and fat hit, but I would normally take down about twice that much beer and 10 times that amount of deserts normally, so I chalked today up as a win.

Menu:


Breakfast (Mirth Cafe):
Granola with cup of soy milk

Lunch (Local Burger):
Buckaroo salad (greens, fried onions, vegan ranch and tofu)
Tofu fries

Snack:
Cliff Builder's Bar

Dinner:
2 red peppers with orzo stuffing
2 bite sized desert treats
2 Shiner Bock
2 Bud Light

Day 10: On The Road Again

So here is one of the biggest challenges to a good workout routine, especially in the early stages, changing your routine.  Since the beginning, I have been at home, in my comfortable environment, but this weekend, I am traveling to a wedding.  On top of that, I'm driving.  We're not talking across town here, we're talking 11 hours in a car, straight.  That alone is enough to wipe anyone out, but we (my wife has joined in the routine now) need to find time not only to eat right, but also to workout.

This is no easy task even for an omnivore.  Fast food places with greasy burgers litter the long, desolate stretches of highway through the midwest.  Add to that the fact that I'm eating (at least mostly) vegan, and you've got a challenge.  No problem, all you need is a little forethought, and some good timing.

We awoke early in the morning (for us at least).  5:30 AM we were up and at-em.  We planned on a shake for each of us, plus we packed a couple sandwiches, nuts and of course, Cliff bars.  A little cooler can go a long way, not only in controlling what you eat, but also controlling your budget.  The two pita sandwiches we packed had twice the nutrition of any fast food meal, plus were a fraction of the cost.  We made a couple the night before and packed them up, and took some fixins with us so we could make more on the way back, knowing that our hotel room has a mini-fridge.  And you thought the mini-fridge was just for $10 mini bottles of vodka.

We also plan to eat out for almost every meal.  Thankfully, we are travelling to Lawrence, KS, a college town.  Look around any college town and you're likely to find a place to eat vegan, or at least a hippy type place to chow down on some tofu and greens.  I'll list the places we go so that in case you're in town, you can check them out too.

Notice, planning is everything here.  We packed food, googled restaurants in the town we're going to, and packed our P90X DVDs, bands, and even a DVD player just to be safe.  We were prepared for almost anything short of a massive electrical outage (and in that case, we might have just used this laptop to play our DVDs)  Preparation, preparation, preparation.  It's key and vital to traveling and keeping your focus.  It's a pain, but it pays off when you see those results and changes in your body.

The workout went pretty well.  Even though we spent the whole day in the car, we still mustered the energy to make it through arms and back.  I even made Steph go on a quest with me to find some resistance bands, as I needed some lighter ones than I had brought with me.  Fortunately, Target had some pretty cool ones that I picked up.  They are easy to adjust, and have multiple different weight options, all for a reasonable price.  They look a bit old-school, but they are useful nonetheless.

Menu:

Breakfast:
protein shake

Snack 1:
Cliff bar

Lunch:
Vegan bologna sandwich
watermelon

Snack 2:
cashews

Snack 3: (added an additional snack, since we had a light lunch and were feeling drained)
cashews

Dinner:
"best veggie burger in the world"
vegan ceasar salad with tofu
peanut butter chocolate ball

Dinner was at a joint called Local Burger, and if you are vegan, I would highly recommend it.

Day 9: Return of the Sweat

We were back to feeling the pool of sweat form underneath us today.  That's right, it's plyometrics time.  Plyometrics for those who don't know, is jump training, meaning that it's a lot of squatting, and lunging, with jumping to and from other positions.  It is easily the most kick-butt workout I have had outside of football drills.  I unfortunately ate a handfull of cashews before the workout to get me through, as I was feeling a bit tired, and that added to cramping big time.  Don't eat anything at least an hour before this workout.  It is a killer.

I was completely wiped after this workout, but it felt so good.  It's the type of workout that you just know that after doing it for a while, you are going to be lean and mean.

Speaking of lean and mean, here was the menu for the day:

Breakfast
tofu scramble
cup of soy milk

Snack 1:
Penaut chocolate Cliff bar

Lunch:
vegetable soup
two Boca burgers (no bun, no condiments)

Snack 2:
30 pistachios

Dinner:
tofu stir fry
cup of rice
cup of soy milk

Recipe: Tofu Stir Fry

Tofu Stir Fry

16 oz extra firm tofu

1 crown broccoli

1 cup snap peas

1 orange pepper

1/4 cup vegetable broth

2 tbsp soy sauce

2 tbsp rice vinegar

corn starch

1. In a large skillet or wok, heat vegetable broth, soy sauce, and rice vinegar until they begin to boil and steam.
2. While bringing to heat, cut tofu and broccoli into bite sized pieces.  Cut pepper into slices, and snap off ends of peas.
3. Add in tofu and broccoli, stir and cook for 5 minutes.  Add additional soy sauce, vinegar and vegetable broth if the wok dries out.
4. Add in pepper slices and peas, continue to stir.
5. Once all veggies are soft, but not mushy, stir some corn starch into the remaining liquid if needed to thicken it up. 

Serve with about a cup of rice.  This makes a healthy sized couple of servings.  I usually have about 2 cups for a meal.  

Recipe: Tofu Scramble

Tofu Scramble

8oz tofu

1 cup spinach

1 cup mushrooms

1/2 roma tomato

1/4 cup shredded vegan cheese (if desired)

1. Heat a non-stick skillet on medium high heat.
2. Cut 8oz tofu in half, squeezing out liquid with hands, then crumble into the pan and add spinach and mushrooms. Cook about 5 - 7 minutes or until mushrooms are almost tender.
3. Toss in tomato for the last few minutes until mushrooms and tomato are soft.
4. Add in shredded cheese and allow to melt.
5. Salt ant pepper to taste.

This is another simple, but versatile breakfast.  It's chock full of protein and vegetables, with little to no fat.  You can heat some vegetable broth in the skillet to give the onions and tofu some extra flavor, or add some soy sauce instead with the tofu to add saltiness.  You want the tofu to get just slightly brown on the outside, though some prefer to cook the tofu longer and get a good golden covering on them.  I usually burn it if I leave it on this long, especially when you don't use oil.

Plus, you can mix this up many different ways.  Add some soyrizo or field grain sausage instead of the veggies to give you a hyper-protein, savory vegan breakfast.  Or you can add potatoes, then top with salsa and throw it in a tortillia to give you a carb and protein loaded burrito to give you some extra energy.  The possibilities are limitless.