Bubble tea (food truck)
$3.50 (€3.14 / $3.50 / £2.43)
veganstraightedge (5 out of 5)
Half tofu sandwich and fries (Boke Dokie)
$5 (€4.48 / $5.00 / £3.46)
I had a really great experience at @mendocinofarms this evening. I was on my way to Golden Mean when I stuck my nose in to see what they had, and ended up staying for a vegan Samosa Dosa, and iced tea. Unusual service sequence of: order with the staff on the door, who then gives you a tracking device and sends you to the counter to pay, where you also get bombarded with free samples of salads (spicy potato salad was ace!). The Samosa Dosa is a hefty wholewheat wrap containing curried cauliflower, chickpeas, potatoes, spinach, onions and some kind of mayo-y substance. It was really filling and delicious; every time I thought I understood it I'd encounter a new flavour or texture combination. And the iced tea was incredible. It's black tea, unsweetened (or I wouldn't have bothered) but it contains passionfruit (which I didn't know when I ordered) giving it this awesome delicate floral twist. It's also a nice space to chill, and I stayed there for a couple of hours pootling around on Twitter. The staff were really sweet, cheerful and friendly and after about an hour and a half kept coming over to offer refills of my iced tea (I declined, I was stuffed). To top it all off, it was very reasonably priced. To top it all off, it was very reasonably priced. At least, compared to what I'd been getting used to paying in LA: sandwich under $9 and iced tea around $3.
I recommend! cc @veganstraightedge
Lunch for one and a half (Golden Mean)
$20 (€17.67 / $20.00 / £13.81)
In which I suddenly meet people from the internet
Today set out to be a quiet day of working/procrastinating from home, then a flurry of last minute plans and serendipity meant I got to meet people I previously only knew of online, and have some good conversations that will lead to future exciting work and travel related things. Sweet!
At short notice, my roommate Liz invited me sailing on the Charles. When we got there there were no boats available, but some friendly strangers had space in theirs and picked us up. One of those strangers happened to be Nate, whose Microsoft Research blog posts I'd read this summer and who had been twitter-introduced to me a couple of months ago by our mutual friend Doc. I'd been meaning to follow up and find time to meet up with him. After about 15 minutes of chatting with him and his friends in their boat, I realised who I was talking to. What are the odds?! Nate's research is relevant to mine, and he recommended a seminar group I should attend; bumping into him this way was an incredible stroke of luck!
Earlier today I learned that Shane is in town for a couple of days as part of a roadtrip around the US, so I met him and Morgan for dinner, and we talked indieweb, travel and vegan food for a few hours. And I might now have exciting and exotic christmas plans as a result.
