Native Foods, Mexican Food & Art & Water Parks & Corn

On Thursday I was soooo stoked to go visit my favorite vegan restaurant of all time, Native Foods at their Aliso Viejo locations, w/ my Grandma, mom, & James. I'm on a mission to try everything on the menu, so I was happy to see that they had recently added a few new items to their menu. I tried the new tempeh salad w/ quinoa, green salad, & kale and white bean hummus. I was sadly let by this new item, the salad was dry & the hummus and tempeh were a but funky. The only thing I really liked was the quinoa.

Everyone else ordered the Oklahoma Bacon Cheeseburger w/ "sliced seitan, melted cheddar, caramelized onions, tempeh bacon on a bun slathered w/ BBQ sauce and ranch dressing, lettuce, carrots, onion, and tomato and topped with crunchy battered dill pickle chips". As always, it was insanely delicious. Of course we also drank a redonkulous amount of watermelon juice.

I munched on some sweet potato fries and Native Chicken wings with ranch that we ordered as an appetizer. Few things in life can compare to the yumminess of these chicken wings; crispy warm batter on the outside with a chewy texturized soy on the inside dipped into creamy ranch. We also gulped down redonkulous amounts of watermelon juice & lavender lemonade.

That night since it was the first Thursday of the month we took the trolley downtown for art walk , and enjoyed looking at art & drinking free wine.

The whole lot of us walked over to El Ranchito to enjoy some Mexican food. If you can believe it, it has been a month since I have enjoyed Mexican because of the utter lack of Mexican food in Australia.

I decided to much on everyone else's food knowing that I would OD on chips, salsa...

and guac!

I also tried their new skinny margarita made w/ agave.

My expert opinion says that this margarita is even better than regular margaritas.

On Friday we woke up to a thick layer of fog. While it's nice living at the beach often times the thick marine layer means that when it's sunny inland it's freezing on the coast. Last minute my family & I decided to chase the sun inland and go to Wild Rivers for the day. After downing some coffee I packed myself an arugula smoothie for the trip.

About 1/2 cup ice, almond milk, water, as much arugula as I could stuff into the bullet, 1/2 apple & banana, and a tablespoon of hemp protein. If you like arugula than I would try this smoothie; it was fruity but the arugula gave it a bit of a bite.

I wasn't able to grab any picks of food @ Wild Rivers but I snuck in a veggie sandwich from Subway & had some roasted sweet corn w/ garlic salt.

Wild Rivers was waaay too much fun! I haven't been here since I was ten for my elementary school graduation party, but It was even more fun than I remembered it being. James and I went on every ride in the first couple of hours and then lounged in the lazy river & watched the kids play. I can still say that the wave pool is the scariest, even w/ a floaty tube I got worked in the waves.

Exhausted & sunburnt when we got home we had a simple BBQ. I grazed and had some watermelon...

more corn (and maybe a few french fries ; )...

and some pita chips w/ TJ's Mediterranean & basil hummus.

Wild Rivers got the best of me, I was passed out by nine-thirty.