Samurai on Stanley

With this cold weather outside lately I've been craving a bowl of warm oats.

1/4 banana

3 sliced strawberries

1/2 cup oats

1 cup water

pinch of salt

1 tbs crunchy peanut butter

Then I enjoyed a soy latte w/ honey at the Paddington Grind while I read my book.

For lunch I took the bus to meet James' sister at her school & we walked to the Westfield Mall at Bondi Junction to grab lunch. I had a mix of the Thai salad w/ tofu and spicy vinaigrette & a mixed green salad w/ onions, tomatoes, cucumbers, and avocado.

Can you believe this is what they serve at mall food courts? This is not your average sitting out all day under heat lamps normal mall food... everything is fresh and healthy (maybe not so much the fried tofu).

I spent all day getting ready & planning for James' big 21st bday party on the 26th. So far everything is looking great, I can't wait!

For dinner James and I were craving sushi so we tried out a new place on Stanley St. near the city. I love this area. There are tons of quaint restaurants & cafes w/ tables facing the hustle & bustle of the street. I'm a bit skeptical trying new sushi restaurants in Aus, I've had a couple of bad experiences, but Samurai was my best sushi experience in Australia yet.

We started off with some drinks & edamame. Like my new manicure? OPI Light my Sapphire.

I was expecting a little seaweed salad but they brought me this enormous bowl of greenage. Trust me I was not complaining.

I also ordered a vegetable roll.

Dinner was delicious! I always thought that fish would be the one thing I would miss becoming vegan since I used to eat sushi about once a week, but oddly enough I have not craved it once. It's weird how much being vegan has changed my taste buds.

I saw a couple things on my way home that made me happy including an adorable white Vespa...

& a possum in the tree outside. Possums are way different in Australia than they are in America (i.e. overszied rats w/ fangs). They are the cutest things ever. Last winter James & I would go on walks in Centennial Park at night & try to find them climbing around in the trees.... I know we're weirdos.

Jenga!

You may have noticed that I changed the title of my blog. Originally I named my blog what I thought was the french version of "the little carrot", which mainly stemmed from the fact that I thought it was a cute name & I love vegetables. Maybe I should have stuck w/ a language that I do know more about though, like English or Spanish, because although I lived in France at one point in my life, my grasp of the French language is close to nothing. I have not changed my domain name though, just the title at the top which I hope is correct. If it is not please let me know.

I was sooo happy when my boyfriend brought me a coffee from Starbucks today. He said that the woman working there did not understand what an iced coffee was and kept telling him that they only had an iced soy latte or a frappucino. Filtered coffee please not espresso. I'm not completely crazy, on the Australian Starbucks website they say that they offer 'iced shaken coffee'. Nevertheless I was still happy to have some caffeine.

The toaster is broken so I ate an non-toasted English muffin w/ crunchy peanut butter & honey for brekkie. I know that honey is not considered 'vegan', but I do not exclude it from my diet. I understand why many vegans object to eating honey, but I am not 100% vegan all of the time (more like 95%)... I adapt my dietary needs to my lifestyle. Plus, my primary reason for eating vegan is because of health & a general discomfort w/ eating animals... combined w/ not wanting to support the dairy & meat industries considering the way that they are currently run in America.

For lunch I grabbed a salad at the UNSW cafeteria. My salad included mixed greens w/ peas, corn, chickpeas, sunflower seeds, avocado, tofu, & pumpkin w/ balsamic vinaigrette & a piece of french bread on the side. There are sooo many options at this salad bar that I get overwhelmed when the server asks me what 7 toppings that I want; i always end up w/ a hodge podge of things.

Surprise, surprise I grabbed another coffee later on. This time I tried something a little new, an orange soy latte. It was pretty tasty & I found a little orange peel at the bottom of my cup.

For dinner I had some of last night's leftovers w/ BBQ & hummus paired w/ Promised Land Chardonnay. I just got into reading a blog about women drinking & have found it really interesting; they present a wide range of views about women drinking and have a lot of interesting contributers. I would recommend checking their blog out.

James & I have been dying to play Jenga lately so we finally stole his family's 'Jenga Xtreme' set. What ever happened to regular Jenga? Most of our time was spend just putting this complicated thing together. I knocked it over every time, oops!