Tofurky for Thanksgiving

This year, the same as last year, the spousal unit and I shared a Tofurky dinner for Thanksgiving. Tofurky is a modern miracle of vegan food, texturized vegetable protein with faux stuffing inside. However unlike many other meatless meat dishes, the tofurky is not shaped to look like a turkey, but rather is round and looks more like a ham loaf. The taste is good, taking on the flavor of what ever spices and oils are used for cooking. In this case it was some olive oil, spice mix and soy sauce. The dinner also included some vegan potato dumpling pot sticker things, peas, brussel sprouts (which I did not have), gravy, mashed potatoes and candied yams. The only non vegan part of the meal for me was the candied yams as I cannot imagine not eating them without the slightly burnt and yummy crust of marshmallows.

Casa Bonita- Heck For a Vegan

Today we went to visit one of Denver's greatest kitsch restaurant, Casa Bonita located on Colfax Avenue. The restaurant is an over the top Mexican Village with a 30 foot waterfall, entertainment including Mariachis, Gorilla, Gunfights and Divers. One of the best fun items is a dark cave with limited effects and motion effects. For Halloween the restaurant has a larger Haunted House with more effects, lots of spider webs and more. Now for the food which is not the best. I had the fajitas which is a safe bet. The beef was a little dry but acceptable. The vegan spousal unit decided to try to special order a bean burritto with no cheese, sour cream, etc. What she ended up with was a bean burrito covered in a red meat sauce and a beef taco. She decided it was not worth asking the waitress to correct the order and ate the beans and guacomole. Also finished off with the Sopapillas without honey. Based that the kitchen is a large kitchen which does lots of orders, it is difficult to special order. So for a vegan- the restaurant is not good receiving a non recommendation for food, but a high recommendation for atmosphere and ambience. Go for the fun and Black Bart's Cave and be entertained as it is an awesome experience.

Casa Bonita
6715 West Colfax Ave
Lakewood, CO
303-232-5115

A Different Kind of Blog

Welcome to this new blog. My wife and I have been thinking about writing this blog for a while. You see, I am an omnivore eating meat, vegetables, dairy and everything else...and my spousal unit is a 100% vegan, meaning she eats no animal products at all. No meat, cheese, butter, milk, ice cream, whey, egg whites, honey, and more. She also does not wear animal products such as leather, wool, or silk. Oh and let me add one more thing, my wife loves to eat out at restaurants and not just vegeterian or vegan restaurants, but all restaurants. As you can probably guess, this leads to some interesting situations.

Just last night we had dinner at John Holly's Asian Bistro. There was a decent selection of tofu and vegeterian entrees for the vegan spousal unit. She decided on the country tofu and then the questions began- what was with the tofu? Just fried tofu with vegetables answered the waiter. What is the sauce? A white sauce. What is in the white sauce, any chicken stock, oyster sauce, etc? This stumped the waiter. I then spoke up and stated she does not eat any animal products. He dutifully wrote down the order with the note of no animal products. The dish that did come out was fried tofu in a brown soy sauce. And it actually was quite delicious.

For those who enjoy all foods, I had the John Holly Chicken which was also very good as well as the miso soup. The sushi was a little bland as the rice did not have a strong flavor and was a little dry. The service was good although they did give us one wrong sushi roll.

Therefore this restaurant receives a very good approval rating from the Dining With the Vegan blog.

John Holly Asian Bistro
9232 Park Meadows Dr.
Lone Tree, CO 80124
(303)768-9088