I'm back!

So where exactly did I go? I'll give you a hint: it was like vegan heaven on earth.

California!

My apologies for the lack of posting the past few weeks; before leaving for California my boyfriend was in California and I wasn't cooking much... then I celebrated my 18th birthday for what seemed like four days in a row and I didnt' cook much... and I also haven't really cooked much since coming back BUT I do have some pictures from two fabulous eateries that we visited, and I did manage to buy both of the restaurant's cookbooks. I'm so excited!!

The first restaurant we visited that deserves mention was Millenium in San Francisco. The funny thing was that we discovered it completely by accident! While we were shopping at a very cute little natural food market in Burlingame (where we were staying, about 20 miles outside San Francisco) my dad showed me a yummy looking cookbook he had found. I immediately fell in love with the colorful pictures and creative dishes and while we were checking out, the woman behind the register said, "You do realize that Millenium is in San Francisco, right?" Um, no! Score! (Btw, if you do ever have the pleasure of staying in Burlingame, there is a delicious little raw food restaurant right next to the natural food store called Que Se-Raw Se-Raw. The mock-tuna pate, the pesto pizza, and the chocolate torte were all amazing!)

The first course of our meal was an avocado, jicama and raddichio salad with a cucumber relish and a pink peppercorn ranch dressing. Yummmmm. I (unfortunately) did not realize how small it would be and split it with my best girl friend who came along on the trip, but I think the ranch dressing recipe is in the cookbook, so yay!

Next up my parents had a potato and okra chowder which I unfortunately did not snap a picture of in time... they ate it rather quickly! After the soup came the amazing entrees.

This was my dinner. It's Indian Spiced Pink Bean Ragu with purple Peruvian potatoes, heirloom cauliflower, tomato confit, cumin scented poori flatbread, kachumber-methi salad and coconut mustard seed cream. The flatbread was AMAZING. The entire thing was amazing!

This is what both my mother and friend had: Eggplant etouffee stuffed with dirty rice, tofu sausage, and some other things that slip my mind... and around the base are sauteed oyster mushrooms which were probably the best thing I've ever had. And I absolutely loathe mushrooms!

This was my dad's dinner, which was really really really good too... it was a smoked blackened tempeh dish with caper dill cream, vegetable hash, and some type of pickled vegetable on the side. The cream on top was to die for!

This was my parent's dessert, a red peach Indian bread pudding with caramel sauce and bourbon vanilla ice cream. Delicious! I was in such a state of food nirvana at this point that I completely forgot to take a picture of the desser that Steph and I had, which was a Mocha Creme Brulee with mint chocolate chunk ice cream and an espresso chocolate cookie that had a creaminess to it I never thought I would experience again in the rest of my vegan life.

Anyway, I don't want to make this blog too photo heavy, so I'll put up the pictures of the other restaurant - Real Food Daily in Santa Monica - tomorrow. Happy eating!