The Seaweed is Always Greener, On Somebody Else's Cake

Since we were kicked out of our house by our landlord, he was obviously footing the bill for our hotel stay. Which included all of the room service we wanted. Clearly, I am vegan. Even if the amount of room service I wanted was a great deal of it, the grim reality is that room service NEVER offers anything for the vegan guests. At least not in any hotel I have ever seen! So, we were allowed a food per diem, and we decided to take advantage of it by going to the vegan standby, the slightly overpriced Real Food Daily.

RFD has been in West Hollywood for almost 20 years. I have been there dozens of times, but we don't go very often these days. It really is pricey, and the food is suitable, but not astounding. I will say that it is a great place for celebrity sightings, especially for celebrities of the vegan variety. I have definitely seen more celebrities in RFD than I have in Musso and Frank, and M&F prides itself on it's celebrity customers. To name a few RFD sightings, I have seen Sara Gilbert, Toby McGuire, Alicia Silverstone, Justin Long, Moby, Mike White, Roland Orzabal (from Tears for Fears), Kiernan Shipka (Sally on Mad Men!) and undoubtably the best vegan celebrity sighting possible: Wierd Al Yankovich. Twice.

In this case, he was referring to the Salisbury Seitan.

I was determined to eat something strange at RFD.... something you can't get most places. The obvious choice was sea vegetables. I'm not sure I can think of any other place that serves the icky things, those Under the Sea veggies with names like Hijacki and Dunce. Like seaweed, they creep me out a little. I toyed with the idea of just getting a side order of the unadorned sea vegetables, but I thought that may be asking too much of myself. Instead of diving into the sea, I decided to wade in slowly, so I ordered their Sea Cake appetizer.

The description sounded kinda awful, especially for my husband, as the Sea Cake included yams and butternut squash, in addition to the sea vegetables. It is not something I ever would have ordered on my own accord! But it showed up looking lovely. And it was actually great! Both my husband and I really enjoyed it, and we were pleasantly surprised. The sea vegetables were detectable in the cake, but not a problem. They just gave it a hint of seafood flavor, so it was like a vegan, gourmet, Krabby Patty.

BTW! I ate the tiny seaweed flag, and I didn't gag!!!

But my really big news is that, for the first time in my life, I ORDERED A BEER at a restaurant! I got a Butte Creek Porter, and I have to say, it wasn't bad! I managed to drink about 95% of it. Would I have been happier with a glass of wine instead? Sure, but at least I was able to handle the beer well enough that nobody watching me would have had any idea that I haven't been drinking beer with my dinner every night for the past 17 years. Which is a very big deal! 

Full of sea vegetables and beer, Hubby and I walked back to our hotel.

 Anyway, we are back home now. Back to my empty kitchen. And forget my worries that I will spend $300 the next time I go to Trader Joe's.... I could easily spend $400 at BevMo, just replenishing the essentials!!! Sigh.