Sunday Tripping

After No Shopping Day Friday and my typical Saturday info surfing while debating going out to play board games, Pat and I went shopping and out to eat Sunday afternoon and evening.

The important stuff first - Pat knew a terrific inexpensive restaurant out in the Sharpstown Chinatown area she had discovered on a Red Cross run recently. She also wanted to go to a Chinatown to look for weird Christmas stuff. She thought it was a Vietnamese place but it turned out to be be Thai Spice - Thai Fast Food. Online I see it is supposed to be called Thai Spice Express but that is not what the sign said.

They had three kinds of curry simmering($4.25?), about 60 entrees on their menu, Thai tea served with condensed milk ($1.50), "icy desert" (choose three fruits or Asian gelatins or huge tapioca balls out of ten items, add a dash of light fruit juice, add snow cone ice, add condensed milk - $1.50), and a good vegetarian stir fry with fried tofu ($4.95).

Extremely crowded, no seats available which I didn't realize until after we ordered. By the time we got the order we found one table. Very good, several Vietnamese places were nearby but I like Thai a bit better. Next time I'll try some spicier stuff although Pat thought the medium curry was a little too spicy for her.

Onward to looking for Chinese grocery stores. I didn't find anything weird enough, I have a high weirdness threshold now. I did like some bonsai and sprouting bamboo shoots but didn't want to take care of plants now.

Afterwards, I found an Asian vegetarian ice cream place while Pat was picking up Asian pastry. Vegetarian ice cream, at least that's what it said, the name was something like May's Ice Cream. But their big thing was smoothie-like drinks (more later), other strange tofu deserts (stirred and folded?), and vegetarian dishes that often had a meat name in them - "vegetarian beef and snow peas", "spicy vegetarian mutton and noodles." I can't tell you the last time I had vegetarian mutton. They also had several curries as well. A Japanese influence - when you walked in - the door brightly said "Hello, Welcome to our store."

Some of the drinks were standard smoothies or slushes but most of them pushed adding tapioca to them. Some things were not fruits like the lemon grass and green teas. Green tea with tapioca - could be yummy? These were the very large tapioca balls I had in my icy desert at Thai Fast Food. Somewhat sticking to my diet - who am I kidding, I now have a 3-year record how I gain weight from mid-November to early January I'll post in January - I had a green tea, no tapioca. Interesting, they ran a sheet of plastic wrap over the top of the plastic cup and heat sealed it and then poked a tube in it wide enough to suck up tapioca balls if I had ordered them. It was made a little like a slushie with plenty of finely crushed ice and a sweet syrup. Whoops, it wasn't unsweetened. I was off my diet again. The seal was much better than a pop-on lid for preventing spills.

One of my great restaurant finds. Very neat, a little strange, friendly owners, and doors, an inexpensive place with what appears to be very good food. As we were leaving the very cheerful door said: "Thank you and come again." since I was off the diet anyway, I tried Pat's red bean and coconut pastries while drinking the green tea heat-sealed slurpie. The outside was gummy unlike any other pastry I've had. The coconut filled pastry tasted exactly like the a Little Debbie pink snowball snack turned inside out.

The unimportant stuff was getting a little bit of Christmas shopping done at a bookstore (3 gifts) and Pat getting a little bit done. I also saved some money by using internet coupons at the book store.

By the way, A list of vegetarian restaurants in Houston.