30th birthday part 3

I mentioned my birthday festivities spread out over a weekend. On Sunday, we arose and after breakfast (I just had toast with Vegemite and avocado, and then a second breakfast of leftover finger sandwiches) and saying farewell to Brendan and Diana, Leigh and I went off in search of vegan adventures.

Our first stop was The Green Edge. The Green Edge is a magical place! It started out as a vegan grocery store, but has morphed into an amazing meeting place. It also serves pies, smoothies, milkshakes, hot drinks and sundaes, with burgers coming soon. And the range of vegan supplies available is extensive. I was taking Leigh there today to show her the coolest vegan place in Brisbane, and to have some sundaes! Leigh was also excited to see that they stocked Teese, which apparently you can't get in Sydney (score one for Brisbane!), so she did some shopping as well.


We both chose the banana split - with some strawberries on top. It was so good. Banana, Cocoluscious ice-cream, Soyatoo topping, homemade butterscotch sauce, strawberry sauce, chopped nuts, strawberries and a cherry! Heavenly.


This is one of their strawberry sundaes, which I had at a previous visit. It has strawberries, Cocolucious ice-cream, strawberry sauce, Dandies marshmallows, Soyatoo whipped cream, sprinkles and more strawberries. They also have a chocolate sundae of doom, that I am yet to tackle. I will post when I do!

Our plan was to then head on to lunch at Brisbane's first World Vegan Day Fair. We were looking forward to some Hellhound Hotdogs. However, thanks to texting, I found out that the hotdogs weren't there, and there was not much food to be had as several people had fallen through. We ended up heading out to Kuan Yin, with Matt and James who were also on the lookout for lunch. Sadly I don't have photos of all the noms we had! Leigh and I shared the fried dumplings (which are AMAZING), the Taiwanese spicy 'chicken' (so crunchy and salty and good), fried 'calamari' (I was suspicious, but they are actually delicious) and the sweet and sour 'pork' bento box, along with a Taro soy milk tea with pearls (also known as Cookie Drink, as it tastes like cookies). It was so yummy and filling!

Leigh and I didn't end up making it to the fair, and that night I dropped Leigh off at the airport and said farewell!

The next morning was my actual birthday - 30! I had arranged to go down the coast for lunch with Brendan and Diana, who were staying down there for a few days. We went to The Magic Apple.



It was hot and I was feeling like something a bit lighter (I had a big dinner coming up that night), so I got the tofu steak (normally served on a burger) with three different types of salad, all covered in vegan mayo and Gado Gado sauce. It was quite nice, but some of the 'roasted' vegetables in one of the salads were pretty raw.


I wanted a little something sweet to end up with. Unfortunately, half their dessert case was marked Vegan (tho honey). I am not looking to stir up any big debates here, but by simple definition honey isn't vegan. It was pretty disappointing. So there were only a couple of truly vegan options. I ended up getting this piece of mango and apricot pie, which was quite nice.

Then it was time to head back to Brisbane to get ready for my big dinner, which will be the subject of the next post!

Cute Kitty Photo of the Day (with bonus Unicorn)


(Photo courtesy Brendan Waite).
One of the presents I got at my party was this beautiful blue cat vase. I am totally besotted with it, because it kind of reminds me of a teal cat. Only blue, and obviously the proceeds didn't go towards a kitty shelter. But it is just as cute! I had really wanted a teal cat but they don't ship internationally, so I was very happy to get this light blue cat!


This photo is a bit blurry - I was arguing with my camera and couldn't get a better one. Another friend gave me this gorgeous unicorn necklace (I had been talking about unicorns a fair bit of late). His name is Paul!