A Weekend of Good Eats

Last week was Valentine's Day so to celebrate my husband and I had planned a date night- dinner and a movie. The original plan was for Tuesday, but that got canceled because he ended up having to travel for work.   We are still working on fitting our date night into our jam-packed schedule, but he did do his best to spoil me all weekend by taking me to a few of my favorite places to eat.  

We try not to eat out very often at all for several reasons.  For one thing it a lot more expensive than eating at home.  For another, it's not nearly as healthy.  When you eat out you consume a lot more calories than you would if you made the food yourself.  As a rule we try to eat out only about once every 2 weeks.  I don't mind cooking dinner every night, but a break now and then is nice.  This weekend we actually ate out 3 times- totally unheard of for us!  But oh, it was soooo nice. 

Saturday night, after an afternoon and evening out clothing and shoe shopping for the two little ones, my husband ordered sushi for us from our favorite sushi place.  He ordered my favorite: vegetable roll combo, miso soup, and edamame.  (Yes, I do eat raw fish but I love the fresh veggies in the vegetable roll.)  After the little ones were all tucked into their beds for the night, we snuggled on the sofa with some wine, our sushi, and a movie.  It may not have been the fancy night out we had planned but a quiet night in is better in my opinion.  

Sunday we went back out to see if we could hit any good sales.  In our travels we stopped by the Le Creuset store and I picked up a new cookbook I cannot wait to try:

My husband did not tell me his plans for dinner, but instead surprised me by taking us to my very favorite restaurant "Food For Thought".  It's a slightly higher end restaurant, but they still cater to families with children so they have crayons and coloring pages for the kids- which they love.  Of course I still bring an activity bag for them just in case.  I have been dying to go there for several weeks because they have the BEST Pad Thai (it's better than the Thai place).  I always get it with fried tofu, which is cooked perfectly every time.  It's spicy but not too spicy, and it's not drowning in sauce.

(Pardon the picture quality- it was dark and I was using my iPhone. ) 

After dinner, my husband had yet another surprise.  We were stopping for PIZZA.  Now, you're wondering why we went to get pizza after we had already eaten, right?  There just happens to be a ZPizza near where we were and they make totally dairy free pizza with Daiya cheese!  

My husband's idea was to  get a pizza to go and to eat it later on as a snack, since we had an early dinner.  Oh how I love that man!   I cannot remember the last time I had a pizza from a real pizza shop- it's been YEARS.  I was so excited I just about skipped up to the counter to place my order.  I ordered the Berkeley Vegan with Pepperoni.  Apparently I was the first person they had order a vegan pizza with pepperoni. I dare to be different, what can I say? It was a fully loaded pizza with green pepper, mushroom, onion, fresh tomato, pepperoni, and soy meat crumbles. (next time I'll get it without those) 

Now that is a BEAUTIFUL sight!  And it tasted even better than I had hoped. I ate half last night, and saved the rest to nibble on throughout the day today.  Don't worry, it was actually their small personal size pizza.  I ordered  a regular pepperoni for my husband so I wouldn't have to share.  

I now have one more restaurant I can add to my list of safe places to eat out.  And if you have a ZPizza near you I highly recommend you try them out.  Or, if you can get Daiya cheese near you, try it.  It really is a great option, especially on pizza.  

Have you found any new restaurants that cater to dairy allergies?