Thai Pumpkin Curry

The Chef: Colleen + Vanida Thai Kitchen

The Menu: A delicious Thai pumpkin curry with tofu, broccoli, carrots, and red bell pepper, all over steamed Jasmine rice. Heaven!

The Goods: There's nothing like handy restaurant leftovers to satisfy a Friday lunch. Our local favorite Thai eatery, Vanida Thai Kitchen, offers dozens of vegan options, but it's hard to beat its sumptuous pumpkin curry. Plus, the servings are so large that leftovers are always part of the deal. Speaking of Thai cuisine, have you signed up for the VegNews Food Lover's Tour to Thailand? We just received word that there are just a few spots remaining, so if you're interested in joining us, sign up! We'll be experiencing incredible Thai cuisine, visiting the world-famous Phuket Vegetarian Festival, taking cooking classes, getting Thai massage, hiking, snorkeling, and so much more. We hope everyone has a terrific weekend, and Café VegNews will be back next week with delicious vegan eats!

Birthday Thai Food!

The Chef: Vanida Thai Kitchen

The Menu: A stellar array of awesome Thai food. Curries, eggplant, tofu with garlic, sweet-and-sour vegetables, and tom ka soup were some of the yummy dishes we devoured.

The Goods: As you can see, we are not at the VNHQ in this photo. In fact, we took a leisurely, off-campus lunch in honor of Joseph's birthday. Maybe there will be a Press Pass entry up about it soon. Maybe go-karts were involved, and maybe we now have enough pictures of ourselves in racing suits to blackmail anyone who was there. Happy Birthday to Joe!

Birthday Bliss

The Chef: Vanida and MaggieMudd

The Menu: A beautiful birthday bash of Thai food and ice-cream cake! Yeah, today is basically the best lunch day ever, just in case you were wondering. From our favorite local Thai place, Vanida, we served up some deliciously garlicky eggplant and tofu, a spicy yellow curry with zucchini, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, and red bell pepper, and a lovely, light papaya salad with tomatoes and ground peanuts. Oh, and maybe there was a cake. Maybe it was an ice-cream cake that featured Toasted Coconut and Mint Chocolate Chip ice creams, set atop a brownie crust and covered in whipped-cream frosting. Oh, did we mention (or did we even really have to?) that this whole B-Day smorgasbord was vegan? Yeah, it was.

The Goods: We had not one but two birthdays in the office this week, those of Ms. Colleen and Ms. Stacy. If there was ever a time to order up a big, beautiful birthday cake, today was the day. A very happy birthday to both lovely ladies, one of whom you can see below with the sweet treat. Continuing the tradition of studly adornments, this year's cake featured one of our favorite vegans. Can you tell who it is?

Thai Times

The Chef: Aurelia and Vanida Thai Kitchen

The Menu: A tantalizing tray of Thai food! Ms. Aurelia cooked us up some delicious brown rice, which we used as a base for the great dishes from one of our favorite local restaurants. Tofu with cashews, eggplant with basil, flat noodles with veggies, and a broccoli-packed yellow coconut curry made for this entirely satisfying afternoon meal. For dessert, we were treated to the sweet surprise of Nada Moo ice cream, which went perfectly with the warm day.

The Goods: There were two other very exciting elements of lunch today, both of which are pictured below. Paul Shapiro of The Humane Society of the United States—who's in California campaigning tirelessly for Yes! on Prop. 2—joined us for lunch and treated us not only to his fantastic company, but also to tales of pranks that had us in stitches. If there's anything better than having a hilarious guest join us for lunch, it's getting to share the hot-off-the-presses November+December issue of VegNews with that guest! Oh, and did we mention that this is the Veggie Awards issue and that HSUS was named Favorite Non-Profit Organization for the second year in a row? Here's Paul with the VN staff and our fancy new magazines: