I grabbed a seasonal holiday drink before heading up to enjoy my day off with my dear friend Astroboi...
My peppermint mocha with almond milk. Nice and warm on this cold morning.
It sure was nice NOT being in the office.
We met up for an early lunch at the restaurant of his choice, Phuong Trang, aka the Vietnamese Denny's. It's reliable, affordable and the food is good. Not wishing to park in the lot, although it was relatively empty at 10:45 am...
I chose to park on the curb. That way, I wouldn't have to worry about edging my car forward from the lot, straining to see and running the risk of getting t-boned by crazy drivers. Yeah. I truly hate parking in the Convoy area.
We kept it simple that morning - bun bowls for both of us. Pork and shrimp for him and shrimp and egg rolls for me.
Look at those fat and juicy skrimps. I could barely eat everything and Astroboi was so irked that I couldn't finish that HE ended up eating the shrimps. I was actually surprised because he is so fastidious and picky and never eats from anyone's plate but his own. Well, I guess he changed that today!
He also likes to eat his plain (without the nuoc cham sauce), so I took his sauce portion!
It was nice having an early lunch and not having to deal with the crazy lunch rush. By the time we finished, it was still pretty early (not even noon yet) but I'm sure that would change once noontime hit.
We had several dessert options and since he hadn't tried Korean desserts before, we went to Caffe Bene.
These chairs are so blocky with their unneccesary arm rests. It's hard to sit by side with these obstructions, but that's just me.
Astroboi is a shoe whore (and I say that in a good way; I know he's reading this). I thought these were Converse at first, but they were Adidas masquerading as Converse. I should have realized from the trademark three strips. I loved the red strip at the toe (no hip hop clam shell a la Run DMC though).
The strawberry bingsu looked EXACTLY like the plastic replica. This is the real one. We got a size small and it still looked huge!
I ordered a Cortado, or what they call a cortado but was really BURNT TASTING SWILL in a crappy paper cup. Their banners advertise "coffee and a waffle" with the coffee depicted with pretty latte art in a ceramic cup. No for this and in a subsequent visit with my sister a few weeks later, I asked and they said they do NOT serve any coffee in actual cups, only paper, which sucks.
We enjoyed our dessert, digging down for the strawberries and finely shaved ice. The red beans, I wasn't much a fan of, but I'm glad the beans weren't overly sweet.
Their seasonal drinks. I already had my peppermint mocha from the hospital coffee kiosk. At least this banner portrayed the drinks in paper cups unlike their other one leading you to believe you would get a pretty drink but not really.
My time with Astroboi was short. Just lunch and dessert as we both had other errands to run. Before going home, I thought I'd go to Donut Panic. There was a new flavor donut I saw on Linda's IG that I wanted to try. When I got there, only her dad was working. I also saw that they rearranged a little. In place of the station with napkins, sugars, etc (for their coffees), there was an espresso cart set up. I forgot the name of the company, but they are local. According to Mr. Damo, they would be starting up "soon".
The donut treats for the day. All were vegan - 1 plain cake, one strawberry glazed, one plain glazed and three of the new flavor, Thai Tea. You can see the tea flecks in the glaze.
I ate one here. The other two were for Bert and TC.
I love the texture of the donuts here. She no longer uses soy milk in her vegan donut batter (made with potatoes) but water. They still taste as good as they did when she used soy milk.
Previous visit to the Hot Java coffee kiosk:
February 2015
Previous visit to Phuong Trang:
October 2015
Previous visit to Caffe Bene:
September 2015
Previous visit to Donut Panic:
September 2015 (their grand reopening after having been out of commission since May 2015)
I should take more days off, but as it was, I needed to get back to pick up TC from school...
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