om nom nom

last tuesday (nearly a week ago; god i'm bad at this!) jj and i went to a fun little (and i mean really little - only seven tables inside little) restaurant off of south first called somnio's cafe. emily had mentioned it earlier in a suggestion for one of our ladies nights, and then i brought it up since we were trying to find places near bouldin creek coffee shop (we were planning to spend a few hours there grading/reading/etc.). anyway, somnio's whole deal is everything on the menu is made using products from local, organic farms, and there are plenty of vegetarian and vegan options. the best thing we had was jj's starter salad, the sissy: "creamy and spicy combination of apples and avocado, mint, and mild jalapeños served over a bed of greens, topped with pecans and a garlic vinaigrette." i was thisclose to licking the plate. for my meal i had this stir fried veggie bowl with chicken and brown sauce, which was disappointingly bad. there was way too much sauce, and it wasn't quite the taste i was hoping for. i found out, while chewing, that some chicken pieces still had what must have been cartilage in them, which made me quit eating. i don't know why i asked for a to go box because i didn't have any intention of eating it again, but i guess i have a hard time leaving food behind. jj's meal was far better, so he wins the prize for knowing what to order, although to be fair he just picked something like i did. he got the "crazy crispy medallions: pork tenderloin breaded with panko and crispy buckwheat noodles served over a bed of raw greens." um, yum. he had decided it was either this or the meatloaf and our waitress, when asked which was the better of the two, suggested this because (and she's right) "you can get meatloaf anywhere." the picture of jj's food doesn't really do it justice because i hadn't tried it until there was just a small amount left, and although i'm not going to get into the habit of writing about what everyone else orders when i visit these new restaurants, his meal was worth mentioning. the vegan mashed potatoes could have used a little butter, but then again i do suppose that would take away the whole vegan appeal. the pork tenderloin was indeed tender, and the noodles it was breaded in gave it an interesting flavor and texture. how people come up with these crazy combinations is beyond me, but i'm glad they do it. after dinner we headed to bouldin creek coffeehouse where i had my second cookie of the day (the first coming from one of my students' parents' new coffee shop, texspresso, which just opened up down the street from my school in buda [they get their pasteries from bakerman's, and i mean my snickerdoodle was yummy!]) and an iced chai that i nearly ruined with too much cinnamon. up until that point i didn't think there was such a thing as too much cinnamon, but really, i over did it. also, before i settled in to my evening of grading with the temper trap as a soundtrack, i overheard a game of taboo at a table behind me that i thought was some type of crazy ESL lesson. ha, that was nuts.

also, along the same lines as eats, i tried a new recipe on friday (#1: cook a new recipe every month/#27: begin a monthly dinner club with friends). the dinner club thing kind of started at jessica's a few weeks ago when we tried a recipe from real simple that was, in fact, real simple to make (it helped that teresa came and basically made it all for us, ha), and past friday i had made plans to make dinner for jj and i using jessica's leftover shrimp from alligator grill. that, however, turned into a triple date of sorts that also involved carrie, michael, lauren and chalence. i made a recipe for spicy orange shrimp that i found on my friend emily's recipe blog, and man alive was it good. i didn't use any ginger, mostly because i didn't feel like mincing any, and i made brown rice and broccoli to go with it. the recipe called for way more shrimp than i had, so the portions we all got were small but i can say with confidence that everyone liked it and had plenty to eat. the massive amounts of chocolate covered banana chips we ate for dessert probably helped.

i'm doing a terrible job of keeping up with the photos to go with this blog. fail for #78: take pictures of myself completing said things on this list. use them while completing #76.

and, in honor of this post's title, an internet movie gem: the nom nom song. everybody's welcome.