Roasted Herbed Summer Veggie Sandwich & San Francisco

Hey blogland, I've returned from my trip to Half Moon Bay and San Franciso, CA, and not only have a ton of food porn to share, but an end of summer/start of autumn recipe to link to.

Below you have a herbed, roasted vegetable sandwich - featuring red tomato, green tomato, yellow bell pepper, eggplant, portabella mushroom and spinach on olive ciabatta bread. The recipe was put together for my guest post on Almost Vegetarian, and is available online if you'd to see more. Granted I made this sandwich so this is coming from the creator, but it's oh, so good.


Onto the California porn! First, let's start with an Americano from Ritual Coffee (and some house espresso beans I picked up for Thomas).

What's the first thing I actually ate in San Francisco? Why, a vegan ice cream sundae!
The awesome Melissa of the Urban Housewife took me to Maggie Mudd's, and I am still impressed 5 days later.

This small sundae has Dubliner ice cream (featuring chocolate and whiskey), Mint Cookies and Creme, marshmallow syrup, walnuts, whipped creme and sprinkles.

After digesting the ice cream, I met up with my lovely friend Jen from the PPK boards and her husband, Nate. We dined at Cha Ya, a vegetarian Japanese restaurant - and it was also amazing.

We split a bunch of items, including my first sampling of warm sake, this tofu salad...

Mushroom soba soup

Cha Ya Rolls (my favorite part of the meal)

Tempura portabella with kiwi edamame sauce (my first close, second favorite part)

The next morning, despite no true recommendation to go there, I tried out Herbivore on Valencia for breakfast. Some things were better than others, and I thought I'd absolutely dislike the porridge looking pesto scramble, but it was actually quite tasty.

Pesto tofu scramble, house potatoes, toasted, jam and tempeh bacon.

And a teeny tiny mimosa, since my work trip was technically over and all.


A few hours later, I found myself wandering into the Civic Center Farmer's Market, and hungry once more. I visited the Alive! Raw food stand, and picked up raw mousse for $1.

Raw avocado chocolate mousse with candy cap mushroom creme.

Being a farmer's market addict, I picked up a bright purple Japanese eggplant for 40 cents to take home with me.

Yes, I found it cool that Walgreen's had soymilk there!

And on my second day, Melissa took me to Cafe Gratitude for some fantastic raw food - we shared two dishes, and below is the I amFabulous raw lasagna. We also shared the I am Festive raw taco salad which we both seemed to agree was the favorite of the two, and I had a nut milkshake.

The most filling drink I have ever had - but totally, totally delicious - the I am Beautiful creamsicle nut milkshake. Sure, it was $7.50, but it was worth it. I also took home a slice of raw tiramisu, that I proceeded to eat a bit of daily, finally finishing it yesterday.

Overall, the food was somewhat pricier that what I've become accustomed to in Portland, but it's a big city and it was generally wonderful, so whatever.