Underground Restaurants = WEIRD

On Wednesday Tam invited me to a dinner she was doing with work people. It was going to be some work people (she works for a bank) and some of their friends. I thought, being the single lady I am, I can't ever pass down a chance to meet new people. Plus I like food. Badda bing, badda boom, I have plans on Wednesday. So Tam tells me its an underground restaurant. I don't understand but she tells me to transfer £26 to this paypal account and then they will email me the address. Basically its some dude who does a restaurant out of his house. Very trendy right now. So I do it. I get emailed the address (off the OVERGROUND train! gasp!), find out it is from 8-11, and get told the theme is vegetarian. Ok, I can handle that. So after work on Wednesday I head up to the place.

What I didn't realize is that its in someone's house who lives in the projects. Yes. I'm serious. So I show up and call Tam and am like are you punking me? She comes and we go into this man's living room where there are 3 tables of 6 set up. The "meet new people" aspect bombed, because I ended up know the people that came, but they are fun guys so we all sit down and are like, alright let's get this started. We are all a little nervous, but have wine, so we think this could be fun. OH, and this is when I found out that it was not just vegetarian, but vegetarian japanese theme. Then the food comes out

course 1 - edamame. GREAT! I love that!

course 2 - raw onion in a bowl that is 1 inch by 2 inches, with what looks to be chopped up hotdog. It's not hotdog because the theme is vegetarian japanese food. I take my chopsticks and dig in, hoping I'll be surprised by what it tastes like. I was not..it was raw onion. I looked over at this guy Peter who I've met several times and we exchanged a look like, yep...that's raw onion.

course 3 - by this time its like 9pm and I'm STARVING because I ate a small lunch in preparation. Course three is 3 asparaguses with honey mustard dressing..like kraft dressing. Peter asked if we thought he could steal a kid's bike to go to mcdonald's. Freddie (another guy at our table) said, have you looked around this area? I think all the kid's bikes have already been stolen.

course 4 - tofu chunks, radishes or turnips of some kind, and three finger potatoes. I ask for soy sauce because I already know this is going to suck. But I (along with everyone at my table) demolish the whole thing because we are soo hungry. We all start to wonder if we are on a hidden camera show.

course 5 - it looks to be like pizza, but smells like fish and there is white stuff drizzled over it. mayo. EW. I love mayo but it has no place on a pizza. I take one bite and almost throw up. Peter says this is the best course so far so I let him finish off mine too. He then decides to peace out and hit mcdonald's on the way home. I am jealous.

course 6 - it looks like a crew detay (I know I butchered that spelling) platter, but its got soy sauce in the middle. the vegetables are grill broccoli (so it still has that gross grassy leafy texture), mushroom caps, and tofu balls. I ate the mushrooms.

course 7 - its midnight. waay past my bedtime, and I live about 20 minutes by cab from here. The tube has now closed so I have to take a cab. Bummer. Course 6 is miso soup and white rice. I don't like rice, so I down the miso soup. Freddie looks at me and says "surprisingly i'm not that hungry any more". I told him its because his stomach was shrinking. At this point I call a cab and rally any troops I can to share it. 15 minutes later its there so we all head out. on the way out when we pass the kitchen, the cook says, don't leave there is still dessert! I said sorry dude, I've got to go to bed. He said, well you can just take it with you! Its very gelatinous. EWW!!

Overall, I had a great time. I'm so glad I went. It was really fun going through the experience with people with good senses of humor. I also learned why vegetarians are so skinny. It's something that I'll check off the list. But from now on, I'll take a real restaurant in a nice neighborhood with a nice, large slab of cow.