Vegan by Valerie

Date night at Carnivale

Hi friends! Have you started to think about what recipe you are submitting to this week’s Blogger Secret Ingredient challenge?  I can’t wait to be the host, and I have to say that I haven’t gotten very many submissions yet so you have an excellent chance of winning a prize package made from of green tea, pasta, the newest issue of Vegetarian Times, and a Whole Foods gift card!

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I was going to post about my new Butternut Squash Dessert Risotto recipe today, but I’m just so excited about the amazing meal that I had last night that I wanted to share that with you first.  Mike and I had gotten a deal from a local radio station offer where we spent $25 in order to get a $50 Carnivale gift card.  What a good decision that was!

Mike and I have been itching to go to Carnivale ever since we came very close to buying a condo right next door.  Nothing super fancy on the outside…

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But on the inside it was quite spectacular!

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Carnivale is known for its fun and colorful ambience as well as its known for its Latino cuisine.  This week, the restaurant was featuring Columbian fare.

We started off by ordering a large guacamole – the waiter was kind enough to inform me that their tortilla chips were not vegan as they contain lard (gross!) and he offered to bring me some sliced jicama, instead.

I LOVED the jicama slices with the guac! They were so refreshing and slightly sweet – so much better than tortilla chips! However, the guac was way too spicy for my liking so again, the kind waiter brought me a small bowl of it without the chiles, without me even requesting it!  Very thoughtful.

When it came time to decide our menu selections, I didn’t have a lot of choices, only one item on the menu was able to be veganized:

They just left out the goat cheese… here’s the beauty:

This was sooooo delicous.  I was a bit hesitant since I have been eating leftover quinoa & veggies for lunch all week, but thankfully this was much different (and better!) than my leftovers.  The quinoa was very rich with the flavors of roated veggies, green olives, and pine nuts, and the mushroom sauce was simply fabulous.  I’m aware that it was probably insanely easy to make – probably just pureed mushrooms with a bit of broth – but I could eat mushrooms all day long, so I just wish that there was more of this delightful sauce.

As Mike is currently undergoing an experimental month of being a vegetarian, he also had a difficult time finding an item on the menu but ended up being very pleased with his choice! We both loved dining at Carnivale and highly recommend it. After Carnivale we headed to a wine tasting and sadly didn’t take any pictures, but we (of course) had a great time!

Now I’m off to do some cleaning and then we are going to hit up a bookstore and then watch a movie later this evening…. have a wonderful day!

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