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veggie place in Hillcrest
Monday, October 18 1999
Today was Steph's birthday, so when I got home from work we all prepared to go out to a nice vegetarian dinner. EJ did all the driving and we rode to Hillcrest in his blue open-topped Volkswagen bug through the October chill. It was cold enough in the backseat that Kim and I huddled for warmth against the blast of frigid freeway air.
The place we ended up was called the Vegetarian Zone (formerly, we're told on the sign, "Kung Food") on 5th Avenue. Despite the fact that it was Steph's birthday, I thought maybe Kim should pick the table where we'd be sitting or else she'd soon be wanting to change it. Kim thought I was silly and rude for expressing such a sentiment, but sure enough, when she went to look at her menu she found there wasn't enough light to read it. But somehow we lucked out this time; the solution was as easy as trading places with me.
Our waitress had a strong attribute running in her favour, reminding Kim of a long-lost friend. This gave her a little freedom to not get things quite perfect.
I had the tofu and mushroom stir fry and thought the food was pretty damn good, especially considering the fact that it was utterly devoid of meat. But Kim, who for most of the evening seemed to be mentally composing a restaurant critique, said that, if she were to write about the food, would claim that some of the dishes are very good while others are not.
Our table was along a wall near the edge of the outdoor patio area and I happened to notice that the wall consisted of the simple corrugated metal of an adjacent low-rent business. It would have sapped the very oxygen out of the casually pleasant atmosphere were it not for the simple vegetative mural painted over its surface in matte vinyl paint.
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