This past Thursday I met up with a bunch of the Atlanta-area bloggers for a cocktail hour at Tuk Tuk Thai Food Loft. One look at the giant tuk tuk in the entryway told me I was in the right place.

We all sat at the bar at first which has an amazing view of the Atlanta cityscape. This photo just doesn’t do it justice.

I ordered a Boston Mule cocktail which was incredible. It had some sort of tea and elderflower vodka in it with ginger ale….I think. I can’t really remember what all was going on in it, just that it was delicious enough for me to go back for seconds….and later thirds. 😉

The owner was nice enough to set us up with a few complimentary appetizers. There were beef skewers with a sweet chili dipping sauce and crispy roti with a green curry dip. Both were excellent.

After about 45 minutes or so, we all started to feel like maybe we’d like to actually order dinner rather than just drinks and snacks, so we headed to a table to order up.

I ended up sharing two dishes with Laura. We split a chicken and rice dish with a black soy bean chili sauce and a tuna salad with a sweet and sour dressing.

We all also got a surprise mini cocktail shot from a very nice boy at the bar.  😉 Cheers!

We were all still having fun so we ordered a dessert for the table to share. It was a thai style snow cone made with rose syrup sitting atop a bowl full of gingko nuts and sweet jellies.

It was fun to watch it being made right next to our table!

Tasted a bit like bubble gum but still pretty good.

These meetups just get more and more fun as we really start to get to know more about each other. And I’m always excited to meet new people as our little group keeps expanding.

The list this time included:

• Laura – Sprint 2 The Table
• Kristy – Kristy Runs
• Stacy – Stacy Eats
• Brooke – Exercise For Fries
• Carol – Lucky Zucca
• Traci – yellow Wishbone
• Heather – Girly Ever After
• Lee – In My Tummy
• Tina – Faith, Fitness, Fun
• Heather – Better With Veggies
• Tracy – Kitchen Ambition

Whew! Takes a while to link all those up.

Next time, I think we’re gonna try a potluck. Look forward to seeing everyone again!

So sad the weekend is over, this one just flew by.

This past Saturday I got to do something fun though. We had another Atlanta blogger meet-up, this time at R. Thomas, a strange little place that focuses on healthy food with a veggie focus. It’s a pretty eclectic place, with tropical birds in cages and detailed gardens surrounding it.

I hadn’t been there in several years so I was excited to get to go back. Please forgive these crazy photos, the lighting in there is all neon green flourescent.

I started with a Vitality juice, carrot with a “green superfoods” powder added. It tasted very…carroty. Good for me though.

I decide to try something really different for me and went with one of their raw plates.

This was just ok. Both of the salads were bland, the walnut sunflower loaf was really salty, and the guac was very moussey when I much prefer it chunky. Nothing was bad, just not awesome and not very filling.

No matter, this is what I was really there for…

Kristy snapped that one of me totally immersed in my camera.

It’s so nice to hang out with a whole table full of people who also take pictures of their food, makes me feel less weird. Surprisingly, we didn’t talk much about blog stuff, we never really do at these things.

Tina was nice enough to bring us samples of LoveGrown granola and Lindsay brought several types of Snickers Marathon bars for us to choose from. Yay, goodies!

I can’t believe how big our group is getting, and this was just the ones that could make it!

From left to right – Back: Lauren, Myself, Lee, Lindsay, Laura, Kristy, Brooke.

Front: Carol, Katy, Laura, Tina, Katie

Awesome group of girls! Can’t wait for the next one!

Last night’s blogger dinner at Rosebud was just awesome. The 6 of us came in expecting a simple 5 course vegetarian tasting menu that turned into a 3 hour 10 course veggie explosion with flowing booze and riotous laughter.

The bloggies…

From left to right: Laura and myself in front; Lee, Stacy, Corinne, and Heather in back. (Thanks to Lee for this pic!)

Laura approached chef Ron Eyester to prepare a vegetarian tasting dinner for us in his very meat-centric restaurant Rosebud. We were delighted to hear that he was actually really excited by the challenge!

He started us off with something none of us were expecting, a veggie cocktail!

It was tomato vodka, pickled cucumber, and soda with the springiest little baby heirloom tomatoes. I was really expecting this to be savory like a bloody mary, but it was sweet! So interesting to have the flavor of tomato in a sweet drink, it really made the tomato taste like the fruit it really is.

First up was a play on pate, pink-eyed pea pate with pickled radishes on crispy toast. As as someone who loves to eat split pea soup on toast, this was fantastic.

Then just as we were talking about how refreshing a good caprese salad is in the summertime, this gorgeous bowl of spicy tomato broth with a thick piece of buttery mozzarella topped with apricots came out! Perfect timing.

And since tomatoes are really hitting their peak, the next course was a sliced heirloom crimson tomato with sriracha pineapple and fresh parsley. Very refreshing.

And then the only flop of the night, a potato soup with a broccoli puree pool and soft boiled farm egg, sprinkled with dehydrated cheddar. I was so excited for this but it was crazy levels of salty. Chef Ron knew it too and apologized with a free bottle of off-the-menu wine! Can’t argue with that.

I’m not a wine person though so I ordered a Sazerac instead. Rye whiskey, bitters, and a citrus twist. Very boozy and very good.

At this point, we were all thinking it was about to wrap up and dessert would be out soon, so when this enormous plate of curried brussels sprouts with shaved carrots and crispy won tons came out smelling like an aromatic asian street-food cart, we were stunned.

This was the favorite dish of the night for most, and while I loved it, I was completely enamored with what came next.

Mac. And. Cheese.

I was painfully full and yet still managed to finish every bite of this lusciously creamy goat’s milk mac and cheese with young cauliflower, dinosaur kale, and crispy Ritz. This is the kind of food that makes you gain 10 pounds just looking at it, but it was so worth it!

At this point, we all had that kind of glazed over-fed look on our faces, and then out comes this little beauty. Tempura eggplant over red curry tomato sauce and topped with file beans, feta, and olives.

Apparently these file beans are only in season for a few short weeks before they’re gone again. They were wonderful, somewhere in between a green bean and a wax bean, sweet and snappy. The eggplant was loved by even the eggplant-haters in the room.

Dessert yet? Nope.

What looks like a risotto is actually leek and oyster mushroom rice grits in a tomato vegetable broth and topped with a charred baby leek.

This was incredible, and if it had come earlier in the meal I would have downed it in three bites, but with how painfully full I was I could only manage to graze on it. Chef Ron told us that he used nearly 20 pounds of leeks to make just our 6 portions! They had been cooking down all day.  I felt so bad to not be able to finish this little labor-of-love.

Then finally came the first of 2 dessert courses, bleu cheese and blueberries with a port-balsamic reduction. So good together and the reduction was nice and sweet.

And the finale, spiced bruleed peaches over salted caramel ice cream.

I don’t know how I found room for this but somehow I managed.

Chef Ron offered us all some small-batch bourbon to go with our dessert. Being a serious whiskey girl, this thrilled me. The sweet caramel notes in the bourbon were brought out by the sweeter caramel ice cream. Fantastic pairing and I’m so impressed that Chef Ron didn’t hesitate to serve straight bourbon to a group of 6 veggie-eating girls. 😉

The whole experience was phenomenal. We all felt really special being doted on in our little private back-room sanctuary for this epic veggie feast, or “veggie jam” as Chef Ron called it.

Thanks Laura for organizing and thanks girls for the fun company!