Dinner with Alicia Silverstone
Well, not quite. I went to Hollywood this afternoon and who better to recommend a vegan restaurant to visit than Alicia Silverstone, celebrity vegan? The Internet gossip rags duly obliged, confiding that the M Cafe on Melrose Avenue is her favourite. This is a macrobiotic cafe not far from the centre of Hollywood, so after a quick trip to Hollywood Boulevard and Grauman's Chinese Theater it was food time.
Plenty to choose from, mostly soup, salad and sandwiches (it's a cafe) with a few rice and veg dishes. Plenty of seitan, tempeh and soy mozzarella if you want protein. Fish is available too in that strange combination that is macrobiotic. I went for a brown rice and seitan dish, which was great in itself, except that the veg (carrots, broccoli and cauliflower) tossed into it looked like something from Sligo. That is, chunky, looking fresh from the ground and just about boiled with no condiments. I felt so healthy.
Not to worry, the M Cafe boasts a leading vegan/macrobiotic chef de patisserie!
Unfortunately they were out of chocolate cake slices - all that was left were entire chocolate cakes at $40 a pop. Maybe a bit much. So I settled for a lemon meringue tarte...and a soy cappuccino...and a couple of cocoa truffles. Just in case.
To finish off a perfect evening I returned to find I had won a parking ticket. Los Angeles, I will remember you.