Last Week's Restaurant

Before Nigel and I moved down, Tim scoured the web for restaurants that I'd like. He found Spiral Diner, but it wasn't until last weekend that we finally got to try it. We went with some new friends prior to a visit to the zoo. This part of town feels a lot like RVA: local restaurants, coffee joints and hipsters on bikes. Not a chain in view. It was one of those moments that made me kinda fall in love with Fort Worth. Spiral serves organic, vegan food. I'm not a big advocate of soy products, so I tried the seitan-based taco salad. I knew I wasn't eating meat, but the spices and the accompanying tahini dressing made it quite tasty. Tim got a portobello quesadilla, while Nigel had an enormous PB&J. The highlights of our meal were eating outside, the agave-sweetened watermelon soda water and the seed bombs (balls of dirt packed with Texas-native wildflower seeds) in an old bubble gum machine. On Sunday, after I took my poor "vintage" iBook to the Apple store for the second time that week, I met two girlfriends at the Container Store for some shopping. I always see its products in magazines, so I was really excited to learn there was one in FW. I got some neat things, but a lot of what's there is over priced or unnecessary. After shopping, we had dinner at nearby Maharaja, my first taste of Indian food that wasn't cooked at home since we left RVA. I had the vegetarian sampler, and it was really awesome! Their saag paneer is the best I've ever tasted. I'd love to go back for their lunch buffet one day.