Banana Leaf Thai Restaurant

Tonight my husband and I decided to try a little Thai restaurant, newly opened in Woodstock. We have fond remembrances of our first introduction to this cuisine in Vancouver where we tasted a number of dishes with favorable results, and we keep searching for the spectacular yet simple lettuce wraps from that night. No one ever seems to have them.

Our waitress at the Banana Leaf was polite yet formal, extremely helpful but not obsequious. She answered our questions easily and suggested that two dishes would be ample for us. She was right. We ordered the Cashew Chicken and the Vegetable Fried Rice. The rice was my favorite but the chicken ran a close second. Unbelievably, we ate every bit of it. No take home bags tonight.

The restaurant is located at the rejuvenating west end of Dundas St. in Woodstock, Ontario, and is so new they don't have a website, a fancy menu, or pictures for me to display. What they do have is a lovely calm ambiance, helpful staff, accessible street parking and a soothing and welcoming atmosphere. I checked out the large table at the back and am already planning to bring a group of friends here for an evening. I think it will be spectacular.

And maybe I can talk the restaurant into putting lettuce wraps on the menu, or at least making them just for us!

A week ago my husband and I took the trip to Stratford to meet my sister-in-law, step-niece and others at a popular diner called Madelyn's for their famous Sunday menu. For about $7.oo you get 2 eggs, sausage or bacon, the best home fries I've ever tasted, two pancakes, two pieces of toast, coffee and juice. We don't drink coffee so got large size juices. And it is all very good.

This is the place where we used to meet Ross so often and, although he has been gone for two and a half years, the waitress asked for him and was shocked to learn of his passing. I guess he made an impact.

Oh, and they have banana cream pie which is wonderful according to my husband. Here is the pie. I made him wait until I got my camera out, focused it, and snapped the pie.

I was challenged not to eat too much food as it was all so good, but I left one egg, most of the homefries, 3/4 of the toast all on my plate. I did eat all the meat and the two pancakes before I realized that I wasn't paying attention. I was just eating as I socialized with the others. And that's a bad thing.

From Madelyn's we went to Cozyn's (pronounced co-sign, like the trig term) which is a delightful garden gift shop. It was all decked out for Christmas and at least one of the beautiful trees called my name. "Pick me, Elaine. Pick me." But I didn't succumb, knowing I had my own lovely tree all finished and waiting at home. In fact, we walked out of there without buying anything, a real feat of self-restraint, I must say.

We left the others still pondering their purchases and drove home together. For at least one of us, however, one picture still remains the highlight of the day.

Kind of like kids' visions of sugar plums dancing in their dreams! BTW he ate every last bite, but refrained from licking the plate. We were out in public, after all!

Three Best Things

I just read Beth's TBT post and thought I'd grab the idea for myself. So cool that Chelsea is singing! Three weeks till I see her again.

Yesterday we went for our walk about 4:30, before the daylight disappeared, catching spots of wintry sunlight. Chilly it was and I felt my legs freeze for most of the walk but I was elated to be getting in some exercise. When we moved here last year the same walk took us almost 40 minutes. Yesterday we did it in 25! And I didn't even seem to be breathing heavy. My body is a lean(er), mean (no!) walking machine.

In the evening we were faced with the same old television quandary--nothing we wanted to watch. I sat and scrolled down the menu until I got to the 70's or 80's and finally Commander-in-Chief jumped out. We loved that show when it premiered a couple of years ago. Geena Davis is awesome as the President of the United States and Donald Sutherland (Canadian--whee!) is a fully drawn villain as Secretary of State. We had an interesting hour before bed. Amazingly we didn't remember this segment.

But I haven't told you about the morning's pleasure which lasted me the whole day. I weighed in at another .8 pounds less than the week before. And that was after three challenging events last weekend. I was very happy and today the euphoria, resolve and drive to reach my goal still lingers. There is nothing that feeds my soul more than succeeding at something I've set out to do. And losing this pesky twenty-five pounds again is a prime target just now. I'm over half weigh (ha ha ha) now so must keep on track.