Tonight I had dinner at Chez TJ in Mountain View with Ben and Susan.  One strange part of the evening was at the start when I inquired about substituting for two meat courses in the tasting menu (since I don't eat meat).  The waiter seemed surprised.  In the Bay Area.  I said: "I'm sure this has happened before".  He sputtered something about that people usually let them know in advance.   They actually didn't have any problem finding ingredients to do the substitutions (rather well), but for some reason the exchange was very funny at the time.

Tonight I met up with Mark and Wendy who recently moved from Seattle to UK (what?) and since it was convenient for us to meet up at Kings Cross station we picked a place nearby from random reviews.    It was AWE-SOME!  It was this Spanish place - even though the website media shows lots and lots of large animals on plates we had lots and lots of little plates of mostly veggie tapas.  Delicious!  The place *is* quite hard to find - we might have done better had we actually captured this very handy map they have on their website!  :)  But we did find it, and it was definitely worth it - highly recommended to anyone who wants a lovely meal near Kings Cross!