Making Lemonade

You know the old saying, "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade"? Well, I find that some of traveling's finest moments often come as a result of bad situations turned to my advantage. Tonight for instance I'm staying at the Crowne Plaza West in Richmond, VA. After a long day of driving and then attending convention panels, I was looking forward to a quiet dinner in the hotel restaurant before the evening panels started.

However, when I went there I discovered that there wasn't a single vegetarian dish on the menu. Even the salads all had some kind of meat in them. Now I could have asked them to make me something without meat, and would have done so if I'd been dining with someone else, but I decided to make an issue out of it. I cornered the manager and pointed out that there was nowhere else within walking distance to get food, a monopoly that I'm sure adds quite a few customers every night. Not to have even one hot meal on the menu for people who don't eat meat is an insult.

He actually agreed with me and said I wasn't the first guest to point this out. He said their menus were dictated by Crowne Plaza corporate food services and suggested I write to them, which I intend to do. He also offered to make something up for me, but by that point I wasn't willing to trust them to make it totally meat free.

So I went back to my room and made my plight known to my friends on Twitter. One of them who lives in the area recommended Sticky Rice, a sushi place in one of Richmond's trendier neighborhoods. It was only about five miles away so I hopped into the Prius and drove down there.

I had the devil of a time finding a parking place on Friday night, but it was time well spent. The place was great and packed with all sorts of people. I took a seat at the end of the sushi bar and looked over the menu. There was a whole column of vegetarian dishes and many of them were clearly marked as vegan. I picked the Garden Balls (a veggie pate stuffed into inari pockets and deep fried) and Spicy Shiitake mushroom rolls. I topped it off with a Kirin Ichiban SPR beer.

That bad taste left in my mouth from the hotel restaurant experience was totally forgotten as I dug into this wonderful meal. I left the Sticky Rice relaxed and happy. It was an amazing experience I would never have enjoyed if the hotel had just put some bland tasting pasta dish on the menu. Lemonade indeed!