Men's shoes at Rack Room Shoes

For vegan casual and athletic shoes, there are plenty of options (such as many of the New Balance styles).

For men's dress shoes, though, it is a lot harder to find non-leather choices. I was happy to find some snazzy, all man-made material shoes at Rack Room in Cary yesterday: Borelli Mason shoes.

They are pretty nice looking, reasonably comfortable, and - hey - cheap too! I particularly like the brown ones.

Also, see the posts about women's shoes here and here.

Simply Thai - Durham/RTP

This little restaurant opened in the always-depressing Big Lots strip at NC-54 & 55 near RTP. It was "Simply Thai and Sushi", but has since dropped the Sushi part. The menu at lunchtime had a lot of options in the $6-$7 dollar range, and almost all of them let you pick Beef, Chicken, Shrimp, Tofu, or Vegetables. So there are lots of vegetarian options! The waitress was careful to point out that one of the soups had chicken stock when she realized that several people were ordering tofu dishes. I tried Drunken Noodles with Tofu and it was very spicy (but not TOO spicy) and delicious.

Address: 4731 N.C. Hwy. 55, Durham
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rtplunch/380926658/
(Much nicer on the inside that in looks from the outside)