Vegan Guide to Michelin Restaurants: Gauthier, Soho

        We began with a really delicious amuse-bouche sent out from the kitchen with “our compliments”, which was nice but I was like “a better compliment would have been free tap water, yo. Or at least tell me I’m pretty.” Anyway, the amuse was a toasted carrot sandwich with a pepper and a pickle on top. It was delicious! I could have had 100 of them! 

      Our first real course was this fantastic salad that featured a raw zucchini roll-up filled with amazing truffled cheesy cream (I think the phrase cream cheese is disgusting even though I am from Philadelphia (snaps)). The salad was arugula, fancy carrots, and salted almonds in a potato dressing. I don’t really know what that means, but it was delicious. The main focus of the plate aside from the zucchini roll-up was kohlrabi carpaccio which was fantastic. Fanciest salad ever! 
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       Next up was this ‘spring consomme’, which was a lovely French-oniony soup with like wonton balls in the middle. Delicious wonton balls! It said it came with herbed pancake strips but I don’t remember that being the case, unless those little squares are the strips. The wonton was a cheesy semolina dumpling that was really yummy.
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      The standout dish was next, the pasta. I wrote in my notes that this ravioli dish was perfect! It had a ridiculously large spear of spargel across the top, and the ravioli was filled with more spargel! (Remember spargel is asparagus. We learn languages on this show!) The ravioli pasta itself was superb with that perfect chewiness and taste. It was in a Hollandaise sauce that was not disgusting; it was in fact delicious. The dish was spotted with beluga lentil samsa (which Google tells me is just a misspelled samosa, which wasn’t the case here) that was the perfect spargel accompaniment. It also was topped with ‘sage panache’ but that just sounds like a dapper old wise man. Like the nicest way to describe a dandy British man. That bloke is full of sage panache. Hahahahah.
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     THEN THEY GAVE US FRUIT SORBET TO CLEANSE OUR PALATES LIKE WE WERE FREAKING ROYALTY OR SOMETHING. It was melon and rose hip sorbet and it was so lovely! It throws me a little though to have dessert before the main main. (As a vegan, even the blandest lightest sorbet is usually our dessert, so my brain was like, oh man it’s over? And then it was hard to get out of that.)
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    The main main, or piece de resistance, as the menu actually said, was a “Seitan and Onion Roast Joint“, which I assume is similar to a Spike Lee Joint, but more delicious and filling and less upsetting in most ways. It came with potato and carrot puree, which is the kind of thing I make a lot (a LOT a lot) but obviously not as perfectly as this was. It also came with pak choy, which as far as I know is bok choy, but in Europe they call it pak choy and I kind of love the discrepancy and kind of hate it. But I love love bok/pak choy! And I will always welcome more greens on my plate! It was the perfect unexpected Asian accompaniment to the meat and potatoes. The joint was also topped with a beet and walnut confit and just wow everything was perfect. 
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Then came real dessert, a trio of uhhhmazing cake and cream confections. In the center was the raspberry cake, which was good but fruit flavored dessert is not my favorite when it could easily be chocolate instead. Much MUCH better was to the left, the coconut and nougat tartlet. Yes, that’s right, this entire meal was sponsored by the first Jon Lovitz episode of “Friends”. 

The crust of the tartlet (hehehe) was a bit shortbready, which normally I hate because it feels like my teeth are hurting, but this was fantastic – and cold, which helps. That middle layer of coconut nougat was incredible. Oh man. Just the most perfect layer of cream imaginable. Lastly, probably my favorite component was the mocha banana ice cream with the chocolate praline sticking out of it. I don’t usually like mocha or coffee flavors, but this was mostly banana with just a hint of something deeper and bolder. And I love ice cream so much. I don’t like that the amount of ice cream in this and every single restaurant is just that little ball that is so difficult to eat because you end up smearing most of it around the plate and you’re like, am I allowed to lick the plate? And you are like no, but then they should have just given you a large bowl of it to begin with. Anyway, it was fantastic, and that chocolate praline was like those really thin and crunchy Pepperidge Farm doodads but sooo much better. Everything was delicious and perfect and we were extremely stuffed at the end of it, as it should be.

Ingredients:

• 1T olive oil
• 1 large onion, diced
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 2t sage
• 1t thyme
• 1t salt
• freshly ground black pepper to taste
• 2C carrots, diced
• 2C celery, diced
• 1C Field Roast chipotle sausage, diced (or sausage of choice, or tempeh crumbles)
• 1 loaf (16 oz.) day-old multigrain sandwich bread, ripped into cubes/bits/whatever small shape you prefer. I go with bits.
• 2-3C vegetable broth or water

Directions:

1. In a heavy stockpot over medium-high heat, saute your onion in the olive oil for about 5 minutes.
2. Add your garlic, carrots, and celery and cook for another 5 minutes.
3. Add the sage, thyme, salt, and pepper and stir through.
4. Add the sausage and stir while it cooks for about 2 minutes.
5. Next, add your bread and then the broth/water. Mix through, and the bread should be wet. If you need more liquid, use it. 
6. Add the entire mixture to a large casserole dish, and bake for 20-25 minutes in a 350° oven.

Bring the dish to Thanksgiving dinner and save a serving so you can put it on more bread for your sandwich! 

Components:

• 2 pieces of sandwich bread or one large roll
• 1 additional piece of sandwich bread
• 1/2C delicious gravy
• several pieces leftover seitan roast (amount depends on how big you want your sandwich)
• 1 serving Vegan Sausage & Sage Stuffing (about 1/2C)
• 2T cranberry sauce
• Extras: spoonful of mashed sweet potato, green beans, Brussels sprouts, whatever you got

Directions:

1. Put your bread down on a plate. On top of it, place your leftover seitan. 
2. Next, layer your stuffing on top of the seitan for a beautifully gluten-full trio of bread, seitan, and stuffing. Marvel at your ability to maximize the gluten.
3. Cover that with a spoonful of cranberry sauce.
4. Then, cover that with some spoonfuls of gravy.
5. Take your extra piece of bread and soak it in the gravy. Place that on top of the stuffing. (Not pictured because oh man, that’s messy.)
6. After “The Moistmaker” is in place, reverse the process: On top of that, layer more gravy, then cranberry sauce, then stuffing, then seitan.
7. Finally place your last piece of bread over your leftovers monstrosity and just take a gander at it. We <3 gluten.
8. Now eat it! Or, pack it for lunch and write a message to would-be thieves to scare them away from YOUR SANDWICH.