Mothers Day Feast: A Feast for Mothers

      Another fantastic restaurant in Berlin is Viasko, ostensibly a bar or pub depending on what country you live in (I will call them bubs now) but with really interesting and delicious – and all vegan – food. You’d assume such bar food would be fried shit and what nots, but the menu is a tad nicer and more upscale than the usual bar fare of fried shit and what nots (or just plain gross salads for vegans). I’ve heard you have to go for the buffet brunch (buffet brunch is HUGE in Berlin – we’ll look at one this weekend), but I can recommend going for a really fun dinner with the ambiance of a chill bub. We sat in the basement, which was dimly lit with candles among the all wooden plank furniture. It had a very pirate ship vibe, which is totally fitting because today is apparently Talk Like a Pirate day, the celebration of which will probably get you smacked. 

      I immediately felt fond of Viasko because printed inside the menus is this incredible Martin Luther King, Jr. quote:

     Seriously how lovely is that. Ugh he was amazing. 
         Anyway, if I am not mistaken, this was our very first dinner in Berlin, so we ordered way too much food. Not that that’s really a reason. We were just hungry. I freely over-order in most situations. We started with appetizers of the mixed salad with tempeh and the jalapeno cheese sticks, so my favorite kind of dish ever (salad + tempeh) and the most revolting sounding thing ever (cheese sticks). Both were great! 

I loved this salad! I wish the lettuce and veggies were cut smaller; it helps me look less gross when I eat if stuff isn’t going to get all over my face. The fried tempeh nuggets were outstanding though. Fried tempeh nuggets are pretty hard to mess up; I’m pretty sure they are like falafel in that there is a very very limited quality range (never bad, always good, can’t really break the ceiling) but oh man, these were fantastic! The perfect addition to any salad and much better than croutons. 

          For the jalapeno cheese sticks, I guess we were expecting the cheesy sticks themselves to be spicy, but instead they surrounded a pepper. I’m sure they were intended to be spicy and the pepper was just there as well, but we were like, oh you just put the pepper on the plate separately, okay. They were interesting. I’m sure if you like fried cheese sticks, then you would love these, but they’re not my thing. Husband says they were good, so yeah I’m the worst person to review stuff like this. Try them and see, I guess. 

      Of course we ordered the homemade gnocchi with asparagus (spargel!) because of the spargel. It was delicious! Homemade gnocchi is the best. This dish was in a cashew-pumpkinseed-ramson (wild garlic) pesto with white and green spargel, cherry tomatoes, and arugula. The raw arugula should have been dialed back a little in favor of more spargel, but it was still great. 

     I was told to get the gyro plate (by either a person or the internet) and I’m so glad I did! Look at that stuff! Anything with bread and hummus is a winner in my book already, but this added olives, some kind of decent kraut (Germany), cucumbers and tomatoes, and of course the delicious soy gyro meat. Granted, this should have come with a flatbread of some sort so you could turn all the components into an actual handheld gyro, but whatever, it was really yummy AND fellow diners got to see me try to make this all handheld anyway (all over the face). 

So, I can definitely recommend Viasko for a really fun pub dinner. The atmosphere was great, the service was friendly if slow (we were in a basement), and the food was really fun and overall great. Also, it seemed very affordable. I’d love to go back for more fried tempeh cubes and to try its buffet brunch. 

VIASKO, BERLIN
Water speed: Slow because we were in the basement.
Bathrooms: These bathrooms were standard bar/pub style (kind of gross) but decent for their ilk. The best part is that they are absolutely COVERED with stickers and graffiti for vegan-friendly bands, blogs, everything! I need stickers for my blog so I can put them all over bub bathrooms! 
Service: Slow.
Food: Great! 
Bonus: Great pirate atmosphere.

I know, I’m going super big and bold with that title but you know what? It is 8 sleeps till Christmas and as ‘Love, Actually’ told us, “it’s Christmas, and at Christmas, you tell the truth” (there’s a lot of weird shit in that movie but that’s probably the strangest statement passed off as universal knowledge). And that’s the truth, babies! Club Mexicana, formerly at the Dalston bar Pamela and now at the Spread Eagle Pub in Hackney, is serving up the best vegan food of any restaurant in the city. That’s an incredible feat, considering it’s Mexican (or “Mexican-inspired”) food, a cuisine London just cannot do well (it’s understandable given how far we are from Mexico but still). But for Club Mexicana, every single dish is a stellar achievement. Everything we tried absolutely wowed us, and even though we were so full we wanted to shout for another round of everything. If this new location were closer to me (it’s a PITA) I’d be there every week.

Even though London is positively crammed full of vegan options, I find that vegan restaurants here are mostly fine, not great. The best food in town is always, always found at stalls in street market set-ups, which are plentiful. So it’s no surprise that Club Mexicana started as one of those food stalls, in the Camden market. They still maintain their street food cred with stalls here and there, but their residency at the Spread Eagle is the way to go. It’s a cool, quirky pub, with vintage jazzy decor and candlelight. Like I said, this new location is inconvenient for me and I wish they had some delivery system worked out, but alas, it will remain a super special option for when we feel like sitting on buses for hours. And honestly, it would be so worth it. 

We went recently when a friend was visiting and had simply the best meal in ages. Everything we ordered was sensational. My only issue was our table placement – we were right at the end of the bar, by the gap where servers had to continually go in and out of the bar area and where other customers would need to walk to enter the restaurant so we were jostled the entire time and it was tres annoying, . If you book in with them, request that you don’t get this table. I wanted to shout DON’T YOU KNOW WHO I AM but the situation on its face proved that the answer would be in the negative.

Other than that, it was the best. We started with nachos, as you have to do. When Club Mexicana first appeared on the scene and had one of their early pop-ups, I complained (of course I did) about how the nacho toppings, though fantastic, were stingy and left you with a basket of dry corn chips after not too long. Well, they kindly responded and instead of calling me out for complaining all the time, they said they would start putting all the good stuff on all the chip layers. That was almost four years ago! Obviously, they have the best nachos now, with great guacamole, red pepper queso, their signature pink onions, salsa, pickled jalapenos, sour cream, and chipotle chili oil. All I can do is quote the Hormone Monstress (see caption/watch “Big Mouth”).   

Next on the small plate list was chipotle roasted pumpkin wedges. I didn’t think these would be too special because I was like “I eat pumpkin and other wintry squashes all the time, what could you do to blow me away?” but of course I was wrong because these trickster pumpkin wedges were amazing. They were big and delicious and cooked perfectly so there was no toughness left but they still had shape, and the chive aioli was perfect. It could have possibly used more to life up the flavor more but still, so good. 

One of the most impressive Club Mexicana creations is their Mexican fried chicken wings, so we had to get an order. They have the perfect texture and the spicy fried coating is incredible. Served with salsa verde, sour cream, and hot sauce, this dish will make any dining companion a CM convert for life. I just wish the serving was bigger and that maybe the sour cream came in a separate container so there could be more for dipping. 

I also got to try the annato glazed chicken skewers. If you’re choosing between the wings and the skewers, I think I’d give the edge to the wings, but you know what, don’t choose! Order both like we did. The skewers come in the most incredible queso sauce that we found ourselves dipping everything else into. I realize now that I don’t have a picture of the skewers, which makes me wonder if I’m dreaming up the whole thing. 

The last of our small plates was the Al Pastor cauliflower, with charred pineapple, sour cream, and toasted cashews. The Al Pastor sandwich from Cinnamon Snail is one of my all-times, so it’s no surprise that this amazing flavor combo worked wonders on bites of fried cauliflower. Honestly cauliflower has no business being this good. 

Onto the mains! For the bigger plates, we chose to get combos of their three taco offerings. They offer the tacos 3 for 10$ (that’s pounddollars) so you really can’t say no to that! My favorie upon favorites is the Baja tofish. Their tofish is the stuff of legend, and for dern good reason. It really is the best vegan fish anything ever. Man alive it’s incredible. The tofish taco is served with pickled cabbage, salsa verde, sour cream, and pickled chilis and it’s just perfection. The other two tacos are strong as well: we tried the jackfruit barbacoa (beef style jackfruit in salsa roja, roasted padron peppers, salsa verde, and sour cream) and the chorizo & potato (with salsa verde, chipotle mayo, pico de gallo, and pickled jalapeno). All three are sensational, really, but I think next time I should stop fooling myself and just get three of the tofish. I’m kind of obsessed. 

You probably know by now that I’m weirdly obsessed with salad, and I try to force lettuce into most of my meals, so it should be no surprise that we (I) also ordered the autumn salad. It was a really big portion, great for sharing, and it was filled with roasted cauliflower, charred pumpkin, candied beetroot, mixed leaves, Mexican slaw, jalapeno-mango salsa, chive aioli, and toasted cashews. This was a fantastic salad, although it would benefit from cutting the leaves and the spiralized veggies into small, more manageable pieces. And it could have used more dressing, and more of a creamier one at that. But as salads go in places where your tablemates scoff at you for ordering a salad, this was among the better ones. 

No trip to Club Mexicana is complete without dessert. They proved they know what’s up back at Pamela with their Choco Taco offering, oh man. While that was missing from the Spread Eagle menu, they more than made up for it with the current dessert list: a lemon & blueberry taco stack, and deep fried ice cream. Now, listen. The ice cream is from Black Mylk, which is just the greatest vegan ice cream maker in London, nbd. So I was so stoked to be able to get their ice cream here and not just at their stall in weekend markets hither and thither. Because their ice cream is so good, I wanted it just plain, not fried. But the staff said they couldn’t do that because it’s already prepped with the frying mixture or whatever. I was kind of annoyed, but there was no reason to be, because as intended with the crunchy fried coating, it is unbelievably delicious. They offer the deep fried ice cream in three flavors: Mexican chili chocolate, toasted honeycomb, and black rice horchata. Since there were three of us, we got all three! They are all wonderful but I think the horchata is my favorite, followed by the honeycomb. You really can’t go wrong though. I bet you think that’s all we got for dessert, but we also decided to get the taco stack! It’s sweet fried corn tortillas separated with layers of whipped vanilla cream, lemon curd, and blueberry coulis. Fruit desserts are not my thing, but this was very good. While I’m more of a reserved positive about it, my two companions were blown away by it, so you should give it a try. The homemade lemon curd is really impressive, as is the whipped cream, which I could have eaten a whole bowl of. 

So clearly you have to get to the Spread Eagle asap for some incredible Mexican vegan food. You can’t go wrong with your order, but to be safe, order everything! It’s all so good. Just please bring me if you go.

CLUB MEXICANA AT THE SPREAD EAGLE PUB, LONDON
Water speed: Actually great! They brought carafes and kept them coming, THANK YOU!
Service: Mostly fine. 
Bathrooms: A step up from your typical pub bathroom, and a big improvement from Pamela. 
Food: SUH. BLIME. Actually great Mexican food in London!
Bonus:  We saw Kit Harington sitting nearby at the bar! We were so excited and stared a little too intently. Realized after several minutes of staring that it wasn’t him. BUT IT COULD HAVE BEEN.