Vedge Restaurant, Philadelphia: The World’s Greatest

   Before we get into the important food-related stuff, let’s acknowledge how difficult it is for me to leave the title like that. But that’s actually what this new amazing restaurant is named and how it is written: Charlie was a sinner. With the period. I love it! But even more, I love the place. It’s the new all-vegan bar from one of Philly’s favorite young restaurateurs, Nicole Marquis of HipCityVeg fame and general wonderingment. Charlie is a swanky, dimly lit, old-Hollywood inspired bar with a creative, upscale menu both for drinks and for small plates. Even early in the run, almost everything I tried was wonderful. 

   Each time I ate at Charlie, my table began with a toast starter called Our Ricotta, which is a dip made from tofu, agave, black pepper, and olive oil and served with fantastic toasted bread. Internet vegans are seriously divided over this faux-ricotta, because it is kind of just whipped tofu and everyone’s like, oh I can make something more interesting than this. The crazy thing is, when I’ve shared this with dairy-cheese-eating omnivores, they’ve loved it! Omnis love the ricotta more than tofu-loving vegans! Anyway, yes it is extremely subtle and maybe boring for some people, but I like subtle (and sometimes I like things on the blander side) and it was lovely. 

      Another item I can’t help but order every time I’m there is the Maryland-style crab cake sliders, which I think is Charlie’s best item. I suggest you also get at least 2 orders (per person) because they only come with two little magical sliders, and they are usually on the happy hour menu (so, for only $4 or so). So get at least a few because they are indeed magical. The zucchini-based patties have the perfect flavor, definitely evoking a crab cake but not fishy or faux-fishy in the slightest. They’re lightly fried (I assume) but not at all greasy. The little semolina rolls somehow melt in your mouth. They are so soft and buttery but not in the gross usual Wonderbread way. Just outstanding. 

    Various sorts of tacos are also common happy hour staples, with one decent soft taco for $3. I’ve tried both the mushroom and the squash, and even though mushrooms are one of my top 4 foods, the squash taco is much more interesting. 

    In the summer, you couldn’t go wrong with the heirloom tomato salad anywhere, and Charlie’s was delicious. I am not the biggest fan of raw tomatoes, but heirloom tomatoes at the height of their season? Amazing. It was a seasonal special, so I suggest you order whatever is in season when you go. The salad mixed fresh tomatoes with soft peaches, arugula, and some kind of candied crunchy nut. So delicious! 

   I can also recommend the stunning fresh fig salad, which is on the regular menu. It mixes the figs into a watercress salad with a vanilla bean vinaigrette. Who even thinks of basing a salad dressing around vanilla bean? Super impressive. 

     Less impressive but not bad was the pappillote of baby fennel, a beautiful smelling and looking soup of tofu, fregola sarda (my favorite Italian grain), and the common stew vegetables. It arrived wrapped in ballooning plastic that was cut by the server very dramatically, and it was all very exciting and nice, but the taste was lacking. It needed a heavy dose of salt – and I usually am extremely sensitive to salt in my food. I would stick to the more fancy bar-type foods that are easier to eat and save the Italian soups for Italian restaurants. 

     A surprisingly great mocktail on offer is the spicy pineapple, which blends the fruit with agave, lime, and cayenne. Wonderful! I love that they have interesting mocktails on the menu; more places need to do that. 
     I obviously know that if you are visiting Philly, you have too many fantastic vegan options than you know how to handle. But if you are looking for a fancy-looking place with a great vibe, nice service, and wonderful food, try to get to Charlie was a sinner.. (I added an extra period I think that’s right.) 

CHARLIE WAS A SINNER., PHILADELPHIA
Water speed: What’s my favorite thing, people? Glass water bottles on the table. They even had herbs in them! 
Service: Very nice! 
Bathrooms: Two fancily decorated and enormous singles. 
Food: Delicious small plates so you can try a lot, especially during the crazy good happy hour specials. 
Bonus: Great cocktails and mocktails, happy hour specials, chickpea fries. 

When I say Persepolis, you say…! If anything comes to your mind along the lines of an ancient city or a graphic novel or a movie about a graphic novel before you think ‘tiny magical resto-shoppe in Peckham’, then you are doing life wrong. Unless you wrote/drew that graphic novel or got a doctorate about that ancient city, then you get a pass. But for the rest of you diddadoofs, it’s the best restaurant in all of England, probably all of Europe if I may say so myself and if I may still consider England a part of Europe because I refuse to acknowledge that the entire world is falling to pieces. But food! Delicious, amazing, Iranian vegan food! 

Almost exactly one year ago, I had one of the best meals of my entire life at Persepolis. You can read about it here and you should because I was funny. Every year since at least last year, Persepolis does a big Christmas feast for $30 (do I have to repeat again that when talking about stuff in the UK I mean for that $ to mean pound-dollars so please just read all $ as pound signs I don’t have the timeeee to figure out a workable alternative that fits my vision), and as you’ll see (or as you’ve seen) the food you get is worth so much more than that, both in terms of quality and quantity. It’s the best deal and the best food. Now, last year’s Chrimble feast was top 3 best meals ever, I think, for me. It set a standard that would be nigh impossible to ever match, and subsequently, this year’s was not as magnificent. As a feast, it wasn’t as well structured or cohesive as before, but the dishes were all still great. The famed chef, Sally (whose new cookbook named Persepolis should already be in your possession), told us at the start that she was forgoing the advertised feast menu (which is really  just a ‘suggestion’ for her) and making us whatever came to her mind. This is the best way to have her cook for you, but the drawbacks of this method, which were inevitably going to expose themselves eventually, did indeed expose themselves. I made you think of something dirty didn’t I. Everything was very good, but as a meal it was a little disjointed. Nothing really felt like a main course. Luckily, it was a much more reasonable amount of food than last year, and we were joyous throughout instead of sobbing in first-world-problem pain.

As is custom, we started with Mr Shopkeeper’s (as Sally calls her husband) famous pomegranate-prosecco cocktail, which even I will admit is among the least disgusting alcohol mixtures I’ve ever tasted. I managed to catch all the pomegranate beads (that’s what they’re called) in only 2 sips before I gave the rest to the drinkers to finish! Success! Then, we enjoyed the Christmas crackers strewn about the table and pulled the strange little explosive paper toys with glee. This is a thing here. You pull on it like a wishbone, although it’s much less cruel. Instead of a wish which any idiot gets on their birthday anyway, whoever takes away the bigger portion gets the hidden prize inside. As luck would have it, I won my round and was elated to find a useful tool inside instead of a shit plastic toy or some such nonsense. Prize pictured below.

I feel like this prize (nail clippers were also used as prizes) demonstrates the ethos of the owners pretty well. 

After a bit of a wait, as is customary here because of the lack of a real kitchen (Sally makes everything on like a single burner and a tiny little counter), the fabulous starters arrived. The starter-type dishes at Persepolis are the constants, nothing very new here, but they are great. First we got a plate of makdous – pickled stuffed eggplant, with two types of olives and peter pipers joining it. Another plate was a pasta salad with beet and an amazing bean salad, all topped with lots of fresh herbs. Then a third plate was half ajvar – a Serbian red pepper puree – and half soy yogurt. Both condiments were very impressive, although they are just condiments and would have been better served with noncondiments. But we had lavash, so all is well! 

Next up was the best part of the meal, the famous fried ball plate. Or really the kibbeh and falafel plate but it was three types of fried-ball-change and it was amazing as usual. The homemade falafel, sweet potato patties, and the walnut kibbeh (the best) were all in fine form, but what sent it over the edge was the 3 sauces served with it. One was a fattet tahini sauce (that’s what it’s called I’m told I’m not being rude) that I would put on everything ever, better than the tahini sauces I make (almost every single day). Next was a garlic yogurt sauce that worked really well with the fryness. And last was a Persian curry, bright and a little sour and super effective at cutting the heaviness of the balls. I especially enjoyed using all three sauces at once though I fear admitting this will get me barred from returning.

The appetizer/main hybrid dishes started coming out next (could successfully argue either side), starting with stuffed tomatoes. Sally came out to ask us if we’d had the Violife Mozzarella yet, because she loves it and used it in the tomatoes. A mixture of spices, rice, and the mozzarella filled the tomatoes, and they were pretty good, although the tomato itself seemed unadorned and so tasted like hot tomato. 

The next dish was one of my faves because it was the most innovative of the meal. This super soft, sort of charred eggplant was covered in a sticky chili cinnamon sauce and stuffed with dates and nuts and it was beyond. You didn’t need a knife for it. And some bites would be syruppy and kind of sweet and then the next would be super hot from the chili. Such a fun game! This reminded me the most of last year’s meal, and so made me a little sad that it was the only such reminder of the usual innovation. Persepolis is the one place where I actually enjoy dried fruit as part of savory dishes. Or dried fruit at all, really. What Sally does with dates is pure genius. I would never think to cook them with eggplant, or with tofu like in her famous tofu scramble. It’s so incredible and creative.

The next two dishes, our main features, were both grain based, and so I think that’s the reason why I was less impressed overall because I prefer beany and veggie things over dishes that showcase grains. It was a lot of grain, like in the pyramids. They were both of course delicious though. First was almost like a breakfast muesli (as opposed to any other kind of muesli (well I guess here we have dinner muesli)), with pearly bulgur (or spelt, or really it could be any non-rice grain I’m not an expert), black dates, raisins (or sultanas, I guess), slivered almonds, and any other assortment of dried fruit and nuts along with edible flower petals. Sugar dates! Sugar dates and figs! Sugar dates and pistachios! A pot of yogurt in the center really solidified the breakfast vibe. It was super delicious, spicy and warm and cinnamony, but definitely more of a breakfast dish in my estimation, rather than the main event at a meal like this. Dates in my eggplant represent about the limit of my tolerance for sweet food masquerading as non-desserts. 

The second half of the grain event (DO YOU GET IT) was a traditional Persian jeweled rice dish, which I was super happy to finally get to try. Flavorful rice was mixed with fresh herbs and pomegranate seeds, with another container of yogurt in the center. I must say, this meal featured more yogurt than John Stamos’s fridge. I’m not a yogurt fan, but it’s really good and useful to cut intense spices or heavy fried foods. A pleasant rice dish, not so much. But as a side dish, I would love it. I do love pomegranate seeds despite the morbid mythological connotations (same joke different year).

Sally came over when we finished these grains and asked how we were doing. She said if we were full, she would bring dessert next, or if we still wanted to try savory food, she’d bring that day’s hot pot for us to try. I was kinda upset that we hadn’t had any main event dishes, or beans. I need teh proteins. My companions all agreed to try the hot pot, and luckily it was a split pea carrot stew. It was decent, similar to the kind of soup I make weekly. It came with a little cucumber salad and – you guessed it! – more rice and yogurt. I guess there was a theme! I’m glad we tried this extra dish, because as always we needed to build up our regular food foundation as much as possible to prepare for the onslaught of sugar that was to follow. Otherwise your body would splode from all the sugar. All the sugar. So much sugar.  

So about that sugar! Sally’s dessert platters are among her most impressive skills. She always gives us way too much and we finish it anyway, and it’s always freaking amazing. Turkish delight, paklava, halvah, syruppy flaky pastries and nut-filled bars of unknown origin and name, it’s all wonderful and despite being so much and so sweet, even those of us with the smallest sweet tooth still eat it till it’s gone. This time, Sally also gave us little ice cream sundaes covered with bright pink sugary rose water to accompany the more solid sources of sugar. OH man! It was all soooo good. Oh and don’t forget the dates and the little cup of cotton candy! Man alive. Wilford Brimley is PISSED. 

Just when we thought we were done and could start trying to breathe again, Sally came out with ANOTHER dessert platter. Luckily, it was mostly fruit, but still! I think I ate all the pomegranate and watermelon. In the center is a yogurty custard kind of thing that you eat with the pomegranate chili syrup to its left. That syrup was something else! Such an interesting and detailed flavor, reminding us of the chili sugar powder mix that would come with fresh fruit from stalls in Thailand. Oh man. 

So dessert definitely stood out for me as the strongest part of the meal. Well aside from the kibbeh plate and all those glorious sauces. And the eggplant was so good. Well overall it was a great meal. I may have lots of quibbles about it not being as good as least year for my taste or as full o’ beans, but still, we’re still talking great food. 

PERSEPOLIS, PECKHAM, LONDON
Water speed: In a shocking surprise twist, a new waitress brought us carafes of tap and kept em coming! What a delight.
Service: As I’ve said before, it’s a true slow food experience, much more so than those fakers up in California. But they are the nicest people and it’s always worth the wait. The new waitress means it is sometimes easier to flag down assistance, except of course when it’s crowded, which it often is.
Bathrooms: There is still one! The light cord is right in the doorway so it kind of kept getting caught in my hair so that was fun.
Food: ​So good. Nothing can top last year and the feast felt more like a lot of side dishes but still, delicious amazing side dishes.
Bonus: Pretty much endless dessert, and it’s all the best.