Vedge Restaurant, Philadelphia: The World’s Greatest

September 4, 2013

Veganizing “Friends”: Phoebe’s Rehearsal Dinner Potstickers

October 29, 2013

We all know how much I adore Monica, yes? She gets angry in hilarious ways, she loves controlling everything, and she has really shiny hair. I aspire to be like her in most aspects. HOWEVER. Today we’re all about hating Monica. I KNOW!! Bitch needs a slap in the face for changing the food at Phoebe’s rehearsal dinner without the bride’s authorization. It’s worse than it sounds: In “The One With Phoebe’s Wedding”, Phoebe, the bride and a vegetarian, requests vegetarian potstickers be served so she has SOMETHING TO EAT AT HER OWN DINNER. But Monica in full-out bitchface mode commits an unforgivable sin:

Monica: (looking at Phoebe eating something) Pheebs, spit that out, that has pork in it.

Phoebe: Oh! I though the potstickers were supposed to be vegetarian!

Monica: Yeah, I changed them. I sent you a fax about it!

Phoebe: I don’t have a fax machine.

Monica: Ah, well then there are gonna be a few surprises!

F-ing A, Monica! I’m still livid on Phoebe’s behalf. EVERYTHING at a vegetarian’s wedding should be vegetarian! F*** the people who think otherwise. And DOUBLE F*** those people that we all know who don’t think they can go 4 hours without eating meat and think they are entitled to being fed meat at someone else’s wedding. F*** that noise. Obviously, I feel very strongly that if you have a certain way of eating, a party being thrown for you should cater 100% to your desires. It’s extra annoying because, for most restrictions, guests/relatives/strangers on the internet will agree with this…except for veganism. A person with celiac disease should have a gluten-free wedding cake, yes, they agree. A kosher couple should not be forced to wrap bacon around their cantaloupe or whatever people like to wrap bacon around, sure sure. Muslims should be able to have Halal-certified meat, of course (but don’t have meat, please). But when vegans try to have an all vegan wedding (or any event), cue the firestorm of negativity. It makes no sense. (But it is a very good way to weed out the people who you don’t want to waste your time playing with anymore.) Anyway, in honor of the 87 weddings I’ve gone to in the past 2 months, I am making Phoebe her vegetarian potstickers today. And they are going to kick Monica’s scrappy behind.

VEGETARIAN POTSTICKERS
INGREDIENTS FOR DOUGH:

2+1/2C whole wheat flour
1t salt
1+1/4C boiling water

DIRECTIONS FOR DOUGH:

Mix the flour and salt together in a mixing bowl.
Boil your water (can just microwave for 2 minutes) and pour it into the flour bowl slowly, as you mix with a chopstick (so I was told to do. You can use any utensil that works for you).
Mix into a ball, and knead several times on your countertop.
Let dough sit in bowl, covered, for an hour.

INGREDIENTS FOR FILLING:

10 oz. shredded raw green cabbage (by weight, so it looks like about 3 cups raw)
1C shredded raw spinach
1t salt
3t sesame oil
1T soy sauce
1T fresh minced ginger
1 clove minced garlic

DIRECTIONS FOR FILLING:

Put your cabbage and spinach in a mixing bowl and cover with the salt. Let sit for 30 minutes. (You want to get rid of moisture.)
Mix all ingredients into the veggie bowl until well mixed.

DIRECTIONS FOR ASSEMBLY:

In a big heavy-bottomed pot, cook enough oil to cover the bottom (somewhere between 4T – 7T), over medium-high heat. Stand back.
Roll out your dough in sections to get it long and flat. Cut into squares about 3×3.
Place 1-2T of filling in the middle of your dough squares. Fold over and pinch the sides. You can see by my pictures that I’m not the best at this step. Just try not to touch the filling (or any oil/wetness) to the sides of the dough, because that causes the dumplings to separate while cooking.
Drop as many dumplings into the oil as will fit (this made 2 batches of 10 for me) and immediately pour 1C of water or vegetable stock over it. Cover the pot with the lid and let cook for 10 minutes.
Carefully take the dumplings out, lay on a paper towel to sop up some of the oil, and repeat with the remainder of your ingredients.
Let cool, and enjoy!

Mixing the dough with a chopstick like an Asian lady told me to

This is the cabbage I used, obvs from Trader Joe’s

Rolled out dough, ginger in background

Cabbage filling

Cooking in the oily water

These turned out really well! Yum! The bottoms did indeed stick to the pot, making the edges crispy but still chewy. With practice, I will hopefully be able to mold the dumplings into shapes that aren’t entirely awful. It’s hard! “I keep taking the test over and over again but I’m all, this is hard!”* So, make, enjoy, toast to Phoebe and her long-term vegetarianism (save while she was preggers), and flip Monica the bird! (But next time we’ll be back to worshiping her.)

*I know we have no current giveaway, but if anyone guesses the source of this, my favorite TV quote/scene ever, I’d be thrilled.

Love From Philly: Charlie was a sinner. Elevates Philly’s Vegan Scene

September 27, 2014

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.

Ricotta and amazing toast

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.

Maryland-style crab cakes

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.

Squash taco, above, and mushroom, right

Korean-style fried tofu

Yet another fantastic dish was the Korean-style fried tofu, super spicy and dense and delicious. (Charlie does like adding the “-style” to titles lest someone accuse a dish of not actually being authentic or something, though what does that even mean.) This was really great, garnering two thumbs up from each of my omnivorous fellow diners. Just delicious. I keep wanting to call it Korean BBQ tofu, because I feel like every tofu dish that claims to be Korean is always Korean BBQ. So plus 1 to Charlie for being different, I guess. Anyway, I really want some of this tofu now.
As you can see in these pictures, Charlie can apparently read my mind, because all the dishes have the perfect vegetable accompaniment, which I always want. The crab cakes had an arugula salad, and the tofu had pickles, the perfect choice.

Korean-style fried tofu

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!

Heirloom tomato salad

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.

Fig salad

Pappillote

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.

On that note, you’d probably expect me to tell you to stick to spaghetti and meatballs in Italian restaurants as well, but you’d be wrong. Charlie’s bucatini and “meatballs” were fantastic! The bucatini was as thick and perfect as any I’ve had, and the meatballs were fun. It’s served with a chickpea ragout as well. It’s such a yummy little pile of comfort that it’s worth ordering even if it might not match the rest of your meal.

Bucatini and “meatballs”

Chickpea fries

Lastly, I adored Charlie’s chickpea fries. I actually think these are ten times better than the award-winning, super famous chickpea fries at Peacefood Cafe in NYC. While Peacefood’s Indian-spiced fries are more like patties that must be eaten with a fork, Charlie’s are actually crispy and can be eaten like fries, dipped into a garlic aioli. Wow, I could eat so many of these. They are fantastic! They are a little salty for me, but I think that’s how fries are supposed to be.
The service at Charlie was pretty great as well. On my first trip there, I ordered the basil fennel lemon soda, but they were out of fennel. So the waiter brought me another impressive non-alcoholic option, the raspberry ginger soda, on the house. That’s nice! I had the basil fennel soda at a later visit, and both were lovely, though the basil soda could have shared some of the raspberry’s sweetener and then both would be perfect.

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.