Under the bridge like a troll
Today, I had the pleasure of roaming around Dumbo, Brooklyn in the beautiful (and unseasonably strong) sunshine for Smorgasburg, the Brooklyn Flea Food Market. It’s a crazy varied array of food stalls in Williamsburg on Saturdays, hence the name, with a smaller version on Sundays in Dumbo. The Dumbo version has fewer vendors, I think, but also lesser crowds, which is great. Today, I found several vegan options while I got sunburnt and couldn’t find a toilet without a thirty minute line. Fun times! Let’s see what we found!
  I also spotted this Hummus stand! I imagine that the company isn’t really called Hummus, because that would be pretty dumb (“Oh what’s your name? Hummus? Ok, I’ll google that to find out more about you!” says a soon-to-be-very-frustrated individual). The hummus on offer looked pretty splendid, but I told myself it was bad form to buy something at this fair that I make pretty much every day.
Instead, my second food installment came from Bombay Sandwich Company. I’ve heard good things about their all-vegan Indian-inspired sandwiches, so I decided to try one. I ordered the Kale & Cumin, though The Bomb (a garam masala and potato one) is the most popular. And food with ‘bomb’ in the name tends to be pretty amazing. (See, e.g., Vegan Treats.) I waited for about 20 minutes, which seemed absurd in this environment. Finally, they called my name. This was…ok. It was mostly purple cabbage, and I didn’t notice any kale, which made me mad. My friend said she spotted some green shreds in her piece, but that’s not exactly enough to warrant putting kale in the title. It had a thin great northern bean puree, which was good, as were the chutneys topping the bread. However, the sandwiches are billed as being ‘sealed’, so when I saw that they were all just regular pieces of toast, sliding and letting the fillings out, it was a bit disappointing. I think I’ll spend my $8 elsewhere next time. |
 First up was Asia Dog, which can make most of its specialty creations with a vegan dog. My friend ordered the purple cabbage-topped Mel & Steve, left, and I ordered the Vinh (above), which comes with banh mi toppings. I said I was vegan and the woman said there was a veg pate substitute, and that it wouldn’t come with the aioli. However, I didn’t notice a pate of any kind, nor the mustard that was listed. Just the carrots and cilantro. Oh well, it was still pretty good, and for $4 each, not a bad deal.
  Please excuse these photos. It was sunny as ALL GET OUT today, and I could barely see let alone take proper pics |
 This may be the best picture I’ve ever taken. No, actually I had to pee so badly I wasn’t even trying. |
Given the heat, the best part of the day was seeing the Kelvin Slush stand. Started from the Kelvin Natural Slush Truck, this company sells the most amazing, natural slushies, like 7-11 Slurpees but so much better in every way (except not as cheap). You pick your slushy base, like Green & Black Tea, Citrus, or Spicy Ginger (the best best one), and then you choose your add-in flavor, like raspberry or white peach. Today, with no Ginger base on offer, I got the Arnold Palmer (citrus and tea mixed, so good) with a guava (!) add-in. It was great! So refreshing, and they really perfected the level of iciness. Although I’ll probably order the Ginger when I can, I loved the Arnold Palmer base, and the guava made the day seem even more summery. Such a perfect treat!
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Unfortunately, I didn’t see Electric Blue Baking Co., The Regal Vegan with their rumored vegan banh mi, the homemade tempeh guy, or the vegan tacos. Next time, Williamsburg! It was still a pretty fun time though! Have you been? What did you get?
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The Frog Restaurant in Hoxton: One of London’s Best Vegan Tasting Menus
Over the weekend, I tried the vegan tasting menu at a non-vegan place and I was blown away – I think it’s one of the best vegan tasting menus out there! I know I’m starting off with a REAL bold statement but damn if I’m not telling the truth. You may already know all about our crippling addiction to tasting menus and eating at all the Michelin-starred restaurants that will accommodate vegans (you can read about some of those here), even though as previous Vegan Michelin Series reviews will tell you, it’s all usually very good but kind of like ‘eh it’s still just a well-cooked vegetable; is it worth all this money’. But I was pleasantly surprised by The Frog, a very hip very cool restaurant in Hoxton Square that’s doing actually creative tasting menus, even for vegans, and has received a Michelin Bib Gourmand in recent years, which warrants its place in this series (but honestly it was good enough that I’d be putting it here even without official Michy recognition).
I know I said in one of the last of the Vegan Michelin Series that we were probably going to stop for a while but a) that was like a year ago so we did b) this was a very special occasion and 3) this tasting menu was only £50 per person! That’s like normal eating out in London prices! (Side note, are you so glad I learned how to use the £ sign and stopped saying ‘pounddollars’. That’s growth.)
Like all tasting menus, this menu describes what’s to come using as few key words as possible so you really have no idea what to expect but it looks and sounds g-d elegant. Also, the sparsely worded menu makes it seem like you aren’t getting a lot of food but as usual we had to roll ourselves home. They quickly brought our first snacks, which I appreciated because I was as hungry as I was excited and also I can’t stay out too late especially when we have to walk through SHOREDITCH on a WEEKEND to get home man alive it was a nightmare of drunken crowdedness.
My first bunch of snacks were called “heritage carrot, roasted hazelnuts, mint” and “kohlrabi, nori, tarragon”. I like these words but was curious to see what they meant when put together.
The little kohlrabi bite was good, though the nori was extra strong and made it a bit too salty for me. But that carrot bite was literally incredible. I was/am almost embarrassed to be so bowled over by a jesus forking cracker with barbecued-tasting carrots on a delightful carrot puree but it was magical, and it makes my head hurt to think about how this was possible. This was my first Jon-Lovitz-on-Friends impression in a while (“Like it?? I could eat a hundred of ’em!”). This goddamn carrot cracker was my first indication that this was going to be amazing. (But seriously why was this so good?? How did you do it? What dark magick hath you wrought?)
Our next snacks – oh, so for tasting menus and Michelin-y places they like to throw a bunch of small bites at your face before you get to the actual courses so you feel well-liked by the chef and full as fork sooner rather than later – were just as good if not better! I got a sourdough cracker topped with pea hummus and dollops of…something jammy? I got jammed! Just as I weirdly went off about how amazing a simple bite of carrot was, I’m going to do the same about versions of sourdough right now. This cracker was amazing. I wish I could buy bags on bags of these crackers since they somehow nailed the exact perfect strength and texture for holding hummus, and as you know I eat hummus every day. EVERY DAY SON. I forget what the jammy dodger drops were all about but it added the perfect bit of sweetness to cut through the mild flavors. And guys, HUMMUS! Most of my tasting menu overviews complain about how they never think to give vegans protein because they’re always too busy going ‘oh look at me, look at me, I can cook a vegetable like you’ve never seen it before’ and you’re like ‘that’s fantastic and you’re right but also my muscles’ so I was prettay, prettay stoked to get peas so early on.
I can’t believe I wrote so much about a g-d cracker with hummus but it was really good.
Also pictured above was one of our favorite things ever and also our downfall: the bread. The Frog’s rye sourdough bread was forking phenom, and while Z got his with the place’s very famous chicken butter (gross)(not like ‘gross’ Z said it was great but I mean like gross for us sorry), I got a pat of house-made vegan butter! And by ‘pat’ I mean ‘patrick’ really because this was a lotttt of butter, and it was forking delicious. So delicious that we…asked for more bread. I know. You NEVER ask for more bread at a tasting menu. We are not new to this! We know the drill – you are already super full before you even get to dessert, and then they keep bringing you more food than you can handle and you leave feeling disgustingly full but like so happy but also SO hurt! We know all this! We done f-ed up because of that damn delicious bread. And the butter. Dammit bread and butter! Why are you so good? We had so much and then I was already full before my first actual course came. NEVER ASK FOR MORE BREAD (except honestly do because it’s so good).
My first actual course, thank you I’m already full, was “celeriac, apple, dates”. The combo of celeriac and apple is prime fancy restaurant territory and I was like oh this will be nice but basic. Turns out this was not basic but ya basic, because guess what was inside that bundle of celeriac? TOFU! It was like a tofu cream cheese stuffed inside the bundle. Restaurants NEVER do tofu anything except chocolate mousse so this was a really nice surprise. Yasss for protein, yes for tofu in the savories! This was really good. But the best part was that Z also had a cream cheese filled dish, and when the waiter described his dish and mentioned “the richness of the cream cheese”, Z said (after he left) “well thanks for letting me eat all that damn butter.” He was hurt too. It was so good.
My next course was “roast cauliflower, kimchi, yeast”. I know – I was like ‘jfc they’re going to bring me a hunk of roasted cauliflower and call it a steak, aren’t they? ffs’ because for some reason I was still being all defensive even though everything so far was wonderful. I should really be more optimistic because hot damn guys, this cauliflower dish was like one of the most mind-blowing things I’ve ever had. I still can’t even believe this dish. There were a few roasted cauliflower florets but not like you’ve ever had before. They tasted like General Tso’s chicken, complete with the sticky sweet sauce in the middle. But 100x better than you’ve ever had. The cauliflower kimchi was super pungent and spicy (nice) and the creamy sauce itself was remarkable. I guess the yeast was maybe a sprinkling of nooch? I’m not sure; I didn’t ask because I was too busy saying ‘holy shit, holy shit, holy shit.’
I was so happy and so satisfied, and I relaxed a little knowing that we hit the peak of the meal and nothing else coming was going to top that (sounds weird but that’s a little relaxing, like the pressure is off). But I was wrong.
I was wrong because next up was the “flatbread, cashew, sweetcorn, jalapeno” dish and it was Mexico. It was Mexico on a plate. (It’s fitting too, because starting this week on the Travel section of this site it’s time for our epic Mexico trip. I KNOW! So I know what Mexico tastes like, guys.) This was a perfect food. I don’t know what else to say about it. The sturdy little flatbread had the most incredible texture and (I’m sooo sorry) mouthfeel, and all the components on top – that cashew cream, the corn, the jalapeno, the herby oil – exist just to be placed on that circle of magic. I made Z have a piece even though he was equally full and, in his words, “I got my own problems here!” and he agreed that it was akin to disc of rainbows. He didn’t say that.
That marked the end of our savory dishes, but there was a special in-between course that killed us both – the cheese doughnut. Mine was an oily fried dough slab covered in cashew cream and cashew dust and it killed me. Oh my god. I don’t eat too much heavy food and this was like an Iowa state fair concentrated into three bites. It was like a funnel cake from a carnival without the sugar, manhandled into a denser substance, and then topped with forking cashew cream. It was so heavy, is what I’m saying. And yes it was pretty darn good, but I think it needed either some salt or some sugar, because without any additional flavor, its flavor profile was just Fat. Every gluttonous tasting menu situation has a point where you suspect the restaurant is making fun of you, and this was theirs. Z said “this isn’t a doughnut; this is a way to get people to eat fondue with their hands!” I asked him if he liked his doughnuttier, cheese-filled version, expecting him to say ‘eh’ or something, and he sighed in fullness and horror at what he was eating and said “fucking of course”. Hilarious. We were mocking how full the other was (so full) and I said to him ‘you have to finish all that coconut!’ Here’s his dish after he ate his doughnut. (Read the caption.)
Luckily, we had little palate cleansers before dessert.
This strawberry sorbet was perfect, and I loved getting it as a little palate cleanser and not as my whole dessert. I think most restaurants have learned from their sordid past of offering vegans fruit and fruit sorbets for dessert and calling it a day, and that’s a reality I like to think all my complaining has helped bring to fruition.
I do wish that they had put this on the vegan menu though, or told me I was getting a strawberry sorbet palate cleanser, because the vegan dessert option has you choose between strawberry or pineapple and I chose strawberry. So I had two servings of this (the second on my actual dessert). Unless…maybe they had made my strawberry sorbet for my dessert and then just gave me more of it to have a palate cleanser while Z had his? Interesting.
I’m not too mad about doubling up on the sorbet though, because like I said it was delicious, and more importantly, the vegan dessert was much more than just sorbet. It was more tofu! In the form of chocolate! And yes this isn’t exactly creative but man alive I’ll never look a gift chocolate tofu mousse in the mouth. I’ll be too busy putting it in mine. This may not have been the most interesting dessert, but it was great, and I’d rather have something tried and true and delicious than another curry ice cream fail.
As usual, just when you think you’ve made it, they bring you more food to end your experience. With our bill came these chocolate truffles. Luckily, they put them in a little to-go container for us, and I got to enjoy mine the next day. It was truly great, like this entire dinner. I would highly recommend a trip to The Frog for a go at their tasting menu, especially if you need a fancy place that caters to vegans and weirdos who aren’t vegan. I believe they change their menu monthly, so get in for these amazing dishes while it’s still August. I can’t wait to go back.
THE FROG, HOXTON, LONDON, UK, EUROPE PLEASE STAY EUROPE
Water speed: Honestly, LUDICROUSLY good. Like more attentive than American Chinese restaurants where they refill your glass after every sip you take. But since we had water carafes on the table, it was a little unnecessary – you don’t have to refill my glass after every sip when I have the full bottle within reach! I can do it myself! But still, I’ll never complain about having good water service. I mean I guess I just did. But it was great. They replaced the 6 or so bottles I went through very quickly too.
Service: Really great. Like I said, sometimes it was a little extra with the water service, but overall this was some of the best if not the best service in London. Case in point: During one course, I finished my dish and my 10th bottle of water, but Z still wasn’t done and I said I’m sorry but I’ve had 15 bottles of water so I excused myself and when I got back, he told me that they came to refold my napkin (as they do) but did not take my finished plate away! THAT IS A FIRST. They did exactly what you’re supposed to do but no one ever follows that rule. Every other restaurant has always taken the empty plate away while the other diner/s were still eating, which is forking rude and also not the correct move, so bravo. The sommelier was good too and Z said he enjoyed the wine pairing.
Bathrooms: Okay so this was the only real negative I have to report. There are two single stalls, one plain, one disabled, and they were…not good. They were like the bathrooms in Starbucks but less nice. We were both really surprised.
Food: So surprisingly awesome. Some of these dishes are on my Most list. It’s so nice to find a vegan tasting menu that definitely shows respect to vegetables but also makes them fun and interesting.
Bonus: The tasting menu cost is very reasonable. It’s a fraction of the cost of other Michelin-y ones out there and yet much better. Great stuff.
British Stereotype Overload: Afternoon Tea at the Ritz (Vegan Version!)
Most Americans and other non-Brits, when they think of England, think of fancy tea parties, the royal family, and wypipo in big ass hats. Especially when they think of London, ho boy; in their imagination it’s some exalted, clean (lol) city with proper and polite people in tailored clothes, fabulous accents, and yes more big ass hats. Since I am an American living in London, I can tell you that all of that is such utter horseshit that I’m laughing at my own words like Jimmy Fallon when he was on SNL. London, although I love it, is like most big cities that usually smell of piss or sewage (the plumbing is likely the original from the 19th century and is in rull need of a refurb) and instead of fancy people in fancy hats, the folks you’ll run into most often are lads (white boys from 18-35 who act like they are 17 and under) who are a few sips away from being black-out drunk, and they’re vomiting on the sidewalks even during daylight (which is a real feat considering we don’t have much of that this time of year (daylight, I mean; we have plenty of drunk ass lads)). And I never see people out in fancy hats in the city. However, one part of the stereotype rang true for me recently: I went to a fancy ass afternoon tea at a fancy ass hotel. And we liked it, and we loved it. In that beautiful dining room, surrounded by dressed up people generally behaving themselves, it felt like the London of ill-informed Americans’ dreams.
This delightful occasion arose due to a friend’s visit. I asked what she wanted to do in London and she said “go to a fancy tea!” and I said “yay!” and she said “let’s go to the Ritz like the real classic high tea!” and I said “I didn’t know they could do it vegan!” (we’re both vegan) and she said “I saw reports!” and I said “I’ll email them just to be sure!” and she said “I will too!” and the Ritz told us “we can do vegan!” and I said “Why wouldn’t you put that information on your website so vegans know that you are an option and also why wouldn’t you be publicizing the fork out of your ability to accommodate vegans when London’s dining scene is like completely controlled by and catered to vegans right now (and rightfully so)?” Okay I didn’t say that but I’m going to because they should be allll about the vegan clientele; we run this city. WHO RUN THIS CITY? Vegans. Anyway, some of you more in-the-know tea fans might have caught a mistake in my very accurate portrayal of my convo with my friend: “High tea” is not what we were after. What many people think of as ‘high tea’ is really ‘afternoon tea’, with the little finger sandwiches with no crusts (‘crusts are for the poor!’ – English people) and scones and decadent desserts. That’s afternoon tea. High tea means like, regular dinner food. It comes from when working classes, who unlike the upper class jabronies couldn’t take hours out of their afternoons to share a prissy tea service with little cakes and shit with their behatted neighbors to talk about how hard it is to find good help, would instead drink their tea together after work, and that’s when they’d need their big evening meal. That’s why so many non-Londoners call dinner “tea”, because that’s when they eat regular dinner food. (They also don’t call dinner ‘dinner’ it’s usually really tea or supper (gag) or sometimes they call lunch dinner and I’m going to just drop it before my head splodes.)
walking through The Ritz like I’m ‘portant
So, anyway, here we are, it’s afternoon tea and The Ritz, the famous classic hotel on Piccadilly, which according to wikipedia is “one of the world’s most prestigious and best-known hotels”, does it up for us vegan-style. I’ll be honest; I had low expectations. Even though they said they could do a proper tea with vegan goodies, I’ve been disappointed by super fancy expensive places before. In fact, they’re the places that most frequently disappoint with their ‘vegan accommodation’. So I was excited for this afternoon tea, but I was expecting to drag them for offering sub-par vegan fare. Well GUESS WHO’S DOING THE DRAGGING NOW. I mean, no one, that doesn’t make any sense I guess because it was AWESOME. All the food was delicious, we had scones, we had incredible cakes and what nots. Guys, if you wanna visit, I would go back with you. It was FANTASTIC. (Just so you know, the aforementioned visiting friend treated me to the experience AND brought Beyond Sausages over, I mean not that you have to meet such a high bar if you visit, no not at all, I’m just sharing so you know it’s an option for you.)
Oh also, the bathroom in the hotel was the nicest. They even had glass water bottles and glasses out in the little sitting area. I didn’t take pictures in the bathroom because I’m not a total weirdo but here are some more interior shots before we get to the food.
STRANGER DANGER
When we arrived, they took our name and led us to our table, but they apparently misheard the name because our main waiter thought we were a Birthday Table at first and not the Vegan Table. Luckily I told him before too long ‘you know we are both the vegans right we confirmed like several times right you are ready for us?’ so he was like ‘ohhh okay your name is X not what I thought I heard’ and I was like BRING ME TINY SANDWICHES and, reader, he did. It took longer to get water (fancy places and their hatred of bringing me tap water!) but hey sandwiches!
Each of the five types of vegan sandwich options were superb, which is something I never thought I’d say. Like Joey, I love sandwiches, but not like regular soft-bread sandwiches, what even are those? If we’re talking sandwiches, I’m talking loaded banh mis (banhs mi?), meatball subs, hoagies with all kinds of shit falling out of it, like legit sangwiches, with a g. Not simple sliced bread from a plastic bag at the supermarket with invisible fillings; that’s some minor league bullshit. But these little baby finger sandwiches were delicious, even without shit falling out of them like I like.
The five vegan options were:
- olive tapenade and artichoke. I mean, amazing pair. I did not expect such an awesome option, I really just expected cucumber sandwiches. So this was such a great surprise and it was made perfectly.
- tomato. I don’t really love raw tomatoes and yet this was wonderful, probably because it was salted the best amount and the tomatoes were really good. It was such a pleasant lil sang.
- the classic cucumber and margarine. Man, I didn’t know adding margarine could elevate the simplest thing to being amazing, like what on earth this had no business being so good it was cucumber and MARGARINE and yet it was perfection??
- red pepper and hummus. As you probably know I really don’t like red pepper, but hummus is my #1 food on earth, so this pairing was tearing me apart Lisa! But putting aside my personal preferences, it is a really smart pairing, and the peppers were cooked (so, soft and not crunchy/raw) and it was pretty great. (I only had one though.)
- avocado. Probably my favorite, the sandwich version of avocado toast (lolz) with the best ingredient ever (avocado) plus the second best (salt). SO GOOD.
We were unsure whether the ticket price included endless rounds of anything, but they brought us an extra layer of sandwiches even before we could ask! And then we were too full to bother asking for more/being wasteful gluttons so we called it. But I am pretty sure you can ask for more of anything you want.
me oh my i love sandwiches
Next up to bat, the scones! We were so dang excited that they had vegan scones to begin with, so we weren’t too sad that they didn’t have vegan clotted cream to go with them. Honestly, I don’t really know what clotted cream is so I’m not too distraught over not having a vegan version yet. Eating them with margarine and strawberry jam seemed great anyway. The scones were a little tough but still good. Yay scones!
We had two scones each and we were hurting. It didn’t seem like a lot of food but I guess when you are drinking all that tea you get full! Oh yeah we ordered tea, but that’s the least important aspect of A Tea. (I had a floral one? and friend had a Chinese one? who cares about the tea?)
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Okay, next came the desserts. Looking around the room, everyone else had their top tier full of macarons (the fancy French meringue-y little circle sandwich looking jawns (is that the best definition anyone has ever given), not macaroons, which are the coconut balls popular for Passover). Now, some of you might be sad at not getting macarons, but honestly, despite how gorgeous they are, they leave me cold. They require sooo much effort to make (anyone experimenting over on the Aquafaba Experiments facebook group can tell you that) and they taste like sort of sweet cardboard. And the consistency hurts my teeth and my brain, yeesh. So I was pretty fine with not getting macarons like the rest of the room. But more importantly — I think the vegan dessert options were better than the regular! So everyone else had macarons and like a boring looking tart or whatever. We had shiny little chocolate fudge concoctions that were literally among the best desserts ever. The regular menu doesn’t include chocolate anything! Vegan version for the win.
I know this is like the same image but a different size but now is the time to focus on the chocolate at the top AT THE TOP
The shiny chocolate half moon was the richest, densest fudge, and a superthick layer of it to boot. That would have been enough to send me over the moon, but inside the chocolate part was a sort of banana pudding. It was AMAZ. Seriously I don’t understand why this isn’t just on their regular menu. Nothing in that room was better than it!
Well, except maybe the banana walnut cake.
When we started onto the desserts, another waiter asked us how everything was and we were like damn, this chocolate masterpiece is a masterpiece. And HE said, ‘oh it’s fine but the banana walnut is my favorite’ and we were like ‘whoooo on earth likes a banana bread jawn more than anything chocolate, especially THIS chocolate?’ But honestly, it was probably the best banana bread/cake I’ve ever had. That guy was right. It was absolutely amazing. Okay get ready becaues I’m going to use the word everyone hates, but I have never had a cake that was as moist as this banana bread. And – confession – I didn’t eat it at the table because I got too full. I took it home and had it the next day. And it was still the moistest (sorry) and super delicious, man alive.
Then a waiter started going around the room with the dessert cart, which is full of even more options that the regular menu people could choose from. We said to each other ‘oh well, I guess that’s kind of disappointing that we can’t do the super-extra-gluttonous part of picking even more dessert from the extravagant cart, but we’re kind of full anyway’, but then the guy stopped and gave us each a piece of cake! He said this was the extra vegan addition, a pound cake sort of thing with raspberry. We so excited!
It was a little bit dry, but still good, and hey we’re not looking an extra gift cake in the mouth.
Overall, it was a wonderful experience. Even though there are several all-vegan teas being publicized around London, I would totally go back to the non-vegan Ritz – for a special occasion. And I wish I could order the chocolate and banana desserts for parties! It was so special to be able to enjoy this classic/stereotypical English experience. And now when people say ‘oh you live in London? Do you go to fancy teas all the time and eat little sandwiches?’ I’m going to tip my enormous hat and say ‘You bet your bloomin’ ass I do!’ And so can you.
the moistest cake ever is in that box HAHA I SAID IT AGAIN
