Good Morning Baltimore!! Every Day's Like An Open Door!by Randi / October 31, 2013
Philadelphia’s Chinatown is packed with vegetarian-friendly restaurants, and while they are uniformly decent, some stand out from the pack. New Harmony is one of those standouts. Specializing in vegetarian mock meats and seafood, as well as insanely good steamed buns and dumplings, this is one of the (very) few non-Szechuan Chinese restaurants I’ll go to excitedly. Owned by Ming, the nicest restaurant proprietor this side of anywhere, New Harmony mixes crazy good, greasy comfort food with a casual atmosphere and, on Thursday, a doughnut delivery from Vegan Treats. I know.
Give me all of it, please and thank you
One of the best deals in town is New Harmony’s all-you-can-eat Dim Sum for $12 per person. You get to order from the pictured dim sum menu – but it’s not like ‘choose two measly items from section A, one from B’ or any kind of limiting crap like that. You can have every single item, and as much of each as you want. (Strangely, I’ve never actually gotten every item, or asked for more of something, because there is always so, so much amazing food. But…challenge accepted? No?) The dim sum menu is always so hard to pass up, because two of the restaurants best dishes – the sesame beef and the steamed pork buns – are on it, so there’s no reason to order off the menu. (Actually, there are about 60 other reasons…)
 Vegetable and bean curd soup The sesame chicken tasted great and had a wonderful texture, like most mock chicken nugget-things at Chinese restaurants. But the sesame beef is the restaurant’s big deal. It’s crunchy and chewy, and it’s covered in a surprisingly mustardy cream sauce that just works even though it seems like it shouldn’t. So so good.
 Sesame beef Next, we took a needed pause between the glutinous rounds with some standard steamed and besauced vegetables. More broccoli! Chinese cabbage! Good stuff. Then came my favorite part of any meal: the steamed buns and dumplings. Hooo boy, how great are steamed doughy things holding fillings? So great. We had a mix of pork buns, vegetable buns, spinach dumplings, shrimp dumplings, and vegetable dumplings.
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I’ve had the hot & sour soup several times, and it’s really great, as is the wonton. This time, I tried the vegetable and bean curd soup. It was nice and simple, perhaps not very exciting, but a good starter before all the heavier food. It was a little salty for me, which is my #1 gripe about Chinese food (actually, about restaurant food in general), and I would have preferred a thinner broth. But I’d get this again. It was nice to have broccoli before the storm hit.
 Sesame chicken  Vegetables. Nice. |
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The two different kinds of buns were absolute perfection. Next time, I’d order all the buns and forego the dumplings. The latter are great, don’t get me wrong, but they don’t stand out from the standard veg dumpling scene. The buns, however, are tremendous. I want 20 of them now.
I also loved the final thing we got, the bean curd skin rolls. Okay, so bean curd skin (aka tofu skin) sounds disgusting, I’ll give you that. But it’s so strangely delicious. Over the past few years, I’ve become somewhat obsessed with the stuff, in soups, in sushi rolls, in life. But I’ve never had it act as the wrapping in a spring roll-type of thing.  |
 They look like fun/weird sea creatures The rolls were so interesting! Just like a spring roll, it contained a gingery, garlicky mix of stringy cabbage and what not, but instead of fried, greasy wonton exterior, it was the chewy beyond chewy tofu skin. Ok, it sounds gross, but it was really good!
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We were too full to order the dim sum menu desserts, and wayyy too full to order the absolutely mind-blowing specialty of fried cheesecake (from Vegan Treats, but fried in-house) off the regular menu. But Ming informed us that the Vegan Treats doughnut delivery had just come in, so we pretty much bought out his stock (to go, of course). Then, he kindly brought us little dishes of strawberry ice cream, which is sourced from Klein’s, the best soy ice cream maker. It was a nice way to end a deliciously indulgent, yet affordable, dinner.
NEW HARMONY, Philadelphia’s Chinatown
- Water speed: Doing Chinese restaurants proud
- Bathrooms: One shared, not the nicest but it works at least
- Service: Great. It may have helped that my companion is likethis with Ming, and he waited on us, but it’s usually great.
- Food: Comforting, rich, heavy but doesn’t leave you feeling sick
- Bonus: Copious amounts of dim sum for $12…and Vegan Treats!
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Vegan Guide to Michelin Restaurants: Lyle’s, London UK
*This post is part of a series in which I eat fancy Michelin-starred meals and then brag about it.
Unlike all the other posts in this series, this meal was completely impromptu. On a recent Friday, Husband and I met up in Shoreditch (our old but always hood) after work and thought, where on earth/Shoreditch/Most Popular Land for Hipsters on a Friday Night at prime time will we be able to eat dinner without a reservation? Oh, I’m sorry, without a ‘booking’. (Okay this is one I’m actually starting to say though, eek. Choosing my battles.) Most of the cool places book up way in advance, the others (like Dishoom) forcing you to line up for hours like you’re waiting for the latest iPhone. While walking around somewhat aimlessly, we walked past Lyle’s, which is right across from the BoxPark and the overground station. Lyle’s opened relatively recently and was virtually immediately awarded a Michelin star. For dinner, it offers a set tasting menu, and books up in advance. We knew it was totally booked but figured it was worth asking. You don’t ask, you don’t get, as the philosopher Strega Nonna says.
Armed only with my husband’s knowledge that he thought he saw somewhere that they can accommodate vegans, we asked the host if by any chance there were any cancellations that night. Lo and behold, they had a free table for two open at that very moment! What luck! Next came the follow-up question that I always feel supes awk asking after all the preceding excitement, ‘oh yay thanks amazing um can you feed me?’ On Lyle’s website, they post the daily tasting menu plus a vegetarian version, but it’s usually full of cheese and eggs and stuff, so I figured that for a vegan version, they’d need notice. But he said no problem! No problem! Dance emoji! I hate springing the veganism on a restaurant without giving them prior notice, but they were unfazed. As any professional restaurant should be. Especially one with a Michelin star. I bet with advance warning they could have prepared something even better, but it was a great meal nonetheless.
After we were seated in the open, airy, totally unassuming dining room (where I could watch the open kitchen from my seat! I can see Russia from my house!), we were brought, without too much delay, a pitcher of tap water. Those who know me know that this is the way to my heart. Strong start. Then we were brought a basket of really good hearty bread. Second way to my heart. My heart was so happy! On to the food!
Like other Michelinas, Lyle’s usually gives printed menus to each diner. However, since I surprised them, I didn’t get a printed menu, so the following descriptions of the dishes are pure guesses.
After we were seated in the open, airy, totally unassuming dining room (where I could watch the open kitchen from my seat! I can see Russia from my house!), we were brought, without too much delay, a pitcher of tap water. Those who know me know that this is the way to my heart. Strong start. Then we were brought a basket of really good hearty bread. Second way to my heart. My heart was so happy! On to the food!
Like other Michelinas, Lyle’s usually gives printed menus to each diner. However, since I surprised them, I didn’t get a printed menu, so the following descriptions of the dishes are pure guesses.
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The tasting menu officially consists of four dishes (for 44 GBP, not bad at all!), but like most places with tasting menus, the chef sends out a few off-book snacks to start you off and make you feel special. My first baby dish was roasted carrots, baby ones that still had their little green tops and were really cute and very good. They tasted like they had been wood-roasted on special delicious wood, reminding me of the magicked wood at Asador. I know you’re like, so hold up just a second, those are just two very small plain carrots. Yeah but they were good carrots and they were bonus food. I would say something about not looking a gift horse in the mouth but then I realized horses LOVE carrots and I feel like there is a better line in there somewhere.
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So good and cute I would never use them for snowmen |
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My next bonus food was like the perfected version of a child’s after school snack. It was literally a slice of peach topped with raw white almond slivers. I thought, um, what, okay cool? But then I breathed, and I smelled the strongest peach scent I’ve ever smelled. I don’t really recall ever eating a peach that smelled as good as this piece did even when it was still on the plate, feet away from my nose. I can’t recall any fruit ever smelling that good and that strong from so far away! (Durian doesn’t count it is the Voldemort of fruits.) The almonds were the whitest things I’ve ever seen since my legs circa two months ago. Really a fun little snack!
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You’re not from around here, are you |
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The first of the official dishes I think was actually my favorite. I got a dish of fresh peas topped with edible purple flowers and lightly dressed greens. So simple, I know. But so well done. When good restaurants serve me peas, they’re usually the best most perfect peas ever and I kind of freak out because I really only use frozen peas and it’s in soups and similar jawns that cook for ages and they get super mushy and they’re just completely different from these perfect little adorable peas. Real good.
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When a restaurant gives me fresh peas I’m thisclose to rapping about them like Meryl Streep in ‘Into the Woods’ |
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Next up to bat the Rosarios they run the cab company oops no it’s this meta world beet dish. I’m skeptical of a dish that is mainly beets but these were damn good glazed little beets! Moreover, those greens on top are the beet greens, one of my favorite pieces of greenery and one of the hardest to find (because I don’t buy bushels of beets straight from the earth who does that). They were dusted with walnut powder, a surprisingly brilliant mix of two very earthy foods.
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they struggle in the barrio |
damn you oh nee ohn
My main dish was girolles, which I think are the same thing as chantarelles, so, nice little mushrooms. They were cooked to a great level of dark saltiness, served with fresh arugula (I think) to offset the depth of the flavor and mixed with some barely detectable buckwheat, which added a really wonderful subtle earthiness. They were also served with small little onion bulbs, which are fine when fully cooked so they are soft and translucent but you see that one bulb right in the foreground? That was mostly raw still, and I ate it, and then I smelled like oh nee ohns for DAYS and I was nauseous from it for DAYS and ugh raw onions are not for consumption by dogs OR humans. Other than that, this dish was great! Oh the best is that there were these interesting little fried bits of something mixed in. They actually looked like meat and kind of tasted like a meat or a substitute, maybe. I was intrigued and really enjoying them so I asked a waitress what they were. She kind of laughed at me and said, “Um that’s fried pieces of bread!” So embarrassing. But bread is good and fried bread apparently is good too! It was funny, and it did taste really good. Yet I would have preferred some kind of bean instead, right? There was no real protein source in this meal. I am giving them the benefit of the doubt that it was because I came without giving them a chance to prepare. But if you see this Lyle, remember to give vegans protein otherwise they will turn into the grass that they eat. I mean who doesn’t have 100 cans of beans on hand at all times what you don’t no me either I’m not prepping a fallout shelter or anything.
Normally in these tasting menu meals, we get so full that it hurts before we’re even halfway through. I tend to start either talking like Gizmo or laughing hysterically in a manner akin to how it used to sound signing onto AOL. The great part of Lyle’s is that it’s totally a normal amount of food so you don’t get that hurt. The only thing that happened was that at one point Husband stopped, made a quizzical face, emptied his pockets, and then said, “I have crumbs in my pockets.” I’m still laughing about that one. But now, we still felt like normal people and had room for dessert!
If I could find a vegan yogurt like this, not sweet but also not tart or disgusting, I could actually eat yogurt
As we know, dessert at non-vegan restaurants is usually fruit or fruit sorbet, which, by the way, I will never want from a restaurant, unless it’s like in a country where I haven’t been able to find fruit for days or something. So when I saw the waiter heading towards me with a dessert plate, I crossed my fingers and started shouting “no whammy no whammy no whammy!” It worked! I mean, well yes it did have both fruit and frozen fruit ice, but it was over iced cream! No not ice cream, iced cream, like non-tart non-sweet thick Greek yogurt kind of cream. It was such a good vehicle for the raspberries and the delicious sweet raspberry slushy ice on top of it. Really good job guys! As non-chocolate non-peanut butter desserts go, this was very good, and much more sophisticated than my usual favorite dessert of putting chocolate and peanut butter in my mouth at the same time.
Overall, Lyle’s offers a very nice tasting menu for a very reasonable price, and I bet with advance notice, you’d get an even better meal, maybe with some protein. When we asked for the check, they brought two more bonus desserts! I got a tiny ‘sandwich’ of delicate cinnamony crackers with blueberry compote. Neither component was sweet enough but it was pretty nice still! Huzzah.
Overall, Lyle’s offers a very nice tasting menu for a very reasonable price, and I bet with advance notice, you’d get an even better meal, maybe with some protein. When we asked for the check, they brought two more bonus desserts! I got a tiny ‘sandwich’ of delicate cinnamony crackers with blueberry compote. Neither component was sweet enough but it was pretty nice still! Huzzah.
LYLE’S, SHOREDITCH, LONDON, UK, EUROPE FOR NOW
Water speed: Very impressive for a London restaurant! I wonder if they talked afterwards about how they never had a patron go through so many jugs of water.
Service: Very nice and accommodating, considering I surprised them. Service itself was good for most of the meal, but the second half slowed down a great deal. I think I spent over an hour between finishing the girolles and getting my dessert. A lot of that is because Husband was given an extra dish, but not all of it was that.
Bathrooms: The bathrooms are single serving, one for men and one for women. Like all places with this setup, they should just make it singles for everyone. I don’t get the specifying for gender when it’s single toilets. I mean maybe the men’s has a urinal but it also must have a toilet so come on. They had nice soap but also had that weird pull chain from the ceiling to flush like so many London places do because this city was built a billion years ago and the plumbing is atrosh. This is the most I’ve ever written about toilets and I feel weird.
Food: Overall nice, simple food done very well. Despite it being many courses, it felt non-sickly.
Bonus: Be so cool dining in Shoreditch with all the cool people!
Water speed: Very impressive for a London restaurant! I wonder if they talked afterwards about how they never had a patron go through so many jugs of water.
Service: Very nice and accommodating, considering I surprised them. Service itself was good for most of the meal, but the second half slowed down a great deal. I think I spent over an hour between finishing the girolles and getting my dessert. A lot of that is because Husband was given an extra dish, but not all of it was that.
Bathrooms: The bathrooms are single serving, one for men and one for women. Like all places with this setup, they should just make it singles for everyone. I don’t get the specifying for gender when it’s single toilets. I mean maybe the men’s has a urinal but it also must have a toilet so come on. They had nice soap but also had that weird pull chain from the ceiling to flush like so many London places do because this city was built a billion years ago and the plumbing is atrosh. This is the most I’ve ever written about toilets and I feel weird.
Food: Overall nice, simple food done very well. Despite it being many courses, it felt non-sickly.
Bonus: Be so cool dining in Shoreditch with all the cool people!
Love From Philly: New Restaurant Vegan Commissary Pretty Much Amazes
Philadelphia gets more and more vegan-friendly by the day, it seems. In the past year, we’ve gotten a second outpost of the consistent & incredible HipCityVeg, a new all-vegan bar with upscale small plates called Charlie was a sinner. (review to come tomorrow, and yes, the period is in the name), a new bar from the Landaus of Vedge fame (to open any day now), and much more just in Center City! It’s sometimes hard to get out of the center because it seems there’s no real need to, with so much delicious vegan food within a few blocks of Rittenhouse. However, South Philly is veganizing as fast as it’s gentrifying, and if you can get someone to drive you (not it!), the vegan scene there is unmissable. My favorite new place there? Vegan Commissary! I think it’s the best brunch in town. It’s only open during lunch hours, but call it brunch so you can also order the cinnabuns.
Look how fun this menu is! You might be thinking, hey, that looks a little pricey! (Well not if you live in London because everything is sick expensive here.) The prices are a little higher (for the entrees anyway; the sides are stupid cheap) than you’d expect for a small little vegan joint, but guess what – they include tax and service, and they pay the wait staff a living wage. UHHHMAZING.
The food at Vegan Commissary is very much brunch-based, with giant pancakes, an extremely impressive Veggs platter, various kinds of scrapple, French toast, burgers, hash, and a dish actually called cream chipped beets. Every dish seems super clever and well thought out. Some items still require some work (I went pretty early in the restaurant’s life) but overall everything is crazy delicious.
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Of course I start here with a green juice, called the Groovy Grub Green. It was yummy and gave me a shot of necessary green veggies before I dove into the gluttony of what was to come. (You can’t help but over-order here because everything sounds so crazy good.) Then, in order to immediately counterbalance whatever good I ingested with the juice, I have the cinnamon buns.
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 Green juice above; cinnabons to the right. The perfect duo |
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The mini cinnamon buns are delicious. Oh man. Warm and gooey and covered in a sweet vanilla just-barely-cream-cheesy frosting (I usually hate cream cheese but this is subtle), they are the perfect little treat to share with your brunchmate or hoard for yourself.
One of the most creative menu items is also the most incredible – the poached avocado & tempeh hash. It’s a platter of diced fried tempeh and potatoes, the ‘hash’, topped with a perfect poached avocado and covered in a decadent hollandaise sauce. Oh my goodness! It’s like all my favorite non-kale foods. This is so good. I would have loved if a non-potato vegetable came with it for balance, but I guess we already took care of that need with the juice. This is ridiculously good.
One of the most creative menu items is also the most incredible – the poached avocado & tempeh hash. It’s a platter of diced fried tempeh and potatoes, the ‘hash’, topped with a perfect poached avocado and covered in a decadent hollandaise sauce. Oh my goodness! It’s like all my favorite non-kale foods. This is so good. I would have loved if a non-potato vegetable came with it for balance, but I guess we already took care of that need with the juice. This is ridiculously good.
Poached avocado & tempeh hash
Another fantastic and insanely creative dish – one that I’ve ordered every time I’ve been to the Commissary, actually! – is the Veggs Damian. I don’t know who Damian is, but thanks dude, because this is the most impressive brunch item I may have ever seen. And it’s delicious.
Veggs Damian
Look at those eggs! They are made from pressed tofu and filled with a yolk made from the Vegg, so perfectly set that you can dip your toast (buttered, of course; you get so much vegan butter!) in it. I just don’t understand how this is even possible. And they are really good! Equally impressive is the ‘side’ (in quotes because it’s quite large) of vegan scrapple that comes with it. Real scrapple may be one of the grossest ideas in food history, but vegan scrapple? Amazing. The Commissary’s version was a little too salty the last time I went, but still good. I love that this dish comes with asparagus – yay a vegetable! – and extra hollandaise.
 Corn scrapple |
Actually, the item I enjoyed most? Even more than the regular vegan scrapple? This corn scrapple! It tasted like a cross between a corn fritter and a polenta pancake. Oh man, SO freaking good!
Yet another ridiculous, over-the-top, must-order dish is the biscuits and gravy. I think every vegan feels the need to order biscuits and gravy whenever that amazingness is available, but here you must be warned: It’s freaking huge. Huuuuuge. I couldn’t actually finish it. It was really great. The biscuits are a little dense, not very light and fluffy, but they are perfect in this dish, with this delicious gravy smothering it. And it comes with more potatoes! Oh man. And it’s topped with the most glorious fried onions, like huge onion ring-style almost. |
Biscuits & gravy
I also loved the carrot dog, another very inspired dish, this time playing off a hot dog. It’s a lovely seasoned carrot in a bun, just like a hot dog but so much better! Topped with lentils and extra harissa mayo, it’s pretty darn fantastic.
Carrot dog & harissa mayo
I’ve also had the gluten-free chocolate peanut butter pie, which is like a decadent little peanut butter cup. It’s an almond and chocolate crust, filled with whipped peanut butter and chocolate ganache. Sooo decadent!
I definitely recommend that you get your bottom out of center city and over to South Philly for a wonderful meal at Vegan Commissary. Everything is good if not great, and it will only improve with time (as it already has!). Philly is such a freaking vegan mecca nowadays, it’s absolutely mind-blowing! I already miss this place and can’t wait to go there when I visit home.
I definitely recommend that you get your bottom out of center city and over to South Philly for a wonderful meal at Vegan Commissary. Everything is good if not great, and it will only improve with time (as it already has!). Philly is such a freaking vegan mecca nowadays, it’s absolutely mind-blowing! I already miss this place and can’t wait to go there when I visit home.
VEGAN COMMISSARY, PHILADELPHIA
Water speed: Good, because the servers are extremely attentive, but I just wish they used bigger glasses.
Service: Very good and super friendly.
Bathrooms: One single-serve very close to the kitchen. Pretty clean.
Food: Wonderful! Such an interesting variety with inspired ideas.
Bonus: Service and tax are included in the menu prices because they pay decent wages! Dessert, Veggs, pancakes, and scrapple! Can’t go wrong.
Note: Cash only; closes at 4pm.
