Love From Philly: New Restaurant Vegan Commissary Pretty Much Amazesby Randi / September 25, 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 |
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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.
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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.
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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. |
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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.)
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.
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Happy Purim! Eat This Rhubarb Caramel Hamantaschen !
Hey it’s Purim! Last year it was better than Halloween; this year it’s better than Mardi Gras. (I learned that the latter is a more apt comparison because of the costumes or the food orrrr the time of year.) It feels like just yesterday when I shared the story of Purim on the blog. Since it would be silly to write a different version of the story, and also I’m tired, I’m going to share last year’s before we get to the new recipe.
[Purim is] about when King Ahasuerus got super drunk and ordered all the young ladies to line up so he could pick his favorite to be his wife, and he picked Esther, a Jew who didn’t let on that she was a Jew, who had been raised by her uncle Mordechai, which is a name that you always have to say with the required Yiddy question mark at the end. So the king’s Jafar, named Haman, decides to kill all the Jews, but then Esther tells her hubsking, ‘Hey I’m Jewish! You can’t kill the Jews!’ and the King is all ‘Oh man you are right! Jafar Haman get thee gone! You are evil! We are going to celebrate this holiday by making delicious cookies in the shape of your three-cornered hat! I don’t know why the celebratory traditional food should be in the villain’s honor, but there we are!’ So that is Purim.
It still stands. So, I wanted my hamantaschen this year to have a fruit filling, but fruit in London is too expensive for me to waste by cooking and then putting in cookies so I used jam. In hindsight, my decision to open the fancy jar of rhubarb preserves that we bought in Paris and have been saving seems a little more extravagant than buying fruit that’s 20c more than I want to pay, but eh it’s a holiday and I’m permitted to have some errors in judgment. You can make your own jam if you want to be a baller about it but ain’t nobody got time for that.
This year’s batch capitalized on the coconut caramel I made for a test run of vegan Samoa (Girl Scout) cookies that didn’t get thick enough. So, not good enough for my Samoas, but perfect for this! Last year’s dough was puffier and a little sweeter. I changed up the dough a bit to make it a little denser and a little less sweet. Pick whichever you want, but I highly recommend making both fillings, last year’s rosewater baklava and this year’s rhubarb caramel. Yummm!
This year’s batch capitalized on the coconut caramel I made for a test run of vegan Samoa (Girl Scout) cookies that didn’t get thick enough. So, not good enough for my Samoas, but perfect for this! Last year’s dough was puffier and a little sweeter. I changed up the dough a bit to make it a little denser and a little less sweet. Pick whichever you want, but I highly recommend making both fillings, last year’s rosewater baklava and this year’s rhubarb caramel. Yummm!
RHUBARB CARAMEL HAMANTASCHEN
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For the dough
Ingredients:
Directions:
For the caramel
Directions:
ASSEMBLY
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 Yes this is last year’s pic but I didn’t have a good starter and also the bowls are so much prettier.  Balls o’ dough! And my little pink recipe book.  Roll out your dough on parchment paper for an easier time! Also have more surface area than I do.  My circles  My beautiful? caramel sauce    I put the extra sauce in a squeeze bottle because so fun! |
Vegan Guide to Michelin Restaurants: De Librije in Zwolle, Holland
*This post is part of a series in which I eat fancy Michelin-starred meals and then brag about it.
Recently, we took a 45-minute flight to Amsterdam, city of canals and bicycles. But instead of exploring that beautiful city, we took an hour-long train to the tiny town of Zwolle, which is home to adorable little hotels and not much more. Why did we go to this rando Nethertown in the middle of Netherwhere? Because Zwolle (not to be confused with swoll, the cool kids’ new word for…swollen? cool kids are weird) is also home to De Librije, a 3-Michelin star (3***!!!) restaurant and hotel. And because my life is dope and I do dope shit (only time I will quote Yeezy).
Being awarded 3 Michelin stars is the highest achievement a restaurant can get, well besides being an actual financial success where people like to eat. The only other 3-star restaurant I’ve been to is Alinea, which was the greatest meal imaginable on this or any planet. So De Librije had a lot to prove, because Michelin stars take into account not only the food but the service, the presentation, and a host of intangibles. While the experience was great, and the presentation was superb, neither the food nor the service seemed worthy of 3 stars, especially compared with wonderful 1* and 2** places we’ve been. The food was fine, the service was pretty bad, but the presentation was a red 100 emoji.
What do you have to say, little Sunday cartoons? Are you for trading?
Before we get started with the food, I have to warn you that I don’t have full knowledge of what all the dishes in these pictures contained. Reasons: 1) The waiters weren’t great at speaking English and we were not great at adding lots of vowels to our words to fake being Dutch. 2) Usually diners are given copies of their menus at the end of their meal, but we were given these little cards with cartoons that were indecipherable. When we emailed the restaurant, asking for a more comprehensible menu, they very kindly emailed back a list of what these cards said. Bahaha. One just says “land & sea”. That’s all we got for an entire course. So funny. So unhelpful. Also, the cards for me (I was the only vegan), as well as the emailed menu, had a lot of dairy products listed. When I asked the restaurant in that same email what was up with that, they assured me that the list was a mistake and that all my dishes were of course vegan. While I of course hope that a restaurant of this caliber would know what vegan means, I’m still the tiniest bit skeptical now; wouldn’t you be?
De Librije dining room
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But anyway, let’s look at pretty pictures of food! Or, wait, this is me – I guess I mean pictures of pretty food! As is expected at places like this, we were given several off-menu plates before the actual courses began. Here, we had a crispy mushroom puff with regular mushroom, greenery, and some kind of cream that I hope wasn’t cream. It was a really good first bite! It’s on a bed of fried bits. No, not joking, like fried bits like when you fry stuff and all the bits are left in the pan? I don’t know man. I ate them. I wasn’t supposed to.
Next, we had what I’m going to guess were lentil crackers with dilly cream (please don’t say crema unless the rest of your words are Italian or Spanish too, such a weird thing to do. Also don’t say ‘with au jus’) and this is one of the things I am iffy about because there are four, which means we all ate the same thing, which seems wrong. Husband seems to recall that the waiter pointed out which one was for me, maybe the one without the peanut that’s not a peanut? I’m not sure but I hope he is right!
Next was a pile of rocks with seaweed hidden all around them! There was also a very good beet chip with assorted unknown sauces and vegetable pieces, but the seaweed was really the main draw for me. I don’t think we were supposed to eat it, but I like to break rules. I’m a rule breaker. I also ate all the seaweed from the others’ plates. They were like what is wrong with this person. Seaweed is really good.
After the plate of rocks came a bowl of baby onions. Cipollini oh nee ons! Who was that guy on that show that said that beautifully? I forget. Anyway, this was like a little birds nest of shaved onions, carrots, beets maybe, all fried together with the tiniest greens on top. Very nice! It came with a banana chip – I got several of these, I’m not sure if they ran out of ideas, really liked this particular idea, or just gave me two of the same dish, but I won’t complain.
Atop another bed of bits I probably wasn’t supposed to eat but really liked, the banana chips were bent into a cool shape with greens and crunchy vegetables and something like baba ganoush in the middle. It probably wasn’t baba ganoush but I’m just saying it was something like it. Hollandaise version. How pretty does it look though? They were experts at presentation here; everything is beautiful.
Next was the funniest part of the meal. This waiter comes over and goes, “I’d like to prepare the next dish on your hands.” We’re like what. So we all warily put our hands out and got crap squeezed on it. This is the course I question the most, because we all got the same green cream squeezed on our hands, and the others’ menu says this was some kind of mayonnaise, which is the grossest foodstuff in the world. Boo urns. Aside from that, it was a cute concept that they nicely gave us wet towels for cleaning after, but still kinda whatever.
Look I got another banana chip dish! It’s a lot better than other banana chips I’ve had. I’ve never really been a fan of dried or chipified fruit but if you’re gonna have one, have it here. I think this one was on a bed of nuts, so I ate a lot of that too. The caviar is a garnish!
Oh then we got four rolls with certain kinds of butter they were really excited about (I got olive oil, thank you for remembering) and they were pretty decent rolls. But then we got entire little loaves of bread, seen at right, which we all way too quickly devoured, so quickly that the staff assumed we didn’t get the bread, so they swiftly brought out another, and then another. By the third loaf of bread, we figured that they all must have been laughing at us in the kitchen, like ‘look at these English speaking fools eating their weight in bread har har har!” so what who cares. Good bread.
Next, this simple but delicious bowl of Brussels sprouts (or as my phone likes to call them, Brussels sports) with microgreens and a great, mild sauce with a tiny bit of lemongrass, I think, was a lovely counterpoint to the four loaves of bread I had just eaten. It wasn’t spectacular, but it tasted good.
One of my favorites was this double-decker cabbage bowl, which had whiskers shooting out the top, beetroot in the middle, and some pomegranate seeds I think. The bottom of the bowl had a delicious puree and it was all very nice. The white stuff, I fear is creme fraiche because that’s what my ‘incorrect’ menu says, and I’m not sure what else it could be, but I’m hoping they had like some soy or cashew creams in the back maybe?
Ah, some deliciously salty greenery was up next. This was a very miso-like sauce with weeds growing out of it and I loved it. Nuts or beans on the bottom? This is getting kind of out of hand. We asked a few times what was happening on our plates but usually the person whose attention we managed to grab (more on that later) wouldn’t know or didn’t really speak English or maybe just pretended not to since we were the youngest patrons and they were probably offended by our presence?
Even more delicious were these tulip bulbs with black garlic puree and barbecued celeriac. Or at least that’s the menu item I’m guessing this is. No I really remember actually, I was eating this and it was soo good and I said, oh so this is what black garlic is. I don’t know if I’ve ever had it before, but I love it. It really is strikingly different from regular garlic. That puree is the stuff dreams are made of. This was probably the best savory dish.
This was great too! It was a cauliflower heart, heavy on the flower part I guess because the shape was much more beautiful than the regular old caulisflower one usually finds, topped with madras curry and currants. All the c words. Well not all. This was really good and I especially liked the fresh cucumber pieces that helped to cut the warmth of the curry. Have we noticed though, that almost every fancy restaurant that isn’t vegan will give me a cauliflower course?
The following course was very dessert-y, but it wasn’t at the dessert stage yet. I remember being like phew, we’re done with the savories, but then look what comes after this! Anyway, this was blackberry ice with ‘water mint’ and what looks like a micro-watermelon but I have no idea what it was, some kind of melon I guess. Very enjoyable.
See, next was another savory dish! My menu says this is ‘first milk chicory’ with spices but I highly doubt that. It was like a rice soup with shaved greens and spring onions. I really like soup so I really enjoyed this. That white blog I think was citrus ice. Wait that can’t be right. Unless it is. This place did play with what was dessert and what was dinner, so whatever, maybe it was both, I don’t know, it was good.
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clipped wings I was a broken thing 
had a voice had a voice but I could not sing 
you would wind me down 
I struggled on the ground 
so lost the line had been crossed 
had a voice had a voice but I could not talk 
you held me down 
I struggle to fly now 
but there’s a scream inside that we all try to hide 
we hold on so tight 
we cannot deny eats us alive 
oh it eats us alive 
yes there’s a scream inside that we all try to hide 
we hold on so tight but I don’t wanna die no 
I don’t wanna die, I don’t wanna die, yeahhh |
and I don’t caaare if I sing off key
Before the rest of the desserts (or before the start of the desserts, who knows really) came out, the waiters asked us if we wanted tea or coffee. Listen up, people. If you are ever in a restaurant like this, with a seemingly never-ending tasting menu, you ALWAYS, ALWAYS order tea or coffee if they ask. Why? Because it sort of unlocks another level in the meal, as if you were in a culinary video game where you have to collect all these hidden light-up coins as points. When they bring your tea or coffee, they without fail bring other dishes that you wouldn’t have gotten otherwise. That might seem unfair to those of you who don’t drink tea or coffee, but think of how much better your teeth are. But now you know anyway to always say yes to it. We’ve gotten some awesome secret-tea-round desserts in the past, but this was probably my favorite one: The tea/coffee was ITSELF the secret dessert dish. Look at my mint tea up there! It was a play on mint tea, with fresh, light, delicious sorbet on an ice pack with a sugared mint leaf and something like a brown sugar fan on the side. It was on an ice pack full of what looked like mint tea, actually, and at one point I thought I was supposed to cut the pack with my knife and somehow drink the contents. It’s good that I don’t follow through on everything I think. The coffee was even more fun – the cappucino was cappucino ice cream with chocolate accoutrement and whipped cream and it all looked absolutely awesome. I guess the only downside is if you actually wanted plain old hot coffee or tea but I think they brought them later. Who remembers in the food haze.
I find myself in my melodies |
I sing for love, I sing for me |
The cutest part of the dinner was this little chocolate-topped toadstool looking thing. I mean speaking of video games, doesn’t it remind you of something out of one? Maybe Toadstool, could be. Anyway, here they brought me my own plate of the dark chocolates they said were vegan, and they were great. I don’t think I got all the flavors the others got, but still, I’m at a restaurant like this that isn’t Alinea and they have chocolate for me? Happy dance.
Oh yes, that is on yet another ice pack. They love using their ice packs instead of plates here. Pretty smart for ice cream though, I kind of love it.
The last part of this epic meal I wish came second to last. The chocolates would have been a lovely and appropriate ending. It just seems like a proper way to say goodbye, right? Chocolate is the right way to say anything! But I had something else coming – this curry sorbet. Yes, it’s curry flavored ice cream. Oh my goodness. It tasted pretty good, and 100 points for creativity and all, but still, it is curry ice cream. The fruit bits were nice. I liked very much that all my desserts weren’t repeated plates of fruit, as happens so frequently. I’m glad I got to try something so creative and unique but still, curry ice cream.
I shout it out like a bird set free
So, overall, it was a lovely dinner, visually. It had the best presentation and used the coolest dishes, in fact. The food had some wonderful points and was overall solid. However, it did not seem 3 Michelin stars-worthy. Normally I would attribute this to the vegan menu, to their being unused to accommodating vegans to their menu, but the three people I was with (who had their standard menu) agreed that it was not spectacular. Good, but not one of the best meals ever, which it should have been. The thing that stuck out the most, however, was how poor the service was. I always run out of water quickly, and although at places like this I expect attention to be paid, I still give a lot of leeway. But when everyone at my table was out of water, out of all drinks, and no one paid attention to us for a half hour or so? That’s not good. Throughout the night, I asked whoever I could grab for this or that (usually for water), and the person would always say, “oh okay I will grab your waiter” or sometimes “I will be right back with that.” They never did and never were. I really couldn’t believe that this was happening in such a place! It shouldn’t be! What were the stars based on? Oy. Still, I’m so glad we went. It was a beautiful place and a pretty special experience. We also stayed in their hotel and had an epic breakfast the next morning, which I will talk about next time.
DE LIBRIJE, ZWOLLE, NETHERLANDS
Water speed: See above. It was actually atrocious, to be honest. Embarrassing for a restaurant of this caliber, and inexcusable. SHAME! SHAME!
Service: Okay, shaky okay. They were nice enough when we could get them to pay attention to us, if uninformed about what the crap we were eating.
Bathrooms: The bathrooms were fine, modern, and clean, but the best part? Black toilet paper! So weird! I’ve never seen that before! I’m sharing a picture of it. Yes I took pictures in the toilet.
Food: Overall good, with some standouts. Some creative choices were weird, but I’d rather that then boring safe stuff, I think. Still, not 3 stars.
Bonus: Beautiful space in a lovely hotel. Check back tomorrow to see the rooms!
Water speed: See above. It was actually atrocious, to be honest. Embarrassing for a restaurant of this caliber, and inexcusable. SHAME! SHAME!
Service: Okay, shaky okay. They were nice enough when we could get them to pay attention to us, if uninformed about what the crap we were eating.
Bathrooms: The bathrooms were fine, modern, and clean, but the best part? Black toilet paper! So weird! I’ve never seen that before! I’m sharing a picture of it. Yes I took pictures in the toilet.
Food: Overall good, with some standouts. Some creative choices were weird, but I’d rather that then boring safe stuff, I think. Still, not 3 stars.
Bonus: Beautiful space in a lovely hotel. Check back tomorrow to see the rooms!
