Broadway's "Fiddler on the Roof": It Might Be Over But Nope It's Never Overby Randi / February 15, 2017
*This post is part of a series in which I eat fancy Michelin-starred meals and then brag about it.
Happy Valentines Day, everyone! Oh, Valentines Day is over, you say? Counter: Valentines Day is about love and chocolate, therefore every day is VDay. To celebrate (the actual one) (well not the actual day (it was a school night!) but close enough to it that it was undeniably for VDay) relatively recently, Husband took me to out to a fancy dinner in London’s main drag of Soho. Now I hear your doubts, because I had them too: What, Soho?! Soho is only good for 1) bros barfing in the streets before it’s even 6pm because alcoholism is a huge and underacknowledged problem in the UK in large part due to the ingrained nature of pub culture and also the lack of sunshine and b) sad sack vegetarian options at chain restaurants (cough *Pret a Manger* cough). Although there is some decent food to be found in Soho, I never heard of a fancy restaurant there that could make a fancy meal for a vegan that was actually impressive or at least better than what I cook at home. Luckily, Husband has read the entire internet and so he discovered the vegan-friendliness of Gauthier, a restaurant that was awarded a Michelin star a few years back.
Happy Valentines Day, everyone! Oh, Valentines Day is over, you say? Counter: Valentines Day is about love and chocolate, therefore every day is VDay. To celebrate (the actual one) (well not the actual day (it was a school night!) but close enough to it that it was undeniably for VDay) relatively recently, Husband took me to out to a fancy dinner in London’s main drag of Soho. Now I hear your doubts, because I had them too: What, Soho?! Soho is only good for 1) bros barfing in the streets before it’s even 6pm because alcoholism is a huge and underacknowledged problem in the UK in large part due to the ingrained nature of pub culture and also the lack of sunshine and b) sad sack vegetarian options at chain restaurants (cough *Pret a Manger* cough). Although there is some decent food to be found in Soho, I never heard of a fancy restaurant there that could make a fancy meal for a vegan that was actually impressive or at least better than what I cook at home. Luckily, Husband has read the entire internet and so he discovered the vegan-friendliness of Gauthier, a restaurant that was awarded a Michelin star a few years back.
it looks like it’s light out but it was not in fact it was very very dark I remember because I almost tripped over already-drunk lads on the way in
In a shocking twist, Gauthier didn’t give us the usual telephonic assurance that ‘oh sure we can accommodate vegans’ like somebody that I used to knowwww somebodayyyyy. I’ll try not to do that a lot more but I cannot stop singing it every time I see or hear the name of this restaurant. (I will also probably stick an incorrect L in there a few times but I will try to remember that I am not talking about Jean Paul.) Anyway, no, I didn’t have to call and ask pweeease feed me Seymour (lets me save my phone anxiety for Congress!), because the fancy French restaurant offers two tasting menus – one omnivorous, one vegan – AS PART OF THEIR REGULAR MENU. Like, if you sit down in one of the dimly candlelit dining rooms spanning the several floors of an old Georgian townhouse on a cushy chair at one of the tables covered with starched white tablecloths and white napkins, you are given a menu that has two pages, and ONE IS VEGAN. That is not a thing that happens! Not at places like this! I think the casualness with which they incorporate the veg tasting menu option into their legitimate Michelized French fine dining is the greatest part about this restaurant. It’s so natural and effortless. Maybe it’s maple leaves. In fact, we could only overhear two other tables in our dining room (the tables are very generously spaced, thanks because I hate other people), and all of our three tables had a veg menu coming. At one table was a young couple definitely on an early date, and the girl ordered the vegan tasting menu. At the other was a group of 4-5 30-something friends, and two of them ordered the veg tasting menu just because it sounded interesting. I heard them say that they weren’t vegetarian but it sounded more interesting than the regular and worth a try. Peopleeee that is how you get more people to try vegan food! Just make it normal and natural and easy cause you didn’t have to cutttttttt me offffffffffffffff…
The experience started off well. The host took our coats and didn’t bat an eye when I also handed her my thick blanketscarf that I love so much that I think I’ll probably write a post about it someday soon. But so it’s giant and anyone else would have been like ahhhh I can’t see, why is there so much blanket! but she handled it like a French pro. We were seated upstairs in the smaller dining area from the still smallish one on the ground floor. Hooray for less chance of cold air hitting me every time the door opens! After only a few minutes, the waiter brought us water and kept us filled the rest of the evening save for one or two slow moments. Huge success for London service! I faked looking at the menu for a few minutes before I was like, what am I doing, obviously I’m getting the vegan menu!
THE FOOD
As is standard in tasting menu situations, you are brought offbook food to begin. My little snack was an interesting giant cracker, resembling the folds and volume of lavash but in cracker form. It came with two little dishes, one of hummus and one of avocado cream. They were fine, nothing special, but the fact that I was given hummus and avocado, two of my favorite things, plus a breadstuff, made me super happy.
the lighting ain’t michelin starred AM I RIGHT UP HIGH
My first main course was a celeriac and watercress veloute. I just looked up what veloute means – a sauce like velvet. That is a great word for this! It truly was! The celeriac and watercress velvet sauce was lovely, mild but with a hint of the brightness of those two vegetables with none of the bitterness. In the velvet sauce was tiny little baby ravioli that was soo good. I could have eaten a whole bowl of them, but I guess that is what pasta places are for and not fine dining. The ravioli was accompanied in the velvet sauce (I’m going to say velvet sauce as many times as I can) by pieces of crisp green apple, which sounds weird but went perfectly with the velvet sauce components. All those green flavors were so carefully chosen and so compatible. According to the menu, the velvet sauce also contained ‘fondant’ but I didn’t get any wedding cake so I’m gonna ignore that part.
ohh this onion’s wearing an onion hat fiddle dee dee and la di da
Next was the Stuffed Roscoff Onion, which I assume is a type of onion. Despite being all about onion, I really enjoyed it! The onion was filled with potato cream (like liquidier mashed potatoes) and drizzled with a balsamic vinegar reduction. It was a lot of onion, and I wish they could have bioengineered (GMOS BABY) a thinner outer layer so that it wasn’t such big bites of thick onion casing, but it was still very good. It conveyed a sort of meat and potatoes feel but without the meat. Obvs. I just googled “Roscoff onion” and the first result was the wiki for “Onion Johnny” and I am laughing too hard right now to read what it says.
Blursula
I would very much enjoy the next dish for dinner tonight, if they made it bigger/normal dinner sized. The Tofu & Swiss Chard Gratin combined many of my favorite things in a familiar, delicious way, with an upgrade in garlickiness, which is quite impressive considering how much garlic I use in my own cooking/life. The little tofu circle was firmer than you usually find when non-Asian restaurants attempt to use tofu. It was topped with Swiss chard plus an herby green puree sauce on top. Then, oh but the garlic. Roasted garlic puree covered everything, and then fried crispy garlic pieces. I think the puree might have been black garlic which makes me very happy, and based on zero knowledge I’m going to say black garlic is more potent than regular because man alive was I oozing garlic from the pores for days (months? we’ll see!) after eating it. Would recommend!
looks like bones it’s not
My Whole Caramelized Parsnip came next, which I was not very excited about because no matter how much this country tries to foist the love of the parsnip upon me, I’m just not very into them. They are like fruity earth bads. But this was good! The whole parsnip was served with a minted parsnip puree and all in a liquorice-infused broth, so they were really playing it risky with things I usually hate but together they worked well. There were Terra chip-like thingers atop the food pile so that’s nice. All in all this was a very nice dish but seemed much more British than French, and a little meh for my tastes.
flitteries
Continuing their theme of using one ingredient in many different forms in one dish, no matter how uninspired it would become, the next and final savory dish was Roasted Cauliflower, which also had a raw cauliflower salad with it. I’m okay with cauliflower but not when it’s being presented just as itself. I like it as fake mashed potatoes and like whipped into a cheese sub. Just roasting cauliflower and then also NOT roasting cauliflower and putting it on a plate for me does not impress me much and now I have a new song in my head. Thank goodness it was also served with a bit of truffle puree, which can save anything, but it was too much cauliflower to not nearly enough truffle puree. I guess because you have to be stingy with that most amazing stuff but then have more of another sauce. Also cauliflower is a REAL hard food to end on when you are already full. It’s hard to eat it when you don’t really want to eat anything more. You start with a vegetable like that, not end with it!
this is not nor could it ever be mistaken for a salad
I was excited for an Italian-style salad ender before the dessert came, as my menu said the next dish was to be a Clementine Givree, which was described in the menu as a Clementine and Coriander Salad with walnut oil. I was so excited for this, but then I was given…mango sorbet? I do not like sorbet. I have had so much sorbet at restaurants over the years that unless you are giving me chocolate sorbet (or vanilla; no one has ever made that that I’ve seen) I do not want it. So to get fruit sorbet when I was expecting salad? my favorite food? Blurghhh. I guess Givree means ice but then why did you describe it as a salad? And why was it super super sweet and mango flavored? I am still quite mad.
garbanzo goop
Why was I mad and not just disappointed?? Well, because my next dish, my first ‘official’ dessert, was Mango Vacherin, which I’m guessing means flipping MANGO SORBET BECAUSE I GOT MORE OF IT. I mean, I should have said something but by this time it was getting busier in the restaurant and I just couldn’t. Also, it was presented differently so it wasn’t the exact same plate, though it was the same main component, so I feel like we would have argued over that and things would have gotten lost in translation and it would have been more annoying and frustrating than two servings of blasted supersweet mango sorbet. The saving grace of all of this, and one of the coolest things ever, is that this second helping of sorbet was served in a meringue shell – MADE OF AQUAFABA. Yes, vegan blogger friends, the liquid from the can of chickpeas that whips up like egg white and opened up literally millions of doors for our cooking and baking achievements, the goop (not Gwynnie’s) that we haven’t stopped raving about since it first appeared on our radar circa Vida Vegan Con 2015, well that shit has made it to an actual French restaurant. I heard the waiter trying to explain to the table next to us what it was and it did not succeed because later I overheard them saying to each other “I don’t understand how they got chickpeas to look so white” so alas, not everyone is #blessed. But I was and still am pretty excited about this discovery and so pleased to see amazing vegan innovation used in the mainstream. As long as they don’t take credit for it.
just knock that trolloppy dollop of sorbet off my chocolate and we’ve got a party
After the thrill of the aquafaba died down, I realized I still had another dessert coming. Joshgads, I was full! But the next dessert was chocolate and that NEVER happens at omni restaurants, let alone French restaurants. It’s always – as we have seen for two courses now – fruit sorbet, which is why I despise it. So it was a mixed bag o’ feelings when my Chocolate and Passionfruit Tart came out with — PASSION FRUIT SORBET. Jesus f-ing H that’s three scoops of fruit sorbet in one meal, 2 scoops worth that I let melt instead of choking down. Like, guys, I know you are really world class French chefs and it’s amazing that you are cooking entire vegan tasting menus on the regs, but did you really think 3 courses of fruit sorbet was a good plan? It’s not a good plan! I’d rather you failed to plan because you done planned to fail. Luckily, the chocolate tart was incredible. It was so thick and gooey and melty, like when you melt chocolate chips to bake with but you let the microwave go too long and/or you add a cold liquid and the chocolate seizes instead of liquefying? you know what I mean? or do you always melt your chocolate without a hitch? It was like seized chocolate but with a little bit more give and lot less broken heartedness. Oh man I loved this! Just like eating hot truffles (the chocolate kind not the above mushroom kind).
you say it like fweeeeeee
As usual with these sorts of tasting menus, when we thought we were finished, having asked for the bill, another plate of desserts came out. Husband got little French pastry cakey jawns and I was given a little pate de fruits (see caption) and two ginormous vegan marshmallows! That was very exciting but I was too full to eat them both. I wish they incorporated these into a more interesting first dessert with the meringue instead of the sorbet, and then if you want to force sorbet on me do it at the secret check-food stage so I can decline it without seeming rude. Regardless, it was very cool that they had vegan marshmallows. Maybe I’ll make rice krispie treats now. Treat.
Overall it was a very enjoyable meal, with some low points but mostly medium-to-relatively-high. I wasn’t blown away, but aside from the sorbets, it was a truly lovely dinner. I would totally recommend this place to groups of mixed company (vegans and omnis) or anyone looking for a fancy time in Soho.
Overall it was a very enjoyable meal, with some low points but mostly medium-to-relatively-high. I wasn’t blown away, but aside from the sorbets, it was a truly lovely dinner. I would totally recommend this place to groups of mixed company (vegans and omnis) or anyone looking for a fancy time in Soho.
Gauthier, Soho, London, England, United Kingdom, Europe?
Water speed: Great! London, you’re getting it! I could cry with pride! As fancies do, they offered still or sparkling and we do one of each and it’s so nice.
Service: Very nice to start, although as the restaurant got busier it was harder to flag anyone. But nice, and great for London where customer service is usually like haha no.
Bathrooms: The bathrooms were seriously like a scene from Moulin Rouge, with dark burgundies and interesting mirrors and like a whole vanity table set-up? It was weird how much time I wanted to spend in there.
Food: Very nice and solid, although not as innovative as I would like. The British seeps through. If they got rid of the triple sorbet horror show it would be very horosho. #wordplay
Bonus: It is so damn cool to know that a fancy restaurant will cater to veganism without having to do a lot of preparatory legwork. And it’s nice to have an upscale option for going with nonvegan fancies, like business colleagues or relatives.
Water speed: Great! London, you’re getting it! I could cry with pride! As fancies do, they offered still or sparkling and we do one of each and it’s so nice.
Service: Very nice to start, although as the restaurant got busier it was harder to flag anyone. But nice, and great for London where customer service is usually like haha no.
Bathrooms: The bathrooms were seriously like a scene from Moulin Rouge, with dark burgundies and interesting mirrors and like a whole vanity table set-up? It was weird how much time I wanted to spend in there.
Food: Very nice and solid, although not as innovative as I would like. The British seeps through. If they got rid of the triple sorbet horror show it would be very horosho. #wordplay
Bonus: It is so damn cool to know that a fancy restaurant will cater to veganism without having to do a lot of preparatory legwork. And it’s nice to have an upscale option for going with nonvegan fancies, like business colleagues or relatives.
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Vegan Michelin Series: A Return Visit to Clove Club, London’s Highest Ranked Restaurant
For our recent anniversary (aw thanks), Husbo and I returned to one of our favorite fancy restaurants in London, The Clove Club. We celebrated our anniversary there two years ago, and this year we decided to shake our shoulders like Danny Burstein’s adorable Tevye and make a tradition of it. You might recall that last year, we were on a train to Chengdu for our anniversary, which was prettay prettay disgusting. To make up for that (plus 98% of all our train experiences last year), we splurged on this super extravagant dinner again. The Clove Club is one of the few Michelin-starred restaurants in London that will offer a worthwhile vegan tasting menu, so it always comes to mind first when we are considering super swanky restaurants.
One of the first UK restaurants to use the ticketing system, where you pay when you make the reservation, The Clove Club is a ritzy Shoreditch restaurant with an exclusive club-like vibe, located in Shoreditch Town Hall. It has one Michelin star and it’s the UK’s highest ranked restaurant on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list, at #33. (Last year it was #26, just saying.) (Alinea is #34 so take this list, like all lists/awards, with a dangerous-for-your-blood-pressure amount of salt since that restaurant is extraordinarily better than most of the places ahead of it.)
Also, I believe it’s the only restaurant I’ve ever been to that offers a soft pairing instead of just a wine pairing with your menu. They even say on the website that they do that; it’s not like some secret you have to ask for. Especially in London, where most of the social activity for a non-drinker involves watching everyone else drink till they’re pissed (UK has a serious alcoholism problem but it’s part of the culture so it will remain ignored), it’s great for a non-drinker to have a nice option. In fact, on this visit our waiter told me that not only were they offering a soft pairing, they had two soft pairings available! I could choose between juice and tea, and obviously I chose juice. There were a few missteps in there, but I’ll talk more about that below.
Soon after we were seated, we were asked about our beverages – the wine and the soft pairings, yes, but also whether we wanted still or sparkling water. You know I appreciated getting right to the most important issue – water – without making me take out my big reusable bottle from my bag in a place like this. As usual, I chose still and Z chose sparkling, and the server assigned to our water needs (lol the dream) got confused and gave both of us sparkling for much of the meal. Luckily our main server took over at some point and gave me still. It is hard to chug sparkling and I like to chug!
We were getting the tasting menu, and so the first few dishes sent out were little off-menu ‘gifts’ from the kitchen to amuse our bouches, which are always some of the most interesting bites. I received an adorable tiny crispy cup of green beans and edible flowers that tasted of dill, and even though I tend not to like dill because of food poisoning memories, I loved this. Next up was a little turnip roll, looking like a sushi roll or a baby burrito or something but it was rolled up turnip. Sounds whack, tasted amazing.
My last amuse was a chickpea panisse, and I almost high-fived the waiter who brought it. I was psyched for some acknowledge that vegan proteins exist, and also I just forking love everything made with chickpea flour, like socca, and this was a little bite of socca.
To follow up/erase the little treats, they next brought me melon gazpacho granita as a palate cleanser, though a more interesting one than usual.
At this point in my notes, I wrote ‘Almost a potato but watery’ and I have zero clue what I meant by that or what point in the meal it was supposed to correspond to, if it was related to this meal at all. Recent-past me was very wise though, so I will use the phrase as much as I can.
Next, I was brought one warm tomato. I kind of thought ho boy, is this how it’s gonna be? After that promising chickpea panisse? But it was one warm good tomato, doused with soy sauce, almost a potato but watery, and even though it was hard to eat, I remembered that it’s all about the meal at large at a place like this, not each individual dish. It was served with a fresh cucumber juice, tinged with a little apple and some other subtle hints of this and that to make a really lovely, refreshing cucumber juice. A soft pairing win!
My next course needs no introduction. It was BEANS! I love beans oh how I love beans, especially in fancy restaurants who would love to only give me single tomatoes and no protein. The white beans (the server said cocoa beans?? but no) (I googled and apparently Coco de Paimpol beans are a thing and are whitish so that is probably it; shortening it to ‘coco’ is misleading guys!) were served with impeccably cooked and flavored mushrooms, so it was a dish I often cook myself but made delicious and wonderful. My drink of the moment was a buckwheat iced tea, which I loved because I love buckwheat and really got into buckwheat teas in China last year. It was Bucks County up in here! Calling it another Soft Pairing Win even though it was a tea and not a juice and I thought they were two different routes to take but I guess sometimes they share the path?
The next course was my absolute favorite and brought the whole shibang to another level. I got a little bowl of the freshest herb broth that was like if everything green and fresh and herby was reduced to their strongest, most sublime levels of green and fresh and herby taste concentration and probably mixed with a little magic. It was INCREDIBLE. I mean yeah it was broth, but incredible forking broth. There was a baby potato and a single strand of samphire in the bowl, which was fun to try to get when you were drinking directly from the bowl. I would say the potato in the broth was almost a potato but watery, but it really was a potato. It was served with the greatest piece of solid food ever, too – a cracker of crispy potato topped with white bean puree and amazing grilled mushrooms (but grilled differently from the previous course, I believe). Everything about this course was perfection and I really wanted to shout ‘just give me a million of these, please’ which really should be an option when you are paying this much but alas, I behaved.
Next up to bat, we have a wonderful white beet dish. The beets were sliced super thin and I guess the whiteness instead of the redness means there is no trace of any dirt taste that regular beets often have, and they were topped with slivered almonds. The waiter poured a Greek yogurt (made from almonds) sauce over the whole thing, and it was splendid. It looks like a mess because I didn’t get the picture until after the pouring happened, but whatevs. So good! And I appreciate the perfectly smooth almond yogurt sauce that I like to think they made just for me that night.
While this course was great, the soft pairing was…not. You may remember from my previous Clove Club review that I was given a red pepper juice to accompany a corn-based dish, and the match of red pepper and corn was highly praised. However, I also mentioned that too much juiced red pepper is a lot to ask someone to drink. At this latest meal, the red pepper juice was a weird match for white beet and yogurt, and the giant glass was way too much to ask. I could barely finish two sips before I wanted to barfalomew. Soft Pairing Fail.
Luckily, this was about the time they brought out their superb sourdough bread, so I could get rid of the taste. Their bread is so good we would have happily filled up on it even though everyone always says not to do that, for some dumb reason.
The more substantial ‘main’ dish section of the menu came out now, and my first of these was a grilled baby eggplant with cumin sauce and eggplant caviar. So, not the most interesting or inventive dish, but it tasted great and was well made. Still, given the setting, you’d hope for something more imaginative. I LOVED my soft pairing, though: a steaming hot pot full to the brim of mushroom tea. I drank the whole pot and loved it. The taste was very subtle, almost bland, but that’s okay for tea, and the smell was sensational (just like MUSHROOM and SO STRONG).
The last of the savory courses was one of my favorite parts of the dinner: a plate of maitake mushrooms and broccoli and other greens and leaves served with a courgette (zucchini) puree and a Jura foam. Jura, I learned, is a region of France where they make their own kind of French wine and so this foam was made from that, I guess, but was cooked and foamified so it didn’t taste like or have alcohol. So fancy, so delicious! They really based my meal around cooking mushrooms impeccably and I am down with that.
Unfortunately, my soft pairing for this wonderful course was a big bummer: They brought me a non-alcoholic beer. Okay there’s a lot to go over here. First of all, I said juice pairing. JUICE. Second, you’re assuming that the people not drinking alcohol still like the taste of alcohol. That’s a very bold assumption to make, and one that I don’t think will ever prove true in any situation. Third, you don’t know why I’m not drinking. What if I was an alcoholic and the taste of beer, even without the alcohol, was a big trigger? Fourth, WHO LIKES NON-ALCHOLIC BEER? Literally NO ONE on the planet. Lastly, and most offensive to me personally, this felt exceedingly lazy. We’re paying more than we’ve ever paid for any meal up in here, and someone back there is like ‘hmm, we need a drink for this dish that isn’t alcohol, oh I know, how about just this beer that the alcohol pairing is getting but the non-alcoholic kind! Great! Except not great. Beer is disgusting and non-alcoholic beer is bullshit. SOFT PAIRING FAIL. Ugh thank goodness most of this meal was wonderful because this aspect of it feels really like a slap in the face.
Luckily dessert came next to distract me from my OVERWHELMING RAGE.
And dessert was epic. You know from my past reviews of fancy places that don’t primarily cater to vegans that they often just can’t do dessert. They either buckle under the pressure or they never give a shit in the first place and they go ‘oh here’s a plate of fruit and, if we feel like trying a little, that same fruit made into a syrup or a sorbet ENJOY THAT WILL BE $100!’ But my two desserts (actually, three sort of) from Clove Club this evening were remarkable. Not only were they both interesting and creative, but they were also delicious.
First up was a blackcurrant granita with soy foam and berries. The soy foam was more of a substantial cream and there was more of it than there was granita, so that really saved this from being one of the aforementioned kinds of lazy vegan desserts, as did the fact that it tasted great. The granita was a little too melted underneath the cream, like it was ready in the kitchen before the server fetched it for us, but things happen. There was also a shot of olive oil poured across it, which seems fancy and whimsical but I couldn’t really taste it so that’s just like unnecessary fat but whatever. Oh so for my American readers, blackcurrant is like the most popular fruit flavor in the UK. Husbo keenly observed (he’s so keen) that it’s used as commonly here as grape flavor is in the USA. It’s pretty strange to UK friends that blackcurrant juice et al. is just not a thing in the states. Anyway great dessert. BUT, the real treat of this course was the soft pairing! Thank god they returned with such a strong followup to the Biggest Fail in Soft Pairing History because this blackcurrant and beetroot soda was so incredible, so perfect and delicious with both flavors balanced, that it almost made up for everything. I wish I could buy this soda from them to have at home. And I don’t even drink soda!
But the last dessert was the winner, maybe of the whole meal, maybe at least tied with that herby broth and potato thing. This is the kind of dessert I want to share with all future omnivore restaurants who claim to be able to make me something good. It was a caramel ice cream (WIN) on top of a coffee meringue foam (WIN) on top of potato sticks (WHAT SURPRISE WIN). The potato sticks were exactly like those things we’d get at a Wawa as kids, which I completely forget the name of but could NEVER forget the taste. YOU KNOW like those superskinny shoestring potato sticks (the name was probably Potato Stix lol) and they were so greasy and salty and amazing. Well whoever had the idea of putting them with caramel ice cream and meringue deserves a medal. This dessert was REMARKABLE. And I don’t even like coffee, well I don’t drink it, but in dessert form it was great, especially mixed with caramel. And potato stix. The soft pairing was a pear juice with coffee syrup and it was delicious. Another SP Win.
As is the case with these fancy super long tasting menus, when you think you are finished and you can’t possibly eat another bite of anything, they bring you petit fours with your coffee or bill as supposedly a little treat but at this point it’s like a mockery of your stomach. Unforch, Husbo got the petit fours because they didn’t have vegan versions. However, they gave me a house-made dark chocolate bar, as they did last time, and it’s good chocolate. And since the guy who brought it to me felt bad that I didn’t get the petit fours/knew I was going to mention this on the internet/saw how much I loved chocolate by my face tattoo that says I Love Chocolate, he brought me a second one! So I brought 1.5 very nice dark chocolate bars home.
All in all, this was a spectacular meal that lived up to our expectations and memories of last time. Even though there were a few missteps and a few things that are making my veins pop and not in my forearms like I like, overall it was wonderful. But it is incredibly expensive, and even though it was a special occasion, it feels very strange to spend that much money on a meal. That guilty feeling is stronger than usual now that it’s like end-of-days time and everything is going to shit, so it might have to be the last fancy meal for a while. Or, if it really is end-of-days there is no reason to save our money soooo maybe not. WEIRD ENDING.
CLOVE CLUB, SHOREDITCH, LONDON, UK, EUROPE FOR NOW
Water speed: Pretty good, though not as good as last time and I got a lot of sparkling by accident. I know that sounds like theeeee most entitled bullshit to complain about but that kind of detail is what Michelin stars are given for.
Service: Very nice.
Bathrooms: The bathrooms are downstairs, dark and reminiscent of like a brothel in 1800’s New Orleans. You know what I mean? The lighting was dim, the colors were dark reds and browns, and random cosmetics were scattered on display. A very strange mood going on but it was nice and clean, so whatever! Also I liked that the stall was separated from the sink area, despite being a single serve bathroom. People don’t have to wait outside that way, avoiding the awkwardness that comes from that. Oh the toilet seat was hysterically big and weird! That’s enough. (copied from previous review because it’s the same.)
Food: Splendid! I read over my previous review, and all my food-based complaints seem to have been addressed: the lack of protein was fixed (they could still do more, especially in the two mains, but still, an improvement), the desserts were improved by extraordinary leaps and bounds.
Bonus: Great to have a fancypants restaurant for special occasions/profligate spending when you have no need for money anymore.
Hell Yeah Veganism: “Challenge Accepted”
Hi everyone! I’m going to be away for about a week (unless I am able to blog on the road!), but in the meantime I have a request for you. My next TV-related posts (to appear concurrently with Veganizing “Friends” and others) will be a Barney Stinson-inspired “Challenge Accepted” series!
While the actual food made on “How I Met Your Mother” will be for a different project (which I will be able to announce soon!), this project will cover any food (or drink!) that you want me to veganize. I’m really only saying it’s HIMYM-related so I can use “Challenge Accepted” gifs like it’s my job. Give me your crazy, your interesting, your memories, whatever you want, and I will veganize it. For example, my aunt expressed her desire for chocolate-covered bacon (gross!) and fried Oreos (at least the Oreos are already vegan!). I guess I need to buy a deep-fryer!
Comment below with what you want to see, or just say hi, and I’ll see you in a bit!
Comment below with what you want to see, or just say hi, and I’ll see you in a bit!