Eating Vegan in Liverpool: Maray & Our Kitchen

August 17, 2018

Veganizing “Friends”: The One With 5 Steaks & An Eggplant

September 28, 2013

No, not that kind of stake! Remember from, well, “The One With Five Steaks & An Eggplant”, when Monica’s restaurant switches meat suppliers and she gets free stuff and brings it home to the guys to make amends? Let’s backtrack! So much is happening: Monica gets promoted at work, Ross’s birthday is coming up, Chandler is impersonating a hot guy for a hot lady. Half the Friends – Rachel, Phoebe, and Joey – don’t make as much money as the other three. The moneyed 3 don’t realize this, and they keep coming up with expensive ways to celebrate things like birthdays and promotions, to the 3 poorpups’ chagrin. Poor Rachel, Phoebe, and Joey – in multiple senses of the word – finally have to confront the others about the situation.

Joey: (clearing his throat a lot) Ok, um, uh, we three feel like, that uh, sometimes you guys don’t get that uh… (Pause) We don’t have as much money as you.

Monica: Ok.

Ross: I hear ya.

Chandler: We can talk about that.

Phoebe: Well, then…Let’s.

Ross: Well umm I, I just never think of money as an issue.

Rachel: That’s ’cause you have it.

Ross: That’s a good point.

This conversation occurs after a pretty uncomfortable (and unsatisfying) celebratory dinner for Monica, in which the 3 povers order basically nothing, but do it hilariously. “And…take care!” (This is the only video from this episode I could find, and since I have to share videos as much as possible, here you go.)

After the confrontation comes expected friction and resentment. Finally, Monica, Ross, and Chandler try to fix things by sharing the titular 5 steaks and an eggplant with the others.

Chandler: Gee, Monica, what’s in the bag?
Monica: I don’t know, Chandler. Let’s take a look.
Phoebe: Oh, it’s like a skit.
Monica: Why, it’s dinner for six. 5 steaks, and an eggplant for Phoebe.
Unfortunately, Monica ends up getting fired because she wasn’t supposed to take the food from the new meat supplier. See? Meat ALWAYS CAUSES TROUBLE. Best to just avoid it completely.
Anyway, we won’t get in trouble for having this food, so let’s make some eggplant. And then we’ll figure out what kind of steak/stake we want to work with. (Side note: I just thought of the most difficult Pictionary challenge ever: the kind of stakes that you mean when you say ‘the stakes are high’. How do you picturize that!!!!)

Chop this b

Boil and cover. Duck and cover

Salty dog

I’m going to give you instructions for extremely simple, fast, and yummy miso-glazed eggplant. This dinner is all about convenience, because I figured out what kind of ‘steak’ I want to use.

MISO-GLAZED EGGPLANT

One eggplant, chopped into 1-inch pieces
2T miso
1T tamari

DIRECTIONS:

Boil the eggplant in about 1 inch of water, covered, for about 10 minutes, until soft.
Drain the water as best you can, and add the tamari and miso. Stir and cook over medium-high heat for about 10-15 minutes, until everything is browning and infused with the goodness of Asian salt products.

See there are 5!

Now for the five steaks…I think instead of whittling my own wooden stakes, I’m going to heat up some already made mandarin chicken pieces from Trader Joe’s. They are like steak. Enough. And they are really good. They come in a close second to the Trader Joe’s Chickenless Nuggets or whatever they are called, in the beige bag. Those are my favorite. Anyway. It’s all good fake chicken.

It’s eggplant in an eggplant dish!!! Cute

So, this was a fun and slapdash “Friends”-themed dinner! See, even when you are pressed for time (and energy), you can always count on “Friends” to lead the way. Like they said, they’ll be there for you.

Giveaway Trivia!!

In another storyline, Chandler was pretending to be a man with a much deeper and dorkier voice when a ‘hot-sounding woman’ called. What was this man’s name?
Ross’s birthday hoopla in this episode includes dinner, cake, and a concert to see what band?
Who gives Monica a hickey?

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

September 27, 2014

Before we get into the important food-related stuff, let’s acknowledge how difficult it is for me to leave the title like that. But that’s actually what this new amazing restaurant is named and how it is written: Charlie was a sinner. With the period. I love it! But even more, I love the place. It’s the new all-vegan bar from one of Philly’s favorite young restaurateurs, Nicole Marquis of HipCityVeg fame and general wonderingment. Charlie is a swanky, dimly lit, old-Hollywood inspired bar with a creative, upscale menu both for drinks and for small plates. Even early in the run, almost everything I tried was wonderful.

Ricotta and amazing toast

Each time I ate at Charlie, my table began with a toast starter called Our Ricotta, which is a dip made from tofu, agave, black pepper, and olive oil and served with fantastic toasted bread. Internet vegans are seriously divided over this faux-ricotta, because it is kind of just whipped tofu and everyone’s like, oh I can make something more interesting than this. The crazy thing is, when I’ve shared this with dairy-cheese-eating omnivores, they’ve loved it! Omnis love the ricotta more than tofu-loving vegans! Anyway, yes it is extremely subtle and maybe boring for some people, but I like subtle (and sometimes I like things on the blander side) and it was lovely.

Another item I can’t help but order every time I’m there is the Maryland-style crab cake sliders, which I think is Charlie’s best item. I suggest you also get at least 2 orders (per person) because they only come with two little magical sliders, and they are usually on the happy hour menu (so, for only $4 or so). So get at least a few because they are indeed magical. The zucchini-based patties have the perfect flavor, definitely evoking a crab cake but not fishy or faux-fishy in the slightest. They’re lightly fried (I assume) but not at all greasy. The little semolina rolls somehow melt in your mouth. They are so soft and buttery but not in the gross usual Wonderbread way. Just outstanding.

Maryland-style crab cakes

Various sorts of tacos are also common happy hour staples, with one decent soft taco for $3. I’ve tried both the mushroom and the squash, and even though mushrooms are one of my top 4 foods, the squash taco is much more interesting.

Squash taco, above, and mushroom, right

Korean-style fried tofu

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

Korean-style fried tofu

In the summer, you couldn’t go wrong with the heirloom tomato salad anywhere, and Charlie’s was delicious. I am not the biggest fan of raw tomatoes, but heirloom tomatoes at the height of their season? Amazing. It was a seasonal special, so I suggest you order whatever is in season when you go. The salad mixed fresh tomatoes with soft peaches, arugula, and some kind of candied crunchy nut. So delicious!

Heirloom tomato salad

I can also recommend the stunning fresh fig salad, which is on the regular menu. It mixes the figs into a watercress salad with a vanilla bean vinaigrette. Who even thinks of basing a salad dressing around vanilla bean? Super impressive.

Fig salad

Pappillote

Less impressive but not bad was the pappillote of baby fennel, a beautiful smelling and looking soup of tofu, fregola sarda (my favorite Italian grain), and the common stew vegetables. It arrived wrapped in ballooning plastic that was cut by the server very dramatically, and it was all very exciting and nice, but the taste was lacking. It needed a heavy dose of salt – and I usually am extremely sensitive to salt in my food. I would stick to the more fancy bar-type foods that are easier to eat and save the Italian soups for Italian restaurants.

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

Bucatini and “meatballs”

Chickpea fries

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

A surprisingly great mocktail on offer is the spicy pineapple, which blends the fruit with agave, lime, and cayenne. Wonderful! I love that they have interesting mocktails on the menu; more places need to do that.
I obviously know that if you are visiting Philly, you have too many fantastic vegan options than you know how to handle. But if you are looking for a fancy-looking place with a great vibe, nice service, and wonderful food, try to get to Charlie was a sinner.. (I added an extra period I think that’s right.)

CHARLIE WAS A SINNER., PHILADELPHIA
Water speed: What’s my favorite thing, people? Glass water bottles on the table. They even had herbs in them!
Service: Very nice!
Bathrooms: Two fancily decorated and enormous singles.
Food: Delicious small plates so you can try a lot, especially during the crazy good happy hour specials.
Bonus: Great cocktails and mocktails, happy hour specials, chickpea fries.