“Bobbie We’ve Been Trying to [Like] You”: I Saw the West End Revival of Company Againby Randi / December 13, 2018
I know, I’m going super big and bold with that title but you know what? It is 8 sleeps till Christmas and as ‘Love, Actually’ told us, “it’s Christmas, and at Christmas, you tell the truth” (there’s a lot of weird shit in that movie but that’s probably the strangest statement passed off as universal knowledge). And that’s the truth, babies! Club Mexicana, formerly at the Dalston bar Pamela and now at the Spread Eagle Pub in Hackney, is serving up the best vegan food of any restaurant in the city. That’s an incredible feat, considering it’s Mexican (or “Mexican-inspired”) food, a cuisine London just cannot do well (it’s understandable given how far we are from Mexico but still). But for Club Mexicana, every single dish is a stellar achievement. Everything we tried absolutely wowed us, and even though we were so full we wanted to shout for another round of everything. If this new location were closer to me (it’s a PITA) I’d be there every week.
Even though London is positively crammed full of vegan options, I find that vegan restaurants here are mostly fine, not great. The best food in town is always, always found at stalls in street market set-ups, which are plentiful. So it’s no surprise that Club Mexicana started as one of those food stalls, in the Camden market. They still maintain their street food cred with stalls here and there, but their residency at the Spread Eagle is the way to go. It’s a cool, quirky pub, with vintage jazzy decor and candlelight. Like I said, this new location is inconvenient for me and I wish they had some delivery system worked out, but alas, it will remain a super special option for when we feel like sitting on buses for hours. And honestly, it would be so worth it.
We went recently when a friend was visiting and had simply the best meal in ages. Everything we ordered was sensational. My only issue was our table placement – we were right at the end of the bar, by the gap where servers had to continually go in and out of the bar area and where other customers would need to walk to enter the restaurant so we were jostled the entire time and it was tres annoying, . If you book in with them, request that you don’t get this table. I wanted to shout DON’T YOU KNOW WHO I AM but the situation on its face proved that the answer would be in the negative.
Other than that, it was the best. We started with nachos, as you have to do. When Club Mexicana first appeared on the scene and had one of their early pop-ups, I complained (of course I did) about how the nacho toppings, though fantastic, were stingy and left you with a basket of dry corn chips after not too long. Well, they kindly responded and instead of calling me out for complaining all the time, they said they would start putting all the good stuff on all the chip layers. That was almost four years ago! Obviously, they have the best nachos now, with great guacamole, red pepper queso, their signature pink onions, salsa, pickled jalapenos, sour cream, and chipotle chili oil. All I can do is quote the Hormone Monstress (see caption/watch “Big Mouth”).
“That was BEAUTIFUL!!! NO NOTES!”
Next on the small plate list was chipotle roasted pumpkin wedges. I didn’t think these would be too special because I was like “I eat pumpkin and other wintry squashes all the time, what could you do to blow me away?” but of course I was wrong because these trickster pumpkin wedges were amazing. They were big and delicious and cooked perfectly so there was no toughness left but they still had shape, and the chive aioli was perfect. It could have possibly used more to life up the flavor more but still, so good.
“Beautifully done my little yoda”
One of the most impressive Club Mexicana creations is their Mexican fried chicken wings, so we had to get an order. They have the perfect texture and the spicy fried coating is incredible. Served with salsa verde, sour cream, and hot sauce, this dish will make any dining companion a CM convert for life. I just wish the serving was bigger and that maybe the sour cream came in a separate container so there could be more for dipping.
“Hello my precious little ravioli”
I also got to try the annato glazed chicken skewers. If you’re choosing between the wings and the skewers, I think I’d give the edge to the wings, but you know what, don’t choose! Order both like we did. The skewers come in the most incredible queso sauce that we found ourselves dipping everything else into. I realize now that I don’t have a picture of the skewers, which makes me wonder if I’m dreaming up the whole thing.
The last of our small plates was the Al Pastor cauliflower, with charred pineapple, sour cream, and toasted cashews. The Al Pastor sandwich from Cinnamon Snail is one of my all-times, so it’s no surprise that this amazing flavor combo worked wonders on bites of fried cauliflower. Honestly cauliflower has no business being this good.
Onto the mains! For the bigger plates, we chose to get combos of their three taco offerings. They offer the tacos 3 for 10$ (that’s pounddollars) so you really can’t say no to that! My favorie upon favorites is the Baja tofish. Their tofish is the stuff of legend, and for dern good reason. It really is the best vegan fish anything ever. Man alive it’s incredible. The tofish taco is served with pickled cabbage, salsa verde, sour cream, and pickled chilis and it’s just perfection. The other two tacos are strong as well: we tried the jackfruit barbacoa (beef style jackfruit in salsa roja, roasted padron peppers, salsa verde, and sour cream) and the chorizo & potato (with salsa verde, chipotle mayo, pico de gallo, and pickled jalapeno). All three are sensational, really, but I think next time I should stop fooling myself and just get three of the tofish. I’m kind of obsessed.
You probably know by now that I’m weirdly obsessed with salad, and I try to force lettuce into most of my meals, so it should be no surprise that we (I) also ordered the autumn salad. It was a really big portion, great for sharing, and it was filled with roasted cauliflower, charred pumpkin, candied beetroot, mixed leaves, Mexican slaw, jalapeno-mango salsa, chive aioli, and toasted cashews. This was a fantastic salad, although it would benefit from cutting the leaves and the spiralized veggies into small, more manageable pieces. And it could have used more dressing, and more of a creamier one at that. But as salads go in places where your tablemates scoff at you for ordering a salad, this was among the better ones.
No trip to Club Mexicana is complete without dessert. They proved they know what’s up back at Pamela with their Choco Taco offering, oh man. While that was missing from the Spread Eagle menu, they more than made up for it with the current dessert list: a lemon & blueberry taco stack, and deep fried ice cream. Now, listen. The ice cream is from Black Mylk, which is just the greatest vegan ice cream maker in London, nbd. So I was so stoked to be able to get their ice cream here and not just at their stall in weekend markets hither and thither. Because their ice cream is so good, I wanted it just plain, not fried. But the staff said they couldn’t do that because it’s already prepped with the frying mixture or whatever. I was kind of annoyed, but there was no reason to be, because as intended with the crunchy fried coating, it is unbelievably delicious. They offer the deep fried ice cream in three flavors: Mexican chili chocolate, toasted honeycomb, and black rice horchata. Since there were three of us, we got all three! They are all wonderful but I think the horchata is my favorite, followed by the honeycomb. You really can’t go wrong though. I bet you think that’s all we got for dessert, but we also decided to get the taco stack! It’s sweet fried corn tortillas separated with layers of whipped vanilla cream, lemon curd, and blueberry coulis. Fruit desserts are not my thing, but this was very good. While I’m more of a reserved positive about it, my two companions were blown away by it, so you should give it a try. The homemade lemon curd is really impressive, as is the whipped cream, which I could have eaten a whole bowl of.
the little drink umbrellas in the ice cream lolol
So clearly you have to get to the Spread Eagle asap for some incredible Mexican vegan food. You can’t go wrong with your order, but to be safe, order everything! It’s all so good. Just please bring me if you go.
CLUB MEXICANA AT THE SPREAD EAGLE PUB, LONDON
Water speed: Actually great! They brought carafes and kept them coming, THANK YOU!
Service: Mostly fine.
Bathrooms: A step up from your typical pub bathroom, and a big improvement from Pamela.
Food: SUH. BLIME. Actually great Mexican food in London!
Bonus: We saw Kit Harington sitting nearby at the bar! We were so excited and stared a little too intently. Realized after several minutes of staring that it wasn’t him. BUT IT COULD HAVE BEEN.
Related Posts
New Orleans Inspirations: Fava Bean, Tempeh, & Okra File Gumbo
Oh okra, you beautiful alien you
Oh lordy lord, how good is gumbo?! WHO DAT! When I was in New Orleans last month, gumbo was obviously being sold everywhere you looked. I had delicious Gumbo Z’Herbes at the famous Gumbo Shop, which is a naturally vegetarian (and vegan if the roux isn’t made with butter) traditional gumbo, with parsley and cabbage and other leafy greens. I loved it and I could eat something like it every day, but seeing the tremendous variety of more interesting non-veg gumbos made me hella jealous.
I was so happy to find a meaty vegan gumbo at Seed, my favorite restaurant in NOLA, which used sausage-y seitan and a darker, more tomato-based broth than the zerby one (how I pronounce it because I only had one semester of French). So, seriously on my first day back home, I decided to make gumbo that was inspired by the Seed version’s meatiness but that retained the vegetable-heavy, healthy soul of Tess D’Zerbervilles. It also showcases okra, in my mind a necessary gumbo ingredient, and uses a variety of beans. Also! The file powder came straight from a central grocery store in NOLA, so it’s all totally legit. (Yes is it Zatarain’s but like that’s how you Jazz It Up!)
FAVA BEAN, TEMPEH, & OKRA FILE GUMBO
So, I’ve heard that okra, file powder, and a roux are all different thickening options, so you are only supposed to – or you only need to – use one, because they do the same job. I refuse to cut good solid American jobs so we are using all of them buster!
|
Ingredients
Directions
 So many sources of protein especially the baby’s bottom! |
 This is a roux a what a roux  If you are fancy, you can call this mirepoix. But only if you’re fancy  My new fave find  Frozen 2: The Fava Beans  Tempeh is the best food everrrrr  Kalesss  |
I hope you make this or something like it, because gumbo is the shizzzzzz and I don’t just mean the school where Elphaba and Galinda met. What are your thoughts about what defines gumbo? Is it the okra? The roux? The use of file? The fact that you have to eat it with a top hat on while listening to Iko Iko Un-Day? Let me know!
You know what, I’m gonna leave you with that song, because it is an even bigger part of New Orleans than gumbo…maybe.
(Admission: We heard this song everywhere we went (playing restaurants, played outside by street performers, anywhere) and it took awhile before I realized I was not correct in singing “Hey now hey now hey now hey now, Iko Iko Un-day, Giacomo’s in pastry cup with a sugar bowl in his hand,” how I had sung it for like…my life. I guess I just have sugar on the brain always?)
My New Favorite Restaurant in Baltimore: L’Eau de Vie Organic Vegan Brasserie
Before our very eyes, Baltimore has up and become a veritable vegan paradise! Well, if you know where to look. In the coming weeks, we’ll look at a whole bunch of vegan-friendly and amazing places (you can keep track of destinations, and read more posts about Balmore, as the kids say it, in the DESTINATIONS tab), but today is all about my new favorite restaurant in Baltimore: a French-inspired (hence the word I’m about to use:) brasserie called L’Eau de Vie, with an interesting all-vegan menu, some stellar dishes, super friendly service, and — WAIT FOR IT — the best water service maybe EVER (see the regular Laughfrodisiac Restaurant Review end notes). I KNOW! If you’ll find yourself in Maryland’s favorite city (but not its capital! some trivia for you)(are capital cities ever the best cities of the state? no), you must pay this place a visit. If not, read along with us and I guess pretend you’re eating this food; I know I am doing that right now.
L’Eau de Vie (which means The Shape of Water) (just kidding it’s The Water of Life, not a best picture winner OR a fish-f***ing movie) is a rather large and rather lovely waterfront space right between Harbor East and Fells Point. We walked there from Canton (look at me KNOWING SHIT) and it felt relatively safe and fine. And it’s easy to walk up Fells Point after for the nightlife if that’s the sort of thing you’re into. Me, I would just sit in the restaurant and eat the entire menu over and over, that’s the sort of thing I’m into, which, you’ll see, we tried to do. The staff was super lovely and the chef even came out to talk afterwards, which was a treat. I love talking to chefs pretending like I have any more sophisticated food thoughts in my brain than “please I have moar?” or “IT WAS SO GOOD”, but we had a nice chat. Their plats du jour, which is what I had ordered for my main (you’ll see boyyyys (you’ll see! the beauty of a studioooo that let’s us do our work and get paaaaid)(TAKE THE DEAL, ROGER)), will most likely change seasonally to reflect the best of what’s available and you know the weather and what people like to eat when it’s hot or cold out I mean you know what seasonally means.
Okay so the food, let’s get down to it. Between four of us, we ordered approximately 34 dishes. No that’s jokes but we had plenty, and it was RG (real good). We had enough that I had a sandwich leftover for our flight the next day! That’s my favorite kind of leftover. For appetizers, we ordered: the caesar salad, the mushroom pate, the seitan Rockefeller, and the pretzel bites. Let’s give each their due.
Let’s get the low point out of the way first, and it wasn’t even a low point, just underwhelming. With a little bit of luck work (My Fair Lady is next week’s show!), it could be stellar so hopefully some tweaks can be made. (“t-w-e-a-k-i-n-g tweaking, sounds like…he’s married” anyone?) The Caesar salad needs work. They need to double the amount of Romaine, and triple the amount of garlic-almond dressing, plus add some salt to the dressing and some more of the nut base for heft, and that’ll be great. It was too small and too nothing – there was barely any taste except plain raw garlic, which yes I love that but that’s not a Caesar.
The mushroom pate, on the other hand, was wonderful, and all three of my omnivore companions loved it, maybe even more than I did! I liked that it came with chip points because they were sort of like a cross between crackers and pita and tortilla chips and I love all those things. Any hesitation we had from the Caesar flavor(lessness) was nullified by the perfectly balanced taste of the pate.
The seitan Rockefeller, which means richest seitan in the world, was stellar, one of my faves. Maybe it’s just because I always love seitan, and they make their own in-house (you can even buy pounds of it ‘raw’ to cook at home! There’s a fridge case!). The Rockefeller sauce was delicious. It’s a super green sauce, filled with herbs and possibly spinach, and I love how fresh and strong it tasted. The pickled veg on the side was unnecessary; maybe a few actual pickles (in the American sense) would be better (or – you know what I always want – a small salad), or just roast the veg (or potato wedges!), since these root veg shapes were meh. but they were the garnish so no real complaints. The actual dish, the seitan, was great.
The last of the appetizers was my favorite thing of the whole meal, and so good I almost cried. I’m just SO PLEASED. These are the pretzel bites with spicy beer cheese, a play on the movie theatre and ballpark staple of my childhood. You all know how important it is to me that milkshakes are thick (thin milkshakes are just milk and they are an abomination to the phrase and to my existence if we wanted sweet milk we would buy a carton of Alpro chocolate soy for $1) but equally important to me is the quality of soft pretzels. It is hard impossible to find decent soft pretzels in England (so I make my own (“I’m 100% that bitch”)), especially coming from the city that perfected them (Philly). I did not expect these soft pretzel bites to be some of the most perfect soft pretzels of any size or form I’ve EVER had. The texture, the bite, the chewiness, the flavor, it was all heavenly. Literally almost cried. How did she do it? HOW? Teach me your secrets! They’re amazing. And the beer cheese? STOP. It was INSANE. Oh my god this was the best dish ever and you need to go to Baltimore and order it and find out how she made both components because they made like a Vedge-worthy dish. UNBELIEVABLE. I want pretzels and I didn’t raise any dough today DAMMIT.
For our mains, the three of them ordered sandwiches which I found hilarious but it was smart because sandwiches are some of the best food on the planet; Joey Tribbiani would never steer us wrong. (On my 115th rewatch, he’s probably the best character too.) And I ordered a terrific plat du jour. Between us we shared:
- the BL-TBD panini: tofu-bacon, lettuce, apple, and herb mayo
- the grilled seitan sausage reuben: their housemade seitan-sausage, sauerkraut, cashew cheese, thousand island dressing
- the double-decker sandwich: tofu-bacon, seitan-sausage, cashew-cheese, hyphen-overload, herb mayo, lettuce, apple
And my plat du jour of the herb mushroom crepes, with seitan-filled crepes, creamy herb mushroom sauce, and a baby spinach salad. (Did I get it just because it came with more salad? No! Not entirely.) We also added sweet potato fries on the side of one of the sandwiches.
The crepes were by far my favorite, and for the first time I felt like I did the best ordering. I always feel order envy and regret but not tonight! I never have crepes, just not usually my thing, maybe because of Ricky Bobby, but these were incredible. The seitan cubes were great but that mushroom sauce was real French restaurant perfection. It was saucier than it appears in the picture but I would have appreciated a little cup of more of the sauce just because man alive it was so good. I want that now too! Writing about food before dinner is rough!
The sandwiches were all good, but the seitan-sausage Reuben won the day for I think everyone. We have had our fair share of Reubens since vegan Reubens are also on my Very Important Food list, and usually I’m partial to tempeh-based ones. But this was GREAT. Inside shot:
The grilling really made it sing, and the combo of the sausage and the cheese and the sauerkraut was just right. SO GOOD.
I also liked the other two. The tofu-bacon, lettuce, apple, and herb mayo one felt very springy and fresh, and grilling it (it was also a panino) really made it work, especially with the fresh apple in there. The double-decker was good but I’m not a huge fan of an extra slice of bread in the middle of a sandwich so that’s purely just not my order. And this bread needed to be toasted; I think that would have been better. It was a little dry too, so a lot more of the mayo and cheese is definitely needed.
So that was our dinner at L’Eau de Vie, and despite my few bits of constructive criticism, it was sublime. It was pretty great all around, with some dishes spiking to absolutely amazing, making this my fave restaurant in the city and my #1 Must Return To If I’m Ever In Baltimore Again I Mean Surely I Must Be At Some Point Right restaurant. I highly recommend a visit!
L’Eau de Vie Organic Brasserie, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Water speed: Our waitress was probably the fastest shot in the West with her pitcher of water. She would refill our glasses before they were even halfway through; it’s like she saw me coming and it was amazing. We were all in awe of her water skill. This sounds poss sarcastic but I’ve never been more serious; you know I need my water.
Service: Really nice and friendly!
Bathrooms: Big, clean, nice single serves.
Food: Overall great, some incredible. Would love to return.
Bonus: An all-vegan restaurant with quality French dishes? making their own seitan? with juices and smoothies and all kinds of my favorite things??? The best!
