January 19, 2023
Rachel Bloom Live in London: The Most Hilarious, Joyous, Loving Show in Townby Randi / June 3, 2019The Vegan Scene in Singapore
As we saw in the Singapore travel post, this city-state is a wonderful destination even if you aren’t (synchronized) swimmin’ in dollas. This tiny lil baby island republic has lots of interesting sites, history, and culture to offer regular old visitors like you and me (I’m assuming you, unless you’re like Jeff Bezos but I don’t think Bezos reads this site anymore, not after all the shit I said about him (#billionairesareimmoral)). But that’s not what we’re after. No, who cares about history? When it comes to Singapore, the #1 priority is the food. And like most of its Southeast Asian neighbors (and most places in general nowadays), the vegan food is incredible, cheap, and easy to find. As the kids today would say, it slaps. The food slaps. Am I using that right?
Not to make all my talk about Singapore reference Crazy Rich Asians (although it IS the best movie of 2018 and I dare you to question that (no really I’d love to talk more about 2018 movies if you want)) (okay you’re right, tied for first with Set It Up, of course of course), but you know the scene when Nick and Rachel arrive in Singapore and Dr. Azumi and her kind of magoo fiance take them to the food markets and Nick’s like “Singapore’s the only place in the world where market stalls earn Michelin stars” and you’re like “okay buster that happened like two times ever, chill your jets” but you don’t actually say anything mean to Nick because he’s too really really ridiculously good-looking? That scene very accurately captures my time in Singapore, just in awe of the incredible food. Pretend every day is Thanksgiving and/or you’re practicing to be a competitive eater. Act like those monsters at President Snow’s fancy parties in the Capital. We went to those markets. And you’ll go to those markets. Because honestly, all you should be doing in Singapore is eating, and then going to see all the cultural sites mostly to build up an appetite.
That CRA market, Newton Centre, might be famous for its pork noodles and its chicken rice, plus its long lines of people waiting for those classic dishes, but vegans should eagerly jump right into the fray as well. You can easily get those amazing noodles sans meat, con veggies (Singapore mixes cultures and cuisines like I’m mixing languages), and there are veggies, tofu, soy milks, and beans-atop-shaved-ice all over.
A similar giant, crowded, amazing food market is the Albert Centre, which is where my (terrible; it was dark and crowded and also I was distracted by ALL THE FOOD) pictures were taken. The Albert (at 270 Queen Street) is less touristy than the Newton but just as good. I found some of my favorite vegan-friendly stalls here.
You can’t see it because of the terrible lighting (I told you, can’t be mad) but the sign reads “Woong Kee Traditional Beancurd”. Traditional beancurd??? Fire that sucker up and throw it at my face! Like with everything, you have to be careful and communicate that you don’t want any gross animal products, but this particular stall was pretty clear. I got a little cup o’ dessert beancurd, flavored with a simple syrup (not actual ‘simple syrup’, like a simple syrup). Who doesn’t love a cup o’ beancurd! (Lots of you I bet, but you’re missing out. TOFU IS WHAT YOU MAKE OF IT!)
If anyone goes and finds out what Healthy Bean has for sale, let me know; I’m sad it was closed.
One thing that Singapore does very, very wool is epic shaved ice dessert concoctions. You get a wonderfully wide range of topping options, from tropical fruit to sugar syrups to all kinds of beans (I love that Asia recognizes that beans are for every meal). You can’t go wrong doing what I did – just pointing at brightly colored pictures and saying ‘yes please’ and it will hundo p be delicious.
Don’t forget to order my favorite thing (signage-wise) at this stall – the rainbow grains! Best name for jimmies/sprinkles yet.
Okay, our next stop on our whirlwind tour of just some of what we ate in Singapore, is one of my favorites because I prefer supes healthy food, especially when traveling, but I know the majority of people like to indulge more when traveling. (“Why can’t you just bring a toothbrush?” “Same reason I’m not bringing my cholesterol medicine! I’m on vacation!” (Bobby Cobb, Cougar Town.)) But near the Chinatown Food Market was a place called Well Dressed Salad Bar & Cafe (282 South Bridge Road) that had my favorite ever kind of menu: juices and smoothies, plus truly epic loaded salad bowls. The vegan items were labeled with the Vegan Society logo, and they had all kinds of veggies, fruits, and fun additions like ‘springy tofu’ and tofu feta. You could also get any item as a salad OR a wrap. MY HEAVEN.
I ordered the Manja Ninja mostly for its name. No, it also had all the things I wanted: mixed greens, shredded beets, quinoa, edamame, peaches, avocado, the tofu feta, purple cabbage and a mustard-wasabi dressing. YUM.
We also had great, refreshing fresh juices.
Since all the healthy needs were being met, I also got an order of meaty skewers, called the Satay Party, you know because I love to party. Yes, in addition to all the juices and all the salads they also have a great hot food menu, including full vegan brunch, epic tofu egg sandwiches, shakshuka, soups, truffle mayo fries (!), and more. The skewers were made from grilled beancurd skin, served with cucumber, pineapple, and peanut sauce. So good! I wish I ate there a bunch so I could have tried more but we had such a long list.
Next up was an all-vegan, HappyCow favorite, a fast food eatery called NomVNom (Clarke Quay for me, but I believe has several locations). Junk food isn’t usually my favorite (see above, too much talking about salads) but I do like trying the crazy vegan options every so often. And NomVNom didn’t feel that junky. Sure it’s burgers and fries but it didn’t leave me feeling gross. It was also super delicious! It’s in the basement food court area of Clarke Quay, and there’s plenty of NVN dedicated seating so you can all enjoy your amazing burger together and laugh at everyone who still thinks veganism is hard.
I got the special Truffle Lion’s Mane burger and it was sooo good in like a creamy mayo chicken sandwich way, you know? It had a crispy lion’s mane mushroom patty, mushrooms on top, lettuce, and black pepper truffle mayo. I usually am a sweet potato fries person, at least over regular fries, but the menu was so extensive they had even more than those two to choose from! Pictured are my Jap Potato Fries, obviously ordered because of the name and obviously short for ‘Japanese’ but also, ya know, funny for JAP reasons. Yum! The whole menu looked incredible and I wish I could have tried everything. I mean look at these burgers! And don’t look at the weirdly crooked photo I took!
Let’s take a brief food pause to marvel at the shopping on offer in Chinatown. I bought some of the plush doggo toys, and my baby nephew loves his, so that’s great, but I still am kicking myself for not buying this teacup below, ohhh my god.
We’ve still got two amazing restaurants to talk about, two restaurants that were so great that I miss them like with my blood, like I feel it in my blood. First up is Whole Earth Vegetarian, the only vegetarian restaurant awarded the Michelin Bib Gourmand in 2016 and 2017, which I guess means this post is part of my #VeganMichelinSeries, whaaat. Turn! Of! Events! Whole Earth Vegetarian (76 Peck Seah Street), to none of our surprise by the way things in this post have been going, had a super extensive menu that was so hard to choose from, I think I took longer to order than I ever have ever ever. But I ordered SO WELL. First, we got their house specialty, the Enchanted Forest – monkeyhead mushrooms over broccoli. UGH IT WAS AMAZING.
We also got an incredible Thai rendang-inspired pile of DELICIOUS greens and spicy green beans with housemade tempeh, so this meal was basically all my favorite non-salad non-pretzels foods at once and it was MARVELOUS.
Okay folks, we made it to the last big restaurant meal before I share special bonus food at the end. This restaurant is ALSO one of my favorites EVER. Didn’t I say the food in Singapore was insanely great?? It really was. We’re up to Lotus Kitchen (133 New Bridge Road), which was very close to our hotel so like we should have gone there all the time but we only had three days, remember??? Anyway, so Lotus Kitchen is a vegetarian restaurant in the heart of Chinatown, and perfectly represents Singaporean culture in its cuisine: Chinese, but influenced by the other cultures in Singapore. Fusiony, and so good.
We had dumplings – OBVIOUSLY, because we are not stupid people – to start; plus like tofu skin roll up jawns filled with vegetables and just overall magic; broccoli because we needed more greens; and OF COURSE Singapore noodles because hellooo. The noodles were SO amazing and the sauce and SO creamy and SO spicy.
So, as you can see and because I am telling you so, vegan food in Singapore is superb. I would love to go back to all these places again and try all the other places on my long list that I didn’t have time for. THE BEST, THE END.
Oh I almost forgot, here’s your bonus: a salad I forget all the details of – what, where, why. Well no we know why, I love salad. Byeeees.
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Lucky Leek, Berlin: Fantastic Fancy Food With A Few Minor Hurdles
To celebrate our engagement, husband and I decided to treat ourselves to a fancypants dinner at Lucky Leek, an upscale all-vegan restaurant in Berlin. The food was stellar, but there were a few issues that prevent me from completely raving about it. However, based on the food alone I would definitely have to recommend Lucky Leek if you are looking for something lavish and delicious.
The restaurant itself was decorated simply and nicely, with lots of fresh plants and clean white and black decor. The menu options sounded delicious and was heavy on the spargel (asparagus), because it was spring and spargel (our new favorite word to say) was everywhere. We decided to each get the Chef’s Menu, which offered about five solid courses and several additional items. We got this for one good reason and one dumb reason (restaurant’s fault): Good reason: It sounded delicious and we were doing what Retta was telling us to do. Dumb reason: Only with the two of us getting the expensive 50 euro Chef’s Menu would we be able to hit the restaurant’s incredibly lame and stupid 100 euro credit card minimum. I mean…what restaurant on earth has a credit card minimum that high? That is super lame.
The only thing dumber? The restaurant would not give us tap water – you had to buy bottled water. I have never encountered this shittiness anywhere in the world. Even in cities where drinking the tap water would kill you, restaurants would still happily give it to you for free. Okay that’s a bad example but still. I am still battling rising blood pressure thinking about how stupid this is. If the food wasn’t so good, I would say let’s picket Lucky Leek with fire hoses until they give us free tap water. I mean, let’s do that anyway because I am starting to super hulk out again, but still, you should eat here because it is so damn good.
The only thing dumber? The restaurant would not give us tap water – you had to buy bottled water. I have never encountered this shittiness anywhere in the world. Even in cities where drinking the tap water would kill you, restaurants would still happily give it to you for free. Okay that’s a bad example but still. I am still battling rising blood pressure thinking about how stupid this is. If the food wasn’t so good, I would say let’s picket Lucky Leek with fire hoses until they give us free tap water. I mean, let’s do that anyway because I am starting to super hulk out again, but still, you should eat here because it is so damn good.
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We began with a really delicious amuse-bouche sent out from the kitchen with “our compliments”, which was nice but I was like “a better compliment would have been free tap water, yo. Or at least tell me I’m pretty.” Anyway, the amuse was a toasted carrot sandwich with a pepper and a pickle on top. It was delicious! I could have had 100 of them!
Our first real course was this fantastic salad that featured a raw zucchini roll-up filled with amazing truffled cheesy cream (I think the phrase cream cheese is disgusting even though I am from Philadelphia (snaps)). The salad was arugula, fancy carrots, and salted almonds in a potato dressing. I don’t really know what that means, but it was delicious. The main focus of the plate aside from the zucchini roll-up was kohlrabi carpaccio which was fantastic. Fanciest salad ever!
* Next up was this ‘spring consomme’, which was a lovely French-oniony soup with like wonton balls in the middle. Delicious wonton balls! It said it came with herbed pancake strips but I don’t remember that being the case, unless those little squares are the strips. The wonton was a cheesy semolina dumpling that was really yummy. * The standout dish was next, the pasta. I wrote in my notes that this ravioli dish was perfect! It had a ridiculously large spear of spargel across the top, and the ravioli was filled with more spargel! (Remember spargel is asparagus. We learn languages on this show!) The ravioli pasta itself was superb with that perfect chewiness and taste. It was in a Hollandaise sauce that was not disgusting; it was in fact delicious. The dish was spotted with beluga lentil samsa (which Google tells me is just a misspelled samosa, which wasn’t the case here) that was the perfect spargel accompaniment. It also was topped with ‘sage panache’ but that just sounds like a dapper old wise man. Like the nicest way to describe a dandy British man. That bloke is full of sage panache. Hahahahah. * THEN THEY GAVE US FRUIT SORBET TO CLEANSE OUR PALATES LIKE WE WERE FREAKING ROYALTY OR SOMETHING. It was melon and rose hip sorbet and it was so lovely! It throws me a little though to have dessert before the main main. (As a vegan, even the blandest lightest sorbet is usually our dessert, so my brain was like, oh man it’s over? And then it was hard to get out of that.) * The main main, or piece de resistance, as the menu actually said, was a “Seitan and Onion Roast Joint“, which I assume is similar to a Spike Lee Joint, but more delicious and filling and less upsetting in most ways. It came with potato and carrot puree, which is the kind of thing I make a lot (a LOT a lot) but obviously not as perfectly as this was. It also came with pak choy, which as far as I know is bok choy, but in Europe they call it pak choy and I kind of love the discrepancy and kind of hate it. But I love love bok/pak choy! And I will always welcome more greens on my plate! It was the perfect unexpected Asian accompaniment to the meat and potatoes. The joint was also topped with a beet and walnut confit and just wow everything was perfect. * Then came real dessert, a trio of uhhhmazing cake and cream confections. In the center was the raspberry cake, which was good but fruit flavored dessert is not my favorite when it could easily be chocolate instead. Much MUCH better was to the left, the coconut and nougat tartlet. Yes, that’s right, this entire meal was sponsored by the first Jon Lovitz episode of “Friends”. The crust of the tartlet (hehehe) was a bit shortbready, which normally I hate because it feels like my teeth are hurting, but this was fantastic – and cold, which helps. That middle layer of coconut nougat was incredible. Oh man. Just the most perfect layer of cream imaginable. Lastly, probably my favorite component was the mocha banana ice cream with the chocolate praline sticking out of it. I don’t usually like mocha or coffee flavors, but this was mostly banana with just a hint of something deeper and bolder. And I love ice cream so much. I don’t like that the amount of ice cream in this and every single restaurant is just that little ball that is so difficult to eat because you end up smearing most of it around the plate and you’re like, am I allowed to lick the plate? And you are like no, but then they should have just given you a large bowl of it to begin with. Anyway, it was fantastic, and that chocolate praline was like those really thin and crunchy Pepperidge Farm doodads but sooo much better. Everything was delicious and perfect and we were extremely stuffed at the end of it, as it should be.
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Carrot sandwich amuse-bouche 
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All in all, Lucky Leek was an absolutely fantastic meal, and if you are looking for something fancypants in Berlin, I can definitely recommend it. But bring a bottle of water with you — which is the dumbest thing to have to say about a fancypants restaurant, but I do not like being forced to pay for water.
LUCKY LEEK, BERLIN
Water speed: UGH FFS!
Bathrooms: Hilariously, the bathroom is in the back of the restaurant through a freaking beaded curtain, like in 1970s dorm rooms. So out of place and funny. Bathroom was fine.
Service: They were pretty nice, those water selling bastards.
Food: Delicious delicious delicious.
Bonus: Decent location. & maybe by the time you go they will have gotten the memo about the water? Go for the food.
Vegan Nigerian Pop-Up Dinner in London: One to Watch
There’s an exciting new pop-up to look out for, London! The Vegan Nigerian, a.k.a. Tomi Makanjuola, held her first vegan pop-up dinner last night at La Suite West Hotel in Bayswater, a.k.a. west AF but worth it, and with any luck it’ll be the first of many such events, if not the prequel to a café or restaurant, although pop-ups do have the benefit of seeming so cool and exclusive and everyone knows I like to pretend I’m cool. This meal had some kinks to work out, and there is room for improvement, but it showed so much potential for the future and I can’t wait to eat more.
2 minutes in and I already bent the restaurant’s flyer on the table
The dinner was held at La Suite West’s restaurant called Raw, a vegan-friendly place where I believe Tomi is a chef and they have a vegan English breakfast (the food not tea) that rightly doesn’t cost more than the non-vegan ones and so a trip there is in order. It was nice to have the fancy space available for this and not be in someone’s living room; it made it all seem very professional. A hilarious waitress came around with water and spilled mine and then told us how nervous she was, and we immediately said let’s all be friends since we’re clearly kindred spirits. A great start (not sarcasm). Then boxes of mango and pineapple juice were brought to our table (but no additional glasses; maybe they expected people to choose between water or juice, and like hell if I’m gonna ever limit my liquids!) which was kind of adorable. The wait for the first course was somewhat long, so having whole boxes of juice per table really helped the time pass/contribute to a terrible sugar rush.
At least it’s not the dumbest time I ever ordered a salad, not by a long shot.
For the first course, you had to choose between the vegetable peppersoup and the okra and sweet potato salad. Me, being dumb, I thought “Oh I’ve had vegetable soup for dinner for like 3 nights in a row, who would want it again” and got the salad. It was fine, but I tried my friend’s soup and it was SPECTAC. So I chose wrongly and I’ll never forget the regret. No just kidding, the salad was fine, a little misleading as it was mostly warm sweet potato chunks with very nicely seasoned okra. Two foods I love, and the okra was really good, but it was mostly sweet potato, and pretty plain at that. Like a whole big steamed sweet potato cut up on a plate with some okra. I may have just gotten unlucky with my plating favoring the potato more than okra and maybe others had a more balanced mix. It was fine, but that much sweet potato needed a sauce or a marinade maybe. Or just lesser amounts. Fine, though.
MAGICAL SOUP OF FAERYS
But that soup was really fantastic, a stand-out. The first thing I thought was that I need to find out how to make it because I want it for my next possible dinner, and I want a lot of it and I don’t want to have to steal it from my friend. It was a clear broth, which was unexpected (you hear pepper soup, you think like pureed red pepper or something (gross), but the one-word version of peppersoup tells you otherwise or something), with a mix of some chopped soup vegetables in there (potato and zucchini I think I saw? I don’t know I didn’t eat it), and then the whole thing was freaking doused in pepper, so much that it burned my throat going down, and chili pepper I assume, and of course other spices and yes I need to do some serious research before I try to make it myself, and anyway it was glorious. I feel like even though it burned so much, people who don’t really like spicy food would still enjoy it because the flavor was so sophisticated and interesting. Or maybe that’s a dumb thing to say, but it’s also dumb not to like spicy food. I’m really joking. I really can’t believe how much I’m going on about a freaking vegetable soup like I’ve lost my mind but my goodness, it was so good.
We also got a little basket of bread and the bread was good. I can say bread in Russian now. In semester 2 of this $!*(#)&$%^(!#*) language and I can say bread, at least.
Passing Strange
Choice was over after this course, which I appreciated, having made the wrong choice so early in the game and having lost all confidence in my ability to choose from that point on. Don’t know how I’m going to get dressed tomorrow. The main course was coconut rice with efo riro, or spinach stew, with baked plantain. I tried to make coconut rice once from a recipe online. It used a lot of full fat coconut milk, and so might have been good for a rice pudding, but it was too sweet for me for savory food. Because of this bad experience, I was hesitant about the pairing here. Of course, this being a professional chef, the coconut rice was just subtle enough to tell something cool was going on and formed a great complement to the stew. I would have liked more stew to balance the stew-to-rice ratio (my plate was clean when I finished, no traces of sauce, which seems odd when you’ve just eaten a stew), but what we had was very nice. You know how most spinach stews, or curries for the most part, feel very heavy in their spice profile, like everything is dark and deep and low on the chart of some unknown quality, like just totally warm but heavy? I don’t know but anyway, this one somehow felt bright, which was really cool. It had all the interesting warmth you want from a stew yet accomplished it without the heavy tones. The plate was encircled by smears of a delicious and thick red pepper sauce, a great addition to the mix. And then the baked plantain slices were placed on top. Plantains are great, and although these seemed a little dry from what I’m used to (probably because they were baked not fried), they were still plantains, so, good. In a nice gesture from the kitchen, the kind that makes people happy because everyone likes free unexpected stuff, we also got an extra bowl of plantains for the table which I think I had more than my share of, sorry tablemates.
By this point I think we were already two hours into the dinner, which is extremely slow. I have a feeling the waitstaff just comprised friends of the chef who volunteered, and it was the first such pop-up, so delays are understandable but definitely something to work on. You don’t want people getting antsy. Luckily, they put a whole pitcher of water (cucumber water!) down for the table, so that was a spectacular move. People who work in restaurants or know people that do: ALWAYS give a table a jug of water, or at least the option to have one, ESPECIALLY if your place uses those bullshit glasses that fit about half an ounce of liquid in them and after every sip you need to flag down someone for more water but since this is London they never come. Those glasses are bullshit and should never have been made legal. So, pitchers are great, and every restaurant in the history and future of the world to ever exist should learn this.
a non chocolate dessert that I enjoyed
Here is the same food pictured directly above just now unnecessarily shown from another angle I’m like a real food blogger now
Lastly, we had dessert, because that’s usually when people have dessert, except for one really strange fashion editor I worked for one summer in NYC who had dessert before her meals. She was strange for other reasons. Anyway, dessert was apple and papaya crumble with malt and vanilla coconut cream. We had some disagreement at our table as to whether the coconut cream would be ‘malt and vanilla’ flavored or whether the malt was a separate ingredient. I thought the latter and I was right, which restored some of my faith in my ability to make decisions. I think the malt aspect was a tiny bit of molasses-like syrup dotted on the crumble, or it could have been the flavor of granola-like topping. We can never be sure, though, because malt isn’t actually a real thing. It’s just something American candy makers and old-timey ice cream shoppes would advertise as a way to charge an extra 5c but it was really a lie. Malt is a lie. No I’m just joking I’m sure it’s a real thing I just have no idea what it is because I never liked those malted milk balls as a kid and I would never order a malted milkshake when a perfectly good chocolate milkshake was perfectly good without it. So I just don’t know. Anyway, dessert might have been the best part of the meal. Well no the soup that I didn’t have was my favorite, but the crumble was next. We were surprised at how well papaya worked to break up the apple flavor, especially because baked papaya seemed to have a lot more flavor than raw papaya. A wonderful combination. On the side was a separate cup of perfect coconut cream, like an actual cup. It was so much! It was probably too much but I will never look a gift coconut cream in the mouth. It was so decadent and smooth and light, the perfect consistency and flavor. Coconut cream is RG.
Before we returned to the somehow freezing again weather, Tomi’s friend made a speech that was the cutest, sweetest thing except when he said he thought vegan food was terrible at one point in his life, before her. Get a new story, omnivores! Y’all are a broken record! No but it was really sweet and it just seemed like all the guests at this first pop-up were nice people who wanted to support this nice person. There were some flaws but for the first go, it showed so much potential and I’m excited to see (eat) what’s to come.
VEGAN NIGERIAN POP-UP AT RAW
Water speed: Took a bit to get water, but when it came, it came in a big pitcher. That’s the way uh huh uh huh.
Service: I’ll give a pass since they were friends volunteering I think, and that’s super nice. One thing to learn next time is to bring the food for everyone at one table at once. Guy would come out with four plates, give two to the table next to us, and then two to our table, leaving another two at our table to wait for like 10 minutes for the next batch, and we aren’t heathens so we’d wait, and it was supes awk.
Bathrooms: The bathrooms are down a hall of the hotel (very close to the space) and SUPER DARK. Like, I didn’t know how to exit the first time. It was kind of scary dark, use the flashlight on your phone dark. I also got stuck in the stall once because I was pushing out but it’s a pull-in door. Dumb.
Food: Very enjoyable and shows a lot of potential.
Bonus: New nice-seeming person to look out for!
Water speed: Took a bit to get water, but when it came, it came in a big pitcher. That’s the way uh huh uh huh.
Service: I’ll give a pass since they were friends volunteering I think, and that’s super nice. One thing to learn next time is to bring the food for everyone at one table at once. Guy would come out with four plates, give two to the table next to us, and then two to our table, leaving another two at our table to wait for like 10 minutes for the next batch, and we aren’t heathens so we’d wait, and it was supes awk.
Bathrooms: The bathrooms are down a hall of the hotel (very close to the space) and SUPER DARK. Like, I didn’t know how to exit the first time. It was kind of scary dark, use the flashlight on your phone dark. I also got stuck in the stall once because I was pushing out but it’s a pull-in door. Dumb.
Food: Very enjoyable and shows a lot of potential.
Bonus: New nice-seeming person to look out for!
2 Comments
Randi! You are SO RIGHT about the best films of 2018. I swear that Crazy Rich Asians is going to end up in my top 5 most watched movies ever at this rate which is ridiculous given that all of the others were released in the 90’s! Everything you ate looks so good (even the salads but especially the last salad because EDAMAME!) but the broccoli mushroom dish looks the most perfect, I don’t remember the name of the place but it was in Austin and they did a plate like that but with some kinda gluten too and it was sofreakinggood!
I think it’ll be on my most-watched-ever list too because it’s the only thing that keeps me calm on planes now!!!