Wendell Pierce in Death of a Salesman at the Young Vicby Randi / June 25, 2019Shoobie Doobie Down to Dubai Where the Food is Great
Dubai was never very high on my to-do list, even though I’ve heard nothing but good reports from others. It just seemed a little plastic, a little bland, a little cultureless (and a lot problematic politically). But there’s much more to it than just being the enormous luxury mall capital of the world, and while I wouldn’t advocate choosing Dubai for a super long holiday over more interesting locations, it’s the perfect spot for a layover or, in our case, before a venture deeper into the Middle East. There’s plenty to keep you busy for a few days even if you aren’t rolling in oil money. Normal people live there too! And while I’m eager to share all the museums and cultural gems we discovered during our time in Dubai, today we’re discussing the vegan food and lodging because that’s what I am and that’s what I care about. And I’m going to save the best part for last so get your reading pants on!
Once we landed and showered (hooray for the room being ready for once!), we were ready to find what would be a favorite Dubai restaurant: Zaroob. I received several recommendations for this classic Middle Eastern place, including from my brother who according to the Snapchat gender-flipping filter is just me with shorter hair so of course I was going to love it. Considering my affection for hummus and bread for that hummus, Zaroob delivered. It was an easygoing place with a great menu of all my classics: hummus, bread, chickpeas, salads, other types of bread, other types of salads. I could literally eat that every day. And I do!
I assume that’s the Arabic on the first line but it looks like it says ugly and Zaroob is not ugly it’s beeyootiful
From the English menu (everything in Dubai is in English), we ordered the hummus with a Lebanese twist, the twist being I guess that it was topped with chickpeas and olive oil; I guess the Lebanese like cute lil nods to deconstructed hummus. We also got a fattoush, which came in three parts – the regular vinegary green salad, the dish of pita chips, and the plate of mixed herbs so that was fun. Our requisite foul (fava beans but like amazing) came in a large silver pitcher which I found hilarious (and hard to photograph).
We also got an order of za’atar manoushe, which is like a flatbread pie with amazing spices inside. We first went crazy for this dish in Jordan and we pretty much get it at every Middle Eastern restaurant every time.
I love this place. It’s casual, inexpensive, and delicious. Their menu said that they were coming to London soon but I guess we have different definitions of soon.
After a day of exploring the labyrinthine malls and city center (next post!), we had dinner at the vegan-friendly yoga studio & cafe (my favorite kind of place, honestly, I’m so crunchy) Life’n One (the accurate typography, I checked; it’s a contraction of Lifern I guess). The restaurant was outside in a gorgeous setting, dark but gorgeous, full of mosquitoes because of said darkness but gorgeous.
There are a few wooden tables out back (with spiders, hooray) and lots of carpets with cushions to lounge upon which isn’t the mooost fun when you are eating but it looks so nice.
As is my wont, I ordered the Superfood Salad, but this was the wrong order at such a me-centric joint. It was mostly kale, which yeah I love, but there wasn’t enough of anything else. It was supposed to be “hand-chopped kale” which I guess means “huge pieces I have to rip apart with my hands” with Mexican avocado, oven-roasted potatoes in tahini, pea shoots, pumpkin seeds, goji berries, and acai dressing. It was pretty much those big kale pieces and REALLY big potatoes. I should have tried the other salad which is I shit you not called ‘The Salad I Was Looking For’ (why didn’t I listen to it?) because it’s topped with ashwagandha and you know I love any bullshit about healing mushroom powders.
Z always orders right, and he got the Unbeatable Vurger, one of their classics. (Other classics included chickpea flour scrambles and omelettes and something incredible called Jungle on Toast so I really ordered wrong.) The Vurger is an oyster mushroom patty with faux Gruyere cheese (I feel like this was just a slab of tofu but who’s complaining), melted cheddar cheese, mushrooms, mixed greens, pickles, and sprouts. It was gooood!
But the best part is not pictured because I got it to go and it was hot in Dubai and it melted but it didn’t matter because it was incredible and delicious and messy and amazing. The Snickers pie. If you go, you get it. It’s everything you’re imagining it to be, but better and chocolaty-er (if I said chocolatier you’d think I was talking about a person so here we are) and messier.
Next up to bat is my favorite place in Dubai. Okay I say that a lot but I have a lot of favorites, it’s allowed. But the Arabian Tea House, an oasis in the middle of a long day of sightseeing, is legit my favorite of all. It has that classic Middle Eastern menu of all my faves but, like the best Tony Awards opening number of all time that I must admit will never be topped even though I’m a little meh on Neil Patrick Harris right now, BIGGER. The Tea House also has the loveliest setting, oh man, bright and airy (it is outside) in a cute but packed (popular for a reason) courtyard. And the food is wonderful.
Why is this wonderful place my top restaurant for Dubai? Well sure they had delicious watermelon juice, and great hummus, and amazing hot tanoor (their word, I don’t know it but I’ll use it) breads that they kept bringing me because I can demolish hot bread, but they also had a menu section called Emirati Salads so I stood no chance.
Obviously I got one, the Arabian Tea House Special Salad (this time I listened to what the menu was telling me; always listen when people/salads tell you who they are). It was a big ass bowl of sorrel, tomato, basil, coriander (European for cilantro), onion, pomegranate seeds, “baby rockets” as the menu said (they meant rocket/arugula obvs but the extra ‘s’ may have been the final push to order it), olive oil and lemon juice, served with even more fresh tanoor bread. THANKS.
As usual, we over-ordered and yet finished everything because it was fantastic. We got SUCH GOOD HUMMUS, like memories of Tel Aviv amazing hummus. We got the aforementioned watermelon juice that came with a big ole hunk of watermelon, please and thank you. We got a dish of navy beans ‘in a sauce’ that turned out to be tomato-y and thus it was like literally a dish of baked beans and we found that hilarious but it was good so who cares, especially when it required moar bread.
Okay in hindsight I guess we didn’t grossly over-order but I remember being grossly full, probably because we had like 11 bread refills. I LOVE THIS PLACE.
We have one more restaurant to talk about before we get to my favorite non-hummus topics (beds and swimming). One night, before we went to the top of the Burj Khalifa (like I said next post!), we ate dinner on the water at Souk Al Bahar (across the bridge from the big mall) at a restaurant called Baker & Spice. This restaurant has a surprisingly good vegan pasta option, and while I usually never order pasta out (I-ah come-ah from the eye-tals I-ah make-ah it good!), I’m glad I got this. It was vegan beetroot bucatini with Madras chickpea curry, lemon, and coconut. Interesting mix but it worked! We also shared a nice lentil soup.
We sat outside on the patio so we could see the fountains, and we had to move a few times because of gross ass smokers, but it was worth it because that night was the special 10th anniversary show for the Burj Khalifa. Every 20 or 30 minutes, there was a fantastic fountain show by the designers of the Bellagio fountains. It was so fun!
All in all I had pretty great vegan food in Dubai. There’s one more meal to share, but that will come in the travel post because it was in the middle of nowhere in another Emirate – we toured all 7 in a day! Have you been to the Arabian Tea House? Did you get mosquitoed at Lifern One? Do you know when Zaroob is coming to London? Comment away!
LODGING
When we first arrived in Dubai, cranky and tired and pushing through the jet-lag jello barrier, our room at the Four Seasons Hotel was like a miracle. We stayed at the DIFC (Dubai International Financial Centre, like the Wall Street/Canary Wharf area) location because we could use corporate rates which worked out awesome because big announcement: THE FOUR SEASONS DIFC HOTEL BED IS IN MY TOP 5 BEDS OF ALL TIME! OF ALL TIME! It was PERFECT. Those pillows. Those pillows were the best pillows I’ve ever encountered. I dream about those pillows while sleeping on inferior pillows. (Not that I sleep anymore since my jet lag from this week’s long-haul is the worst it’s ever been for some reason but that’s not a complaint for you, that’s a complaint FOR THE GODS.)
The service was really nice too, and every day (or sometimes twice!) they’d bring us little treat gifts, like a box of fancy dates or a fruit plate. Housekeeping also always lined up my toiletries in straight army lines which I found hilarious.
Despite being in the quieter financial centre, it wasn’t a bad location. Sure you could choose to be closer to the lights and crowds by the malls and the Burj Khalifa but in the DIFC, we were closer to Zaroob, so, priorities. It wasn’t hard to get anywhere either. And the best part of staying here, the part I told you at the start was coming, was that the Four Seasons DIFC gave their guests access to their much fancier, much more expensive, much just all around INCREDIBLER resort branch uptown (or downtown, I didn’t get a sense of Dubai’s layout, sue me, but it feels right to say ‘uptown’ you get it because suuupes fancy like movin’ on up mooovin’ on up &c.). The Four Seasons Dubai Beachfront Resort at Jumeirah Beach was, to put it simply, my good place, so amazing I bolded it for no real reason except that maybe making it bold will bring it closer to me again. I might cry remembering all the amenities. There’s nothing Tom Haverford and I have more in common than our love for amenities.
The resort was like a grand palace, and they pointed us to the spa changing rooms which give access to the pool and the beach, which is just beyond the pool, which is my favorite kind of beach. I have fun on beaches but omg, a swimming pool is my JAM. So having both right next to each other is perfection. There were actually two big pools, separated by a gate. One was for families/kids and had an afternoon sing-along session – which is the first time we ever heard “Baby Shark” and it hasn’t left my head since.
The pool workers came around with free green juice at one point, and constantly came around with waters. I mean. Was this real? I actually am unsure.
So what about those T-Hizzle amenities? Well, that spa changing room I mentioned was connected to the spa, and we were allowed to go nuts, and go nuts I did. The Four Seasons Resort has the MOST BALLER SPA I have EVER seen IN MY LIFE. There was a jacuzzi, steam rooms, sauna rooms, tropical rain shower sections, weird different-types-of-breezes-in-a-cubicle sections, fully stocked lockers (thanks for that weird underwear you’re supposed to wear for spa treatments you’re damn right I took it for some reason), a lovely snack table with apples and fresh juices and dates and water and oranges and pretty much just everything you’d want. There was a magic BATHING SUIT DRYER. You put your wet swimsuit in and push a button and there’s a weird sound and literally five seconds later your suit is dry! IT’S A MAGIC LAND.
It was THE BEST! Since the spas are off each changing room, Z and I were separated (yes, there are TWO of these tricked out spas) but it was still so much fun. We both tried literally every part, every steam and sauna and weird shower and jacuzzi, after a day of swimming in the pool and the ocean and then the pool and then the other pool. It was the best day. I like being in water at all times. The changing rooms also had wonderful showers that we used after all the swimming, fully stocked with fancy hair and body products, plus all the toiletries you could imagine.
The best part is, we got all of this for being guests of the DIFC, not paying the resort prices. If you can swing it, you should stay here, as it’s the BEST, but staying at the cheaper DIFC location (with the best beds)(I mean I’m sure the resort has equally incred beds, maybe even nicer, but I can’t report on that) and crashing the resort party was definitely the right move for us!
So that’s it for the soft parts of Dubai (food and hotels are soft; touring and museums and stuff are hard). Stay tuned for the big travel post! Here’s another face hole to tide you over. You know how much we love face holes.
(Re: the title of this post, since Z didn’t know WHAT I was getting at: Did some of you not grow up with a Ruby’s Diner and thus its earworm of a jingle? If not, this is referencing said jingle.)
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Genesis in Shoreditch: Good, Interesting, Overpriced Vegan Food
When I last lived in Philadelphia, I lived in the Rittenhouse Square area, right near the big (only?) Barnes and Noble on the corner of 18th and Walnut. Literally the day after I ended my lease, HipCityVeg, a super cool vegan ‘healthy but fun food’ joint, opened across the street from my old apartment. They had burgers, wraps, fries, shakes, all really fantastic too. (Of course their management is questionable at best but this isn’t a post about them.) So of course, of COURSE, I have to tell you that I used to live on Commercial Street, right outside Spitalfields market, right across the street from As Nature Intended, the organic shoppe. And lo, what has opened up right on that block recently? A super cool vegan ‘healthy but fun food’ joint, what else? Let me know if you’re looking to open up a similar place and I’ll tell you when I move from my current house, since I guess that’s the game the universe has chosen for me. Genesis, this newest addition to London’s vegan, organic, swanky, instagram-friendly restaurant scene, is a great addition to the neighborhood, but it’s a good thing I don’t live as close to it anymore, because it’s way too expensive.
Definitely the best decorated new place I’ve seen in a while, Genesis nails that chic fancy-casual (it’s a thing) vibe that Spitalfields and Shoreditch embrace more and more. Even the food market inside Spitalfields, once just shaky frames that would get taken down every evening, is now mainly composed of permanent counters that give the impression of easy street food but are upscale and expensive. Genesis is all cool, bright, and pink upstairs, with neon lights and fun artwork and signs advertising their choice to cook everything in avocado oil (supposedly healthier, probably more expensive). It feels like it could be an ’80s throwback, but also with ’70s New Mexico decor? It’s cute and fun. OH the only bad thing is – sometimes there is incense burning near the counter where you order, and where some diners will eat. That is like Restaurant 101, to never have strong smells competing with the food smells, especially near (or at!!) seats where it’ll interfere with people’s ability to taste the food. Did you never watch the Top Chef episode where the judges berate the team who puts scented candles on the tables? (One of three episodes I have seen.) Downstairs is dark, crowded, and feels like a late-night joint even earlier in the day (and where decent pictures are impossible). I have now eaten upstairs, downstairs, and via takeaway, so I am equipped to pass my judgment.
The menu, the giant gorgeous menu above, is probably the greatest sounding ever. I can’t remember any place I’ve ever been more excited about after looking at the menu. It is BALLER. Everything sounds amazing. Whoever created it really did a fantastic job. It’s random, with burgers and hot dogs and also laksa? and Indian food? but you get the worldly joyous feel they were going for.
Execution of the food is not as fantastic. It’s fine, don’t get me wrong, and some things are great. But nothing is so incredible that it warrants how expensive it is. Let’s take a look.
Let’s start with the apps and sides. The small plates, if you will, although most things here would fit that description. When I was there with a party of three, we ordered the nachos and the cheese sticks to start. I mean, guys, look at these portions. I could have housed both of these myself and still had room for my main. The bowl for the nachos is what most restaurants would serve a cup of soup in. Not even a bowl of soup! A cup! They were pretty good, but they needed more toppings to make it more ‘nacho’ and less ‘tortilla chips with some sprinkles’. Good, not great; small, not large. The nacho cupasoup bowl is £9.50!!! That is essentially 10 pounds for a handful of chips, a literal tablespoon of guacamole, and some peppers. I could make my own nacho trough for that price, and that’s expecting that I’d have to go through five or so avocados before finding a good one, LONDON.
But that was fine and whatever compared to the cheese sticks. Guys, do you see the cheese sticks? First of all, they were AMAZING. So delicious, so impressive – they found that right texture between solid and creamy that few purveyors of vegan mozzarella et al. cheese sticks have been able to. But that’s the full portion – three. And at least on my computer, the picture is true to actual size. They were about the size of my pinky finger, no longer or wider. And there were JUST THREE. And it cost £5.95! That’s a motherforking £2 PER PINKY. I didn’t realize how expensive they were because I didn’t pay for them but MAN ALIVE. I really liked them too.
The tacos are the best part of Genesis, I think, because even though one taco is £5 and that is ridiculous, that’s also about market rate for vegan tacos in London, at least compared with the queen of all vegan Mexican food, Club Mexicana. So fine. And the tacos here are really good. I’ve tried the smoked chorizo, with tomatillo salsa, potatoes, and pico de gallo; the fried avocado taco, with refried beans, pico de gallo, and sour cream; and the jackfruit hoisin, with jackfruit ‘duck’, hoisin mayo, cucumber and spring onion, and they were all RG. The fried avocado I’d say is my favorite, and then the jackfruit duck. Their duck piece was more solid than jackfruit usually is, which I liked. So, solid taco game, Genesis!
The next up of the small plates, maybe we’ll call them the Mindy St. Claire Medium Plates, if you will, do not fare as well. Nothing is bad, as I said above, but some things aren’t executed as well as others, especially for the price.
I’d been waiting a while to try the kamut mac & cheese, because they can’t do it to go, something about how it’s cooked in its wee pot. So we got it on our third trip, and while it was fine, it was kind of bland. And I love bland food. Also, this little ramekin is tiny. Given the trend so far, I’m sure it’s exactly what you’d expect here for £6.50, but in a regular place for that price I’d expect double the portion.
My most disappointing dish was the kale caesar salad. You know I love salad, like weirdly all the time love it and I even put regular food on top of salad often, so it’s no surprise I ordered this on my first visit. They offer two sizes for their salads, and I got the large. Or so I thought. Does this look like the large? I shudder to imagine what they serve the small size in, Dixie cups?? The perspective in the picture is a little off for comparing, but the salad bowl was about the same size as a taco, and about as deep too. The lettuce and kale were in too-big pieces, making it super awkward to eat. They definitely need to cut the leaves smaller. But at least it allows you to see how small the portion was – I mean you can count the total number of leaves in the bowl. It’s about 10. I can’t really believe that this is actually the large size, so I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt that there was a mistake and this was the small, because for £12, Ima need more than 10 leaves.
The bigger dishes are much more satisfying, both in terms of value and taste. My favorite is the sabich, mainly because you get two. It’s little Israeli pita sandwiches with aubergine, red onion, green tahini, cucumber, tomatoes, and the best little tofu egg scramble. The flavor here was wonderful and I really liked it. And for £7.95 it’s the best value in the whole place. Would recommend!
Please excuse this picture of my takeaway, but it’s the torta Milanesa. And this is another one that’s pretty decent value and a great taste! Two in a row! I really enjoyed this super hearty, flavorful Mexican sandwich. Its base is panko-dipped aubergine slices, which were a little tough to bite without taking the entire slice out of the sandwich, so I’d recommend that they cut them into smaller pieces. But with the lettuce, avocado, chipotle mayo, salsa, onions, tomato, and coconut cheese, it was a great flavor. It says there’s nopal cactus in there too which is awesome but I didn’t really notice it. Regardless, this is a great sandwich, and for £9.95 it’s a lot but decent for this restaurant.
We also tried one of the hot dogs. Honestly, the reason I recommend the hot dogs over the burgers is purely based on size. If you aren’t that hungry, then order a burger. They are tiny. They’re a little bit tall, but they are the circumference of sliders. Literally half the size of a Vurger burger (which is around the corner, and cheaper, just saying). But the hot dogs are well-sized. For about £11, they better be. This sauerkraut dog is the simplest of the hot dog offerings, but is solid. I know I’m criticizing a lot, but look at that plate, and imagine a burger about a 1/3 of the size of the hot dog (at best) all alone on that plate. It doesn’t take a lot to add something, even if it’s just a few pieces of lettuce and onion, on the side so it doesn’t look so lonely and depressing.
Genesis has a banging dessert menu, including my favorite food in the world: soft-serve. I know. It’s really delicious but much richer than the typical cheap soft serve that I love out of those magical machines. I was told that it’s a mix of cashew and coconut, which accounts for the richness, and for the cost, I guess. It’s £3.95 for this little cup, which is okay I guess for London, typical, fine. But then each topping is another POUND. Man, at least make the little sprinkle of chocolate shavings 50p or something. A whole pound for a teaspoon of powder seems extravagant. I would have loved to have tried the soft serve with the chocolate sand (as pictured) and the honeycomb together, as a server recommended, but £6 for a little baby cup would have been too much.
They also use the soft serve for their milkshakes, which are great, I must say. You know I rail on and on about how London can’t do good milkshakes because they are too thin. But Genesis does them pretty great. Although, again, for £7, jeez louise.
So given its expensive location in the gentrified-beyond-recognition area of Spitalfields, and given that it has a decent number of (actually really nice) staff, and given that they use hundo p organic ingredients, I’m sure the prices are warranted to cover costs. It’s just that they could try a little to make it not seem like you’re getting ripped off. It doesn’t cost much in terms of time or effort to throw a basic af side salad on the plate with the sadly small burger, or throw some cheap fries next to the hot dog. And would it really cost them that much more to have another cheese stick or two in that order, considering at the moment it’s three little bits the size of mini gherkins??? I’m trying really hard to give them the benefit of the doubt regarding their price points, but the more I think about it, the more ridiculous it seems. I mean THREE CHEESE STICKS. For SIX POUNDS! That is 2 pounds per little fried mini Gherkin. As someone who has eaten her fair share of overpriced food, I can say with a fair deal of certainty that there’s nothing in a 1.5 inch piece of fried (delicious) goop worth 2 whole freaking pounds.
But if you know what to order (the sabich, the torta) and what to skip (the cheese sticks, the salad! le sigh), then you can at least have great food for an okay value, at least given the area. And that way it doesn’t feel too excessive to get soft-serve too! I feel bad being so critical of this place because I really do like the food and I really really like the staff. And they have nice bathrooms! But most of the dishes are just so g-d overpriced. Given how much great vegan food is in the area, and for so much cheaper, I can’t really justify going here all that regularly. But if you are in London, you give it a try! And tell me I’m wrong! I’d love to be wrong.
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!
2 Comments
Omg the food the pillows the drinks the pool the beach
The spa ….. would you go back ?
What a great blog about Dubai
❤️❤️❤️
Oh, my gosh. That spa looks incredible. And I love that the hotel gave you a gift of dates. So much better than the chocolates that are never vegan. But the best part of this post has to be this, “babyyyyy baby rockets, king of the wild frontieeeer.”