Vedge Restaurant, Philadelphia: The World’s Greatest

     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.

     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!!!!)

    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: 

1. Boil the eggplant in about 1 inch of water, covered, for about 10 minutes, until soft.
2. 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.

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!!

1. 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?
2. Ross’s birthday hoopla in this episode includes dinner, cake, and a concert to see what band?
3. Who gives Monica a hickey?

      For so long, I’ve been complaining about how England can’t do Mexican food: they don’t understand spicy food, you can’t get good avocados here, and there’s a dearth of Mexican immigrants. But an all-vegan market stall called Club Mexicana proved me wrong! Club Mexicana pops up at the various markets in London, including Spitalfields and King’s Cross. And this month, they’ve taken over the Hornbeam Cafe in…super northeast London to host fantastic Friday night dinners. (I mean dinner on Friday nights, not Shabbat-style ‘Friday night dinners’.) If you have a chance to get to god knows where I went last week (Walthamstow…shire?) any Friday this month, then you must go! They have loaded nachos, tacos, burritos, empanadas, and more. Most importantly, their signature dish is pulled jackfruit, the coolest vegan meat substitute ever. 

     At their most recent Friday night dinner, Club Mexicana offered a solid and surprisingly well-priced menu of small and large plates. The small options included roasted cornbread with mole, pedron peppers, tortilla soup, and loaded nachos. Obviously we got the loaded nachos because dayum! Vegans need to jump at nacho opportunities when they can. Also, outside the U.S., apparently people think ‘nachos’ just means ‘plain corn chips’ and that’s terrrrrrible, so I had to take advantage of someone knowing better. The nachos had vegan cheese sauce (I think it’s house made!), black beans, ancho chili sauce, sour cream (again probably house made), jalapenos, and cilantro, which they call coriander here but coriander is the dried version so I’ll never accept that. It also had guacamole, which sadly succumbed to the British curse of being weird and creamy instead of being normal.* It was better than other attempts I’ve had here though! The nachos were really good. I was intrigued by the cheese sauce. It was really sharp yet creamy and it didn’t make me angry so right on. As with every single maker of nachos, however, the bottom layer was naked.* When will people learn to stagger the toppings on all the layers and not just dump them on top so you get really loaded chips at first but then are left with NOTHING at the end? I would be so good at nachos. 
      We also got the tortilla soup, which the menu called ‘sopa di tortilla’ which is accurate but I read it as carrot coconut soup for some reason?? Don’t know how that happened but luckily that’s not what arrived. The spicy, tomato-base, lime-doused soup was really good, although I would have preferred more beans (any beans?) in it. I’m just used to my tortilla soup being full of beans. Haha full of beans. This one was mainly thick broth, but the broth was delicious so it’s all good. It also was topped with the sour cream from the nachos, which was a really nice component even if it disintegrated into the soup before it even arrived. 

      We had much more trouble choosing our mains. Not only were there two entrees featuring pulled jackfruit, but they also had chili-non-carne sloppy joes and chorizo empanadas! The jackfruit came in either taco form or burrito form. I knew I had to have one, so I figured I’d continue the taco cleanse. The waitron recommended the chorizo empanadas as our second main. Excellent choice!
      So I’m obsessed with pulled jackfruit now. I had it once before, at the White Owl Social Club in Portland, but it was on a burger bun and the bread overpowered it. Thin little corn tortillas really are the perfect showcase for this ridiculously inventive food. Jackfruit is yeah it’s a fruit, but when you shred it, it really resembles pork? or something crazy? It’s so mind-boggling and delicious that Upton’s Naturals is going to be selling it alongside its packaged mock meats. That’s aweeeesome! Club Mexicana’s version is hand-pulled and marinated in bourbon BBQ sauce, and served on the aforementioned little corn disks with sour cream, too-creamy guacamole again but whatever it’s still guacamole, and salted chiles. It also came with more tortilla chips and a warm cabbage slaw that I liked to put inside the tacos. These were so good. Oh man. Jackfruit is too cool. 

       The chorizo empanadas were also really good, like meat-filled hand pies. I guess in England that’s just hand pies. The menu said ‘puff pastry’ but it was denser than that (which was good for this dish), like heavy buttery pie dough holding shredded chorizo-style seitan, spicy potatoes, olives, and raisins. Luckily I didn’t taste any raisin because that is weird. They were topped with the creamy guacamole, sour cream, and ancho chili sauce. This plate (all plates?) also came with the warm slaw and more chips. It was a really yummy dish, but if you are ever choosing between jack fruit and Y, you must always go with jackfruit. Unless Y is world peace or something. Or, as Husband just answered to my question of what’s better than jackfruit, “jillfruit”. 

      For a specialty pop-up event like this, I expected the prices to be on the higher side, because they always seem to be. But Club Mexicana’s prices were pretty decent – 10 pounds for mains and 4 for the appetizers. That’s downright cheap for London! And it was so good too! If you are free this Friday or next (or the next?), try to catch Club Mexicana at the Hornbeam Cafe. Otherwise, follow them on social media to try to find their stall in the markets. And no matter what, get something with jackfruit! 

CLUB MEXICANA, LONDON
Water speed: Glass bottle and little cups were already on the table! So happy. 
Service: Everyone was so nice and helpful. It was probably the best service I’ve encountered in London yet. I’m not sure if the waitrons were Hornbeam’s or Club Mexicana’s, but either way, excellent job.* 
Bathrooms: A singlet, was fine. The toilet flushed which is a big deal here. 
Food: Really yummy Mexican food! 
Bonus: Jackfruit! 

*Club Mexicana has informed me that a) the waitrons were all their own staff members, so thanks to them for being great! They also said they are working on the nacho layering and chunkifying guacamole. Fantastic!