Vedge Restaurant, Philadelphia: The World's Greatestby Randi / September 4, 2013
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Manchester, England (England): The Allotment Vegan Restaurant
Recently, we traveled to Manchester England (England) (you can’t not sing it, right?? well I can’t not) in order to dine at the famed vegan restaurant The Allotment. We spent the weekend in the city, but dinner here was our primary purpose for the trip. We’ve heard only amazing reviews about this restaurant, which was named the Best Vegetarian Restaurant in the UK several times over, and the chef is acclaimed for having delivered fancy vegan fare to Manchester (England England). When the restaurant moved from outside the city, in Stockport, to the Manchester city center, we booked in immediately, ready to be blown away, or at least to enjoy a great meal. I hate to say it, but I assuredly was not and did not.
The quality of the food at The Allotment may have suffered in the move, as they’re only two months into the new space. Maybe they’re still getting settled. Or maybe it has to do with the fact that two days before our dinner, it was announced that the head chef and the man responsible for all the restaurant’s success, Matthew Nutter, was leaving. It was unclear when he was leaving, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was an immediate resignation, because I don’t think that acclaimed wonder of a chef was cooking my food. It was very nice to have a fancy dining option outside of London, and it was great to have a relatively affordable tasting menu (£65 for ten courses is prettay prettay amazing in the tasting menu world), but the food was not up to standard. In general, the dishes that tasted good were basic and uninspired, and the dishes that showed creativity and invention didn’t taste very good. It’s a disappointment and I hope that they find their footing again.
Before we get into the food, I’m gonna snob out and say that including the amuse bouche – usually a gift from the chef – as one of the ten courses is kind of bullshirt. At any other restaurant where we’ve had the tasting menu, the chef would send out amuse bouches (amuses bouche?) just to say hayy. Since this meal was quite cheaper than those, it’s fine and makes sense that we didn’t get extra dishes, but like don’t even call it an amuse bouche on the menu, seems a little ‘ya basic’ ya know?
Okay, speaking of that amuse, it was a yummy Fried Ball. Like a cheeseless arancini, made with wild rice. It was one of those times when you’d quote Jon Lovitz on Friends and be all “I could have 100 of those!” but you just get one, to amoos you (if I spelled it right you wouldn’t have understood how to say it okay), and you get over it because after all it was just a Fried Ball.
Fried Ball on a cool plate
Our first real course was roasted butternut squash soup, with a topping of porcini mushroom pieces and toasted chestnuts. This soup is the prime example of one of the dichotomies I stated above: it tasted good but basic, so basic I even said to it “ya basic…that’s devastating, you’re devastated right now.” Don’t get me wrong, it was a fine soup, but I’ve made the exact same thing (or more interesting) 100x. To make it worthier, there should have been 5x as much of the porcini and chestnut topping. But it was fine, and best of all it was served in an old-fashioned bowl with a handle that made us feel like we were on the Oregon trail or some such. Luckily no dysentery!
trail soup
I was very excited for the next dish, one of the intriguing, innovative items on the menu. It was listed as ‘baked plantain, jerk billtong.’ Biltong (apparently the proper spelling guyzzz) is a South African dried meat, so, gross. I love baked plantain so I was set to be impressed. Unforch, this is a prime example of the second main issue I stated above: it was inventive, but did not taste good. The first problem was that instead of baked plantain, it was plantain ice cream. I was not ready for ice cream, and the flavor was off – sweet but sharp and unpleasant. The biltong flavor was even more unpleasant, with a very sour bite that was hard to accept. The sauce that went along with everything was that same flavor and it was kind of hard to eat this dish. I commend them for the originality, but the execution is lacking. Even just losing the ice cream in favor of plain baked plantain would have improved this.
you owe me baked plantain
Another inventive but lacking dish came after the biltong debacle. The celeriac shwarma, with coconut, mint, and orange, could have been interesting but the three accompanying flavors – the coconut, mint, and orange – just did not work. It wasn’t ‘shwarma’ in any way, just hunks of celeriac, and there was way too much shredded coconut on top. I liked that there was raw spinach, because I like greens, but the flavors did not coalesce in any way.
shwarma?
I almost feel bad talking about the next dish, but the public deserves to know. This may have been the worst dish I’ve ever eaten in a restaurant. I really do applaud the creativity here, but the result is NG. The chicory terrine was a great idea in theory, because terrine is usually a French pate, full of gross meats, so to make a vegetable version of that shaped dish was an interesting goal. However, it tasted like Jewish deli at the end of the day. It was just the taste of pickle, of vinegar, of raw pearl onion. I couldn’t finish it. The main part of the terrine was too vinegary and off, while the giant onions took up half the space. The pickled cauliflower on the side was more of the same flavor, so I don’t know what it adds.
green emoji face
Thankfully, the rest of the savory dishes all tasted fine, even delicious, but they were regular, unexciting kinds of food. However, after the terrine incident, I was happy to have some basic af food for moving on. First we have the slow roasted squash, with fried oyster mushroom rosti and smoked aubergine. There was also surprise tenderstem broccoli and amazing little tiny cubes of fried tofu. It all tasted exactly how you imagine, since no doubt you have eaten regular broccoli and a big old chunk of roasted squash in your lives. It was good, and plain. To make it better, the big old chunk of squash should have been tofu – for a vegan restaurant, there was surprisingly little protein, to our dismay. We always complain about nonvegan restaurants’ giving me tasting menus with no protein, so I expected better at an actual vegan place.
i mean ya fine, but ya basic
The last of the savory dishes was confit potato, with black olive, pickled daikon, and crispy kale. This was by far my favorite dish, because the layer of black olive tapenade added a new and interesting flavor to the other basic ingredients. The only real disappointing aspect was the freaking GIANT baked potato. There’s the mashed potato on the bottom, you see? and then the mushrooms (yum!), and then the tapenade layer, and then that big hunk of a yellowish thing is BAKED POTATO. It was so much! Like why not tofu, or seitan, or beans, or anything but baked potato on top of mashed potato? I mean in a city famous for its chip butties I guess I’m not surprised but duuuudes. The crispy kale was a nice addition though, and while the daikon was wholly unnecessary and felt supes random, overall this dish was the best and I’d happily eat it again – without the giant potato.
you say potato, I say potato
Another kind-of-cheating-to-count-this-as-a-course thing came next, the ‘pre-dessert,’ or what you might call the palate cleanser. Kind of a cop out, right? It was a decent water ice situation, but it was made with gin, which was disappointing. I maybe should have told them that I didn’t want straight alcohol in my food but who would have ever known that was going to be a problem.
The first of our two desserts was ‘apple noodles, yuzu sorbet, and cumin pastels.’ I know what you’re thinking – apple noodles? that sounds interesting! And I was intrigued, before I realized – oh dip, this is literally raw apples in noodle-ish form. Like how spiralized zucchini makes ‘zucchini noodles’. So this was a gigantic pile of shredded raw apple. Don’t get me wrong, I love apples, but like, a dayum. The sorbet was decent, and I loved that they tried something creative with the little cumin gummies and the dusting of chili pepper throughout the dish, but yeesh, straight cumin in a dessert is kind of gross. I appreciate the risk but it would have been better with say ginger gummies. This is the actual conversation my husband and I had during this course; I took notes so I know it’s accurate:
Me: How do you feel about the cumin? I think it’s weird.
Husbo: Yeah but I do think you need to liven things up, otherwise it’s all very same same.
Me: But they could do that with like crystallized ginger or something, some flavor that’s more desserty and less curry.
Husbo: Yeah. And they would need to mix something all through the dish, not just on top, because otherwise you’re just sitting here like an asshole eating a pile of apples.
it looks like a normal amount of apple shreddings but it was literally at least two whole apples
Lastly was the warm whiskey cream over chocolate mousse, with chili and hibiscus. This dessert was pretty delicious. The chocolate mousse was wonderful, sturdier than your average mousse which I liked. The tangerine slice was random but I’ll let it slide. The ice cream I think was the hibiscus? It’s hard to gauge that one, but the honeycomb bits and the mousse were good enough. The best part was that it came with a little pot of the whiskey cream, which did not taste like whiskey (yay) really, but just like warm vanilla-y cream sauce with a punch. It was really good!
chocooo
So, overall it was a very interesting meal, with a few delicious dishes, a lot of weirdness, and some questions, like, what are they smoking back there? Is anyone trying the dishes as they make them? Or oh, is this like when Sookie didn’t know she was pregnant and her tastes were all over the place and all the food she sent out of the Inn’s kitchen was a mess like some were overly seasoned to the point of inedibleness and some were unsalted and it was all off and then she was like NORMAN MAILER I’M PREGNANT that might have been a different pregnancy, Sookie was preggers a lot, but you get what I’m saying. Something was off, and I am disappointed to have missed out on a visit to The Allotment that was on par with its illustrious history. Maybe next time, maybe next time.
The Allotment, Manchester, England (England)
Water speed: They brought carafes and were pretty good about it.
Service: Pretty nice. I thought the dishes were well timed.
Bathrooms: Fine, clean and bright (small and whiteeee)
Food: Decent, but finding its footing.
Bonus: It’s amazing to have an all vegan restaurant outside London, and one with a fancy tasting menu to boot.
Happy News Alert: 2nd Annual Vegan Family Reunion (San Antonio, TX)
I think we all need something wonderful to look forward to! With impeccable timing comes the 2nd Annual Vegan Family Reunion, the brainchild of host Rooted Vegan Cuisine of San Antonio, Texas. This special occasion is THIS WEEKEND, Sunday March 6, and promises to be an epic day of food, fun, festivities, and community building. Featuring more than 30 Black-Owned small businesses and artists, the event will benefit local nonprofits and support local charities, including the Black Birth Fund.
San Antonio’s Rooted Vegan Cuisine, once a pop-up vegan restaurant and now a maker of incredible frozen vegan foods, hosts the Vegan Family Reunion for the second year. From 12-5pm on Sunday, the pop-up market and party at the San Antonio Food Bank will convene more than 30 Black-owned and vegan small businesses, artists, entertainers, and more to celebrate “food, fun, and Black excellence!”
The event celebrates the intersection of Black equality and veganism, raising funds that will pour back into the local Black community through small businesses, artists, and charities. It will do all this while highlighting the importance and benefits of veganism and its direct impact on the Black community.
WHAT YOU’LL FIND
- VEGAN FOOD
- PRO CHEF DEMOS
- MUSIC
- LIVE DJ
- VEGAN RAPPER GREY
- DANCING
- PONIESSSSS (from Ponycycle)
- HAYRIDES
- LIVE ART PRESENTATIONS
- PET ADOPTIONS!!!
- BOUNCY HOUSES (YESSSS)
- NUTRITION SEMINAR
- VEGAN BEAUTY & HAIR DEMOS
- MINI SKATEBOARD PARK
Did I mention it’s free to attend? It’s free to attend! But please RSVP in advance so they can anticipate the crowd size. Book your space here and register either for your free space, or with a donation (omg you’re so awesome!), or as a VIC (Very Important Charity). More ways to contribute – including from afar! – are listed further down.
I must take this time, before I forget, to tell you that there will be two bounce houses – one for kids and one just for adults. LITERALLY THE DREAM.
The strength of a local community is so important, and that’s clearer now more than ever. So many different businesses, organizations, and various community members are coming together to make this happen. Host Naomi of Rooted Vegan Cuisine said the list of participants and supporters is “incredible and humbling”.
She also said she’s bringing to-go containers to make sure she doesn’t miss any of the amazing food…so…follow her lead!
Some of the food vendors expected to blow your minds on Sunday include: Wheatsville (I know, one of our faves!), Vegan Sushi Spot, Alamo City Cakes, The Vegancy, Chef Cidney, and Bake Love. Non-food amazingness includes Art by Sheri, Gardopia Gardens, Tracy J Jewelry, and Ionic Soul Spa. I MEAN. COME ON!
There’s a whole packed schedule for the day too, with kitchen demos, nutrition and fertility seminars, and musical entertainment. It promises to be an incredible day!
We’re all aware of how exponentially veganism has increased in recent years, and a large part of that is due to Black activists, who have been promoting veganism even back to the Civil Rights Movement of the ’60s. And African-Americans compose the fastest-growing vegan demographic. This event aims to respect and acknowledge these facts while cementing the connection between veganism and Black activism, especially on the community level.
Proceeds from the event will benefit the Black Birth Fund, created by the San Antonio Nurse Midwife Birth & Wellness center. The team said they learned of this organization through one of the Vegan Family Reunion committee members, who was herself a recipient of assistance from the Fund when she gave birth. This chance to give back to the fund that helped their teammate so greatly makes this event all the more special, they said.
Vegan Family Reunion has also teamed up with Black Restaurant Week San Antonio to raise money for the San Antonio Food Bank via donations and other funds raised. Attending the event is free, but guests are encouraged to buy t-shirts, buy raffle tickets (see below), and donate whatever they want to raise funds for these worthy organizations.
They are going even further this year in making the space accessible and inviting for so many types of attendees: There will be maternity lounges with doulas for expecting and new parents. There will will a special needs sensory retreat, with trained assistants, for people who need a break from the hubbub. There will be a sign language interpreter, and a toddler soft play area. The level of care is off the charts here. And there will also be a Zero Waste initiative, with the team measuring how much waste is saved from going into landfills.
HOW TO SUPPORT THE EVENT IF YOU AREN’T IN TEXAS
I’m sure many of you are, like me, watching and wishing from afar that we could attend. While we cannot eat its amazing food (or jump in the bouncy house) remotely, we can support it by doing the following:
- Spreading the word – on social media, use the hashtag #veganfamilyreunion and tag @veganfamilyreunion
- Buy raffle tickets – even if we cannot collect or use certain prizes, think of it as a donation, with the money going to truly worthwhile beneficiaries
- Or, Buy tickets to the event as a donation
- Buy the official tee shirt HERE
- Support Rooted Vegan Cuisine – their frozen vegan goodies are available to ship in the USA nationwide (someone please work on getting this to the UK!)
Whatever you can do to support this wonderful event is great, and let’s hope that we can be in San Antonio in person next year!
