Vegan Guide to Michelin Restaurants: Gauthier, Soho

    Every year for the past countable number of years (four?), the wonderful sushi restaurant Moshimo in Brighton has held a special all-vegan dinner event in which chefs from other restaurants present their spin on vegan sushi. It’s called the Great Moshimo Vegan Challenge. And boy, was this year a challenge or what. 
    It’s a contest, and the diners vote for the winner. Jojo at vegan.in.brighton invited me to join her this year, and considering how envious I have been in past years, I was all for it. Sadly, my suspicion that I bring bad luck around with me like a personal storm cloud was reinforced, because most of this stuff was hella gross.

    The restaurant itself has fantastic vegan food. It’s a regular mainstream sushi restaurant, but they have one of the most vegan-friendly menus I’ve ever seen in an omni place. Equally important, the management is very committed to providing sustainable sushi — short of eliminating fish altogether. (They did remove bluefin tuna from their menu early on though, so there’s that.) Hence their dedication to vegan sushi, the most sustainable kind, and this event for raising awareness and interest in this most excellent lifestyle.
     Everything I have eaten that was actually made by Moshimo chefs has been wonderful. It’s this whole letting-other-chefs-use-your-kitchen-and-feed-utter-nonsense-to-unsuspecting-patrons thing that gets tricky. At this event, eight chefs from different Brighton restaurants and catering companies came in and shared a vegan dish that incorporated the vegan sushi theme and their individual restaurant’s style. It’s a chance for great local chefs to be really creative and exciting and impressive. Usually, they are. This year, due to my storm cloud (but mostly due to lack of effort, taste buds, and common sense), the dishes ranged from boring to inedible to almost good, the worst kind. Well no, ‘inedible’ is I guess worse than food that with a little more effort could have been solid, but the latter makes me angrier. Let’s see what went down! 

      First, let’s look at all the wonderful food that Moshimo sent out between contest dishes to keep us happy. Seriously, these dishes were the best part of the night. Moshimo is a conveyor-belt-style sushi place, so it was really fun to pick the best looking plate coming down the belt. And it was really smart to keep diners happy and full with actually decent food. 

The sampler dish sent out first was heaven. Roasted squash, seaweed salad, and a warm crunchy dumplingy thing I want some of right now. All good. We also got loads of edamame, dumplings, and maki rolls coming down the conveyor belt during the night. Moshimo’s sushi is fantastic. It’s simple yet still interesting. 

      All right, fine. Let’s get to the contest. First up was a dish called Fancy Nancy, which we learned at the end (it’s anonymous because of the contest) was from the fancy upscale restaurant Terre a Terre. I have been dying to eat at this restaurant, but now? Now I’m iffy! See what one bad showing can do? You always have to be on your game, people! Fancy Nancy featured pickled lotus, kimchee, cilantro, lychee — all of this sounds great and very sushi-like, right — but then these great ingredients came on top of Mexican cheesy rice. Oh my god I am going to throw up again just thinking about how ridiculous this was. Cold, fresh, fruity ingredients over HOT SPICY VOMIT RICE??? What? It was like the rice that comes in a burrito, but two days later. And then with fruit on top of it. I DON’T KNOW. So gross. 

    Next up was Mochi Mochi (what a freaking creative name, people!) from the catering company Cashew. This was actually one of the three that I liked. However, it had nothing to do with sushi. They described it as mixed mushroom and edamame stuffed mochi, with ume, horseradish, pickle, cherry sauce, cucumber, and beetroot and carrot crisps. Okay, this was a potato croquette but made of rice. That’s it. A warm, comforting, mild croquette, without a sign of any ume or horseradish or anything aside from warm beigeness. But it was good! 

    Coming up next was the Sprouting Maki, from VBites, the winner every year apparently and the winner this year as well! Good job…putting faux teriyaki chicken on a ball of rice. That’s what this was. It was one piece of all-rice “maki” (that’s just a rice ball) with a dollop of vegan caviar (horseradishy tiny balls), and then one piece oh so small of maki with the chicken on top. And then there was a teeny tiny square of papaya, randomly. It won because that teriyaki chicken is amazing. They should have given everyone a bowl of the stuff over rice, but that would have been costly. Or at least the chicken should have been inside the maki to make it more interesting. Oh well. This was everyone’s favorite but I wanted it to be better! Don’t just drop the main/best part on top! And that one plain rice ball was like a boring plain slap in the face. I do want some of that chicken now, though. That Heather Mills knows her stuff. 

     Next was my favorite! I don’t mean favorite like this was delicious, or creative, or anything positive, but I mean it like holy crap, this was the funniest thing all evening. I mean what in the world. This Wasabi Canopy, I think it was called, was from Indian Summer, a catering company that didn’t even show up or send a chef, but just dropped off a tray of these and was like “Hey, other people who don’t work for us, put this shit on a plate and throw it in people’s faces.” It was a gram flour roll that was somehow like jelly. Gram flour, or chickpea flour, is one of my favorite food items ever. I use it all the time. Never in my experience have I discovered how to make it gelatinous and disgusting. I just…HOW??? How do you turn something as benign and wonderful as chickpea flour into a weird cold eggy roll? It felt like the devil’s work. 

   
    The dish from catering company 64 Degrees was at least properly named. It was called Gotcha, which is mean but it’s honest. And yeah, everything about this felt like trickery. It wasn’t bad at all, as a snack, but it was odd as a meal. Who thought of this? I wish I could have been in the room when the following conversation undoubtedly took place:

      “We should take those small square Japanese rice crackers that everyone knows well from bulk bins and are generically named “Asian Snack” and soak them in a sweet sauce until they get chewy. BUT NOT SOFT.”

                — “Um, Pete, that’s really weird. We’re trying to impress people with how good vegan sushi can be.”

      “F%*# vegans! All good sushi has fish in it. So let’s just take something that’s already vegan – rice cracker thingies, they don’t have a name – and serve it like it’s dinner.”

               — “But that will be really…weird. It might be a decent snack, but that’s not a good meal. We’re trying to win a contest here by presenting dinner food.”

      “If we win, then vegans win.”

               — “What?”

      “Do you want vegans to win?”

            –“I…what?”

      “Do you have a better idea?”

And that’s the story behind how we were served bowls of those crunchy rice crackery things soaked in a sweet miso glaze until they became unbelievably chewy and caramelized, and how we all lost teeth and gained future cavities. 

     The dish that came around next was probably the meanest food I’ve ever been served. It was a ‘Frida Kahlo’. I mean. wtf. That’s what the Mexican restaurant La Choza named this dish. It was a Freedom Rolls tortilla wrapped around habanero chiles, squash, adobo, and avocado wasabi sauce, cut into a maki-sized roll. So it was a little revolting burrito shaped like a piece of sushi. It was extremely hot because of the chiles, but with absolutely no other flavor besides hot public bathroom. Not only was it disgusting like bland vomit air, but it made me lose brain function for a minute and inexplicably I ATE TWO OF THEM. I was sick for weeks. Hell I’m sick now just thinking about it. Why would I waste room on two of these abominations? What on earth came over me? Did the first one not disgust me enough? Was a part of my stupid, stupid brain thinking, “Wait, was that thing I just ate disgusting, or am I making that up? Am I making that up? Did I forget so quickly what that tastes like? Here, let me try again.” NO! 

Luckily (or unluckily because I was almost too full from the two pieces of turd I had just eaten), the next dish was my favorite. It was a play on fish and chips and sushi at the same time, and it was definitely the most creative of the night, as if the chef had actually listened to the instructions. It was Unfish and Chips, from the catering company Egg & Spoon. The dish was a big fat piece of quinoa and pickled tofu stuffed maki with tempura tofu wrapped around the outside. A few spots of yuzu ketchup and wasabi mushy pea puree dotted the plate, along with a wakame rice chip. I wish I ate two of these instead. There was a lot of quinoa here, and it was a bit hard to eat, but so is all good sushi, or something like that. The taste was pretty much ‘tempura’, and it was delicious. However, one of the purees, I think the yuzu, tasted like hot empty trash sweat to me. Like a rotten piece of wood. Others thought it was fine, so maybe I had a bad batch or maybe I am allergic to dumb things like pureeing a yellow fruit and calling it ketchup. That was not delicious, but the main part of this dish was indeed, so it’s cool. They came in second place and rightly so. This was the kind of thing I was expecting every round to feature: something creative that actually tasted good. 

    Sadly, no one saved the best for last here. The last round was not even good. From caterer Sam’s, another terrible competitor who failed to send a chef in and just dropped off trays with no instructions and hardly even a how-do-you-do, came a kohlrabi and shiitake ‘salad’ with toasted sesame oil. I put salad in quotes because this looked more like soup given the amount of oil the kohlrabi was swimming in. So. freaking. wrong. I was so excited for some cool fresh veggies and I was given a full cup of sesame oil instead. The mushrooms were entirely too salty to enjoy, and the kohlrabi was freaking hard to eat with chopsticks because of how oily it was! So gross. 

    Luckily, the good people at Moshimo gave us their wonderful chocolate mousse for dessert. Can’t go wrong with simple chocolate mousse. 
    Man alive, can you believe this showing? Do I dare attend next year? It can only improve, right? Even though a lot of the dishes were gross, I’m really glad I went this year. I now know so many businesses to avoid! But seriously it was a lot of fun, and it’s always good to get Moshimo sushi! Even if I had to eat a lot of other crap as well. 

   Before we get into the important food-related stuff, let’s acknowledge how difficult it is for me to leave the title like that. But that’s actually what this new amazing restaurant is named and how it is written: Charlie was a sinner. With the period. I love it! But even more, I love the place. It’s the new all-vegan bar from one of Philly’s favorite young restaurateurs, Nicole Marquis of HipCityVeg fame and general wonderingment. Charlie is a swanky, dimly lit, old-Hollywood inspired bar with a creative, upscale menu both for drinks and for small plates. Even early in the run, almost everything I tried was wonderful. 

   Each time I ate at Charlie, my table began with a toast starter called Our Ricotta, which is a dip made from tofu, agave, black pepper, and olive oil and served with fantastic toasted bread. Internet vegans are seriously divided over this faux-ricotta, because it is kind of just whipped tofu and everyone’s like, oh I can make something more interesting than this. The crazy thing is, when I’ve shared this with dairy-cheese-eating omnivores, they’ve loved it! Omnis love the ricotta more than tofu-loving vegans! Anyway, yes it is extremely subtle and maybe boring for some people, but I like subtle (and sometimes I like things on the blander side) and it was lovely. 

      Another item I can’t help but order every time I’m there is the Maryland-style crab cake sliders, which I think is Charlie’s best item. I suggest you also get at least 2 orders (per person) because they only come with two little magical sliders, and they are usually on the happy hour menu (so, for only $4 or so). So get at least a few because they are indeed magical. The zucchini-based patties have the perfect flavor, definitely evoking a crab cake but not fishy or faux-fishy in the slightest. They’re lightly fried (I assume) but not at all greasy. The little semolina rolls somehow melt in your mouth. They are so soft and buttery but not in the gross usual Wonderbread way. Just outstanding. 

    Various sorts of tacos are also common happy hour staples, with one decent soft taco for $3. I’ve tried both the mushroom and the squash, and even though mushrooms are one of my top 4 foods, the squash taco is much more interesting. 

    In the summer, you couldn’t go wrong with the heirloom tomato salad anywhere, and Charlie’s was delicious. I am not the biggest fan of raw tomatoes, but heirloom tomatoes at the height of their season? Amazing. It was a seasonal special, so I suggest you order whatever is in season when you go. The salad mixed fresh tomatoes with soft peaches, arugula, and some kind of candied crunchy nut. So delicious! 

   I can also recommend the stunning fresh fig salad, which is on the regular menu. It mixes the figs into a watercress salad with a vanilla bean vinaigrette. Who even thinks of basing a salad dressing around vanilla bean? Super impressive. 

     Less impressive but not bad was the pappillote of baby fennel, a beautiful smelling and looking soup of tofu, fregola sarda (my favorite Italian grain), and the common stew vegetables. It arrived wrapped in ballooning plastic that was cut by the server very dramatically, and it was all very exciting and nice, but the taste was lacking. It needed a heavy dose of salt – and I usually am extremely sensitive to salt in my food. I would stick to the more fancy bar-type foods that are easier to eat and save the Italian soups for Italian restaurants. 

     A surprisingly great mocktail on offer is the spicy pineapple, which blends the fruit with agave, lime, and cayenne. Wonderful! I love that they have interesting mocktails on the menu; more places need to do that. 
     I obviously know that if you are visiting Philly, you have too many fantastic vegan options than you know how to handle. But if you are looking for a fancy-looking place with a great vibe, nice service, and wonderful food, try to get to Charlie was a sinner.. (I added an extra period I think that’s right.) 

CHARLIE WAS A SINNER., PHILADELPHIA
Water speed: What’s my favorite thing, people? Glass water bottles on the table. They even had herbs in them! 
Service: Very nice! 
Bathrooms: Two fancily decorated and enormous singles. 
Food: Delicious small plates so you can try a lot, especially during the crazy good happy hour specials. 
Bonus: Great cocktails and mocktails, happy hour specials, chickpea fries.