Veganizing “Friends”: My FAJITAS!!!

During my latest trip home to Philadelphia, PA (how far are theyyyy), I had just enough time to try two of the city’s newest and best lunch-time offerings. Rich Landau’s most informal restaurant yet, Wiz Kid, specializes in a few stellar sandwiches in the grand old greasy Philly cheesesteak tradition, but veganized (and so much better). Goldie highlights the street food of another big city, Tel Aviv, with an Israeli-style falafel shop selling, well, just a falafel sandwich or salad, fries (with optional shwarma flavoring!), and the greatest single and singular item in the city right now, which we’ll talk about. At the end, I’ll share my pretty accurate recipe for that magical item so let’s get to it. 

On my first journey downtown in a good six months, my first stop was Wiz Kid, the hottest little diner-looking joint from the genius of Rich Landau and Kate Jacoby (of Vedge and V Street fame). I dragged my mom and my aunt into the cute little space adjoining V Street (the bathroom for Wiz Kid patrons is actually V Street’s) at 11:30 am so we could set up camp before the lunch crowd came in. I also needed the reinforcements so we could confidently order the entire menu, or most of it. It’s a small menu but even so, I can’t do that all myself. We ordered all three sandwiches, one of the two salads (I always need a salad), and the coolest sounding fries. 

The WK Philly is the #1 thing you have to get in Philly right now (savory edition) – the vegan (and improved) take on the classic Philly cheesesteak with wiz (or is that just ‘wit’? I never ordered one). It’s a shredded seitan and mushroom steak mix, with fried onions and Rich’s famous (for dern good reason) rutabaga cheese wiz. And that roll! Ugh every bit of it was perfection, like gum. I don’t think anyone with an open mind would eat that and ever want a real cheesesteak ever again. Just spectacular. 

The Sabich Steak is the above but Israelized (getting in the mood for our next stop, below!) – the WK plus grilled eggplant, whipped tahini, Israeli salad, and harissa tofu. Mmm it was so fun, especially if you like to stuff your sandwiches full of as much stuff as possible like I do. It was so messy but this kind of food is supposed to be! It’s fun like that! The harissa tofu added a bit of spiciness and the salad added some very complementary (not complimentary it didn’t tell me I was pretty) (see we learn things here) freshness. And tahini is always a good addition (more on that later). Yum! The Sabich and the WK Philly both were kind of oily on the bread but without being greasy. It was like a masterwork of the perfect amount of oiliness for this kind of food. 

Lastly, the KFT was another glorious sandwich on this wee menu. I LOVE tempeh, and I eat it just baked with no doctoring at all a lot which is objectively gross but I still love it, so I’m a bit biased about tempeh. I realize that not everyone loves it, and I think that despite the amazing flavors in this sandwich, it’s still a big ole hunk of tempeh in the center, so if you aren’t already a lover, you probs won’t love this sandwich. However, if like me you love a big ole hunk of tempeh in your life, then this Korean fried tempeh sandwich with tomato, radish kimchee (I know), and sriracha thousand island dressing (I knowww) will be your new fave. I loved that it switched up the bread and instead of the harder cheesesteak roll of the other two, this was served on a softer burger roll. That dressing oh man, it was so good. 

As usual, I had to order a salad even though my dining companions weren’t interested because that’s how I always do. I chose the more interesting sounding King Cobb Salad, with garbanzos (what are you fancy chickpeas?), hearts of palm, pickled cauliflower olive salad, harissa tofu (you again!), and lemon sumac dressing. The dressing was a little tart (I mean obviously it was lemon based) and I think I would have preferred something not as tart so I didn’t make acidy sourface the whole time. But it was a great mix of salad ingredients, which I always love to have. My own salads at home are usually just lettuce (cue husband saying “that’s not a salad!”) so I love fun interesting ones out in the wild. I think, however, that you aren’t as Wiz Kid for the salads. Stick to HipCityVeg for salads in a burger-joint environment that actually rival the burgers. At Wiz Kid you are here for the sandwiches. Like Joey! 

Lastly, we tried the super interesting okonomiyaki fries, mostly because I want to go to Japan. These are the standard WK hand-cut fries but with Korean bbq sauce, nori (seaweed!), and kewpie, which I never knew was a food and not weird type of doll (it’s a mayo!). They were fun but I would love to try the Wiz Fries next which I assume are cheese fries. Actually I didn’t even have them but I’m gonna go ahead and recommend them. I just want to buy a tub of the rutabaga cheese. Dammit Landau! 

Overall, this place is amazing. These sandwiches, the steak, the CHEESE, lordy lord there’s a reason Rich Landau is considered a magician sent from another realm to make eating vegan easier and more delicious than mere humans ever thought possible. The only draw, really, was that the young lady working was kindaaaa a b word to me and my peeps. We were the only people there when we arrived and I’m stupid nice to strangers so like what the heck lady? I thought maybe I was just too PINK and SMILEY but my trusted Philly food guru friend said she was mean to her too. Why so mean to us lady??!! You’re surrounded by such lovely food! 

First of all, let’s all give me a hand for finally learning that it’s Goldie, standing alone, and not the possessive Goldie’s as I’ve been saying for months. Goldie has an even babier menu than Wiz Kid, but it’s exactly how it needs to be for a little falafel joint. You can choose the falafel in a pita (recommended), the falafel in a salad (what I had because see above about me and salads), fries, and/or a shake. THAT’S IT BRO. They are making just a few things and making them perfectly – as you’d expect from Michael Solomonov, the Israeli chef and restaurateur (ps just learned this minute that it’s not ‘restauranteur’ mind blown) behind Philly’s frequent #1 restaurant, Zahav. In fact, Goldie is considered ‘baby Zahav’ and not just by fans of Solomonov – Zahav means ‘gold’ in Hebrew, so Goldie is indeed officially ‘baby Zahav’. CUUUUUTE! 

I should have gotten the falafel in the pita, but you can take my proclivity to order salads to Vegas. The salad was too acidic, awash in lemon and vinegar and hard to finish because my stomach lining was wearing away. It needed hummus or tahini to cut the paint thinner finish of it. The falafel itself was good, but honestly I think there’s a falafel ceiling, as my husband once suggested and it might be the smartest thing he’s ever said (and he says smart things). Like, falafel exists on a very small spectrum of quality. It’s never bad, it’s usually good, and even the very best falafel are all kind of the same. There’s no way to make falafel that’s insanely better than your average falafel. There’s a ceiling. So even though it was really good here, it can only be so good in the world of falafel. It’s all about how it’s served, so go for the pita, for which you can choose an extra side sauce, either mango curry, harissa, or schug. SCHUG AAAAAAVERY! who’s shug avery? SCHUG AAAAAVERY! SHUG AVERY NOT A CHILD RAISIN’ WOMAN! YOU KNOW THAT! sorry can’t help it and yes I did sing this bit from The Color Purple when I saw the menu. 

Goldie got INCREDIBLY crowded at about 11:45am so prepare to take away instead of waiting for a table. It’s a tiny little cute place but guess what, they do have a bathroom! And a nice one at that! Loving these new Philly lunch spots. Philly is the best. 

But the thing you go to Goldie for is not the falafel, even with the schug avery. It’s for their milkshake, now considered the best in the city I mean WORLD. It’s a tahini milkshake. I know you’re like what hmm I’d prefer chocolate. But no. You’re wrong. It’s the best thing in the WORLD. It tastes like creamy liquid halva. Oh my god I wanted to cry. I’ll cry now. It’s amazing. They have several flavors, including coconut rose, which my friend got and I tried and yep it is also cry-worthy. I would keep crying and crying over my nonspilt milkshake but there’s no reason to now because I RECREATED IT!! I don’t know how I did it but I did it! Okay that’s not true I’m literally about to tell you how I did it, I don’t know why I said that. My god it’s so good. 

It’s rare for me to care about cooking with certain specific ingredients – I’m very flexible in my cookery – but for this I think these specific ingredients are vital. At least the ice cream. It really makes it, and it doesn’t hurt that it’s the best ice cream I’ve ever tasted in my life. I’m not joking. I mean I would NEVER ever order or buy vanilla ice cream when literally any other (nonfruit) flavor exists in this world but this Very Vanilla cashew-based ice cream from So Delicious is beyond anything I’ve ever tried. Oh man! 

Ingredients:

• 1/3 cup Ripple Pea Protein milk in vanilla
• 1/4 cup tahini 
• 1 cup So Delicious Cashew Milk ice cream in Very Vanilla
• Trader Joe’s new Coconut Whipped Cream – aka the GREATEST 

Directions:

1. Blend the milk and tahini in a blender RG (real good). Seriously please blend these before adding the ice cream because that way you will not overblend and thus liquefy the ice cream and end up with a UK-style ‘milkshake’ which is a lie and is really just flavored milk DON’T DO IT milkshakes should be THICK. 
2. Add the ice cream and blend for as short a stint as possible.
3. Pour into a glass. A pretty one!
4. Add a good 5 second spray of the Coconut whip (after you’ve shot a good 10 second spray directly into your mouth) and mix through with a spoon. Then top with a whole lot more whip, like the whole can. 
5. ENJOY!!!
6. VISIT PHILLY!!!

The renowned restaurant Tredwells, in the Seven Dials area of the West End (close to “Matilda”!), has joined the happy trend of mainstream restaurants doing special-night plant-based supper clubs. And yes, they do mean vegan. Calling their one-night-a-month supper club “Vegwells” to be adorable, Tredwells in their attempt this past Monday has lept ahead of the competition. I’d expect nothing less from a restaurant of Marcus Wareing, the celebrity chef with the two-Michelin starred restaurant in Knightsbridge (remind me to look into whether that one is vegan-friendly too, and thus a candidate for the Vegan Michelin series). So I just googled Marcus Wareing and was like ‘hmm why is he sooo familiar looking’ and realized it’s because he was on an episode of Masterchef that Husbo P and I watched during our short but EMBARRASSING hate-fueled obsession with that terrible addictive af show. Anyway, the Tredwells chef, Chantelle Nicholson, has created this ‘plant-based’ supper club to highlight the magic that can unfold when you focus on good, sustainable ingredients. As the author of an apparently vegan (!!) cookbook called Planted, she seemed up to the challenge of impressing me with this meal. Spoiler, she did.

​Chef Chantelle spoke at the start of the meal, which is when I realized that like a true supper club, every table in our basement room was part of this special night and we were all going to be served the same courses at the same time. I like that! It made it seem extra special and like a real event. I am pretty sure this was the first edition of this new version of their supper club, which will be held on the last Monday of every month and must be booked (and paid for) in advance. I am not sure how often the menu will change, but given the restaurant’s dedication to sustainability, seasonality, and innovation, I assume that it will be different each time. Although if the desserts wanted to stay the same, I would be happy.
 
The concept focuses on five ‘plant-based’ courses, and I was assured that everything was vegan. I’m always nervous when places use the phrase ‘plant-based’ (more on that later), so even when someone tells me it’s all vegan, a part of me never really is certain. Well, thanks to Chef Chantelle’s welcome speech, I was finally at ease, because she mentioned how they were using fun new ingredients like ‘the water from chickpeas’. GIRL I almost screamed! High caliber chefs embracing the magic of aquafaba (remind me to ask her if she’s familiar with this name for it) (I’m asking you to remind me of a lot of things but like it’s in writing now so don’t worry) makes me so happy. And I figured, if they’re using aquafaba, I’m pretty sure that means everything is vegan.
 
Our waitress was very sweet, and after I quickly and repeatedly emptied my small-to-medium (it wasn’t a thimble, but I downed it in a sip) water glass, I said ‘would it be possible to get a pitcher? I think it would be easier for all of us’ and she laughed and brought me one so huzzah. 

The first course was a little jar of mushroom mousse that sounds weird but was great. The caramelized shallots seemed to be concentrated at the bottom, which I didn’t know, so my last few bites were a little too full of them, and the pickled mushrooms were big ole strips to be eating out of a tiny jar with a teaspoon. But those are just little quibbles because this was hella delicious. I’d be happy eating that again. 

Course 2 was avocado, lemon, and kohlrabi, which the chef said was her idea of summer in a dish. And it was very summery and bright, and I was glad to have something fresh and refreshing, even though it wasn’t anything revolutionary. You always need something to break up heavier foods and stronger flavors.

For the main course, we were served a chickpea panisse, which is a fried chickpea flour cake kind of thing from the south of France. If you know me, you know I’m obsessed with chickpea flour and run out weekly because I make socca probably too often. It’s the best stuff and there are endless ways to use it. So I was excited to get it as my main, especially since that meant at least a little bit of protein. It’s rare to see someone at one of these ‘plant-based’ shibangs give us more than vegetables, so I welcomed these sort-of frittery, sort-of cakey slabs heartily. I was also just happy that we got this dish because the other ‘plant-based’ item on their restaurant’s regular sample menu was grilled cauliflower, and you know what happens when a restaurant tries to give vegans a slab of cauliflower as a meal (I burn it down). The socca fingers (new name) were very good and not super dry like mine always are. They were served with grilled onions (a few too many/too big for my taste), mint salsa, and very thin slices of whatever white veg that is, fennel maybe? Good stuff. 

As good as all the savory dishes were, dessert brought everything to a whole nother level. I know what you’re thinking: um, y’all crazy. Dessert on ‘plant-based’ menus at non-vegan restaurants are universally tragic. They’re always futile attempts that show zero awareness of what vegans want (they always seem to be trying to be low-sugar or healthy or whatever and you’re like I’m eating out at a restaurant do you think that’s what I’m here for?). But against all odds (take a good look at me nowwww), dessert at Tredwells was the best freaking part. These little jars of deconstructed strawberry meringue pie were astounding. It was one of the best desserts I’ve ever had, and probably the best in the Non-Chocolate category. Simply sublime. It actually made me giddy (probably the sugar rush) and I started acting a little loopy and I shouted “ANOTHER ROUND GOOD SIR” and husband was sooo embarrassed but I wasn’t because I wanted more. Like Jon Lovitz and his rock shrimp ravioli, I could have eaten 100 of these. Man alive I really want to have this again. They had to have used aquafaba for the meringue, which was a little more mousse-y and not as stiff as you’d expect if it was on a pie, but considering it was all in a little jar it worked for that form. The strawberries were perfect, and that scorched surface was gorgeous. LOVES IT! 

I also loved the second dessert! Yes we got a second dessert that was also wonderful! Screw every other ‘plant-based’ menu! This was toasted hazelnut pudding with hazelnut caramel, just out of the oven so the waiters warned everyone not to touch the dish (I did of course because they said not to and it was extremely hot even ten minutes later). The pudding-y cake was great itself (I didn’t really see where the caramel came into play? it was probably mixed in maybe) but what made this dish was the dark chocolate sorbet on top. The little discs of sorbet were extra extra frozen, so that when it was first served, you literally could not cut into the sorbet with a spoon. They were softened by the heat of the cake! So they slowly melted a little and would mix into the hazelnut pudding and it was so lovely and delicious and I was very very full and very very happy. You know how many ‘plant-based’ menus we’ve tried in London and elsewhere over the years – have you EVER seen a place provide two incredible desserts (besides Alinea?) like this? I can’t think of anywhere right now and I’m impressed.
​

So yes, you’ll notice I’ve been using ‘plant-based’ in quotes allatime because I forking hate that phrase, especially when the user is using it instead of vegan. I’ve said in lots of posts (and probably ranted to you in person if we know each other (and on twitter) (and instagram) (complaining is my jam)) why it is problematic, but for a quick refresher: Plant-based is not a real term. Businesses, including restaurants, pop-ups, AND companies selling regular supermarket goods have been using the phrase – for a while now – to mean anything based on a plant. Meaning, when I found a protein bar at the grocery store that screamed “Plant-based!” on the box and I went to check the ingredients, it contained milk and egg. Its first two ingredients were oats and apples – so it was “plant-based” in the truest in-quotes meaning possible. Bless their f-ing hearts, it was founded on plant materials, I guess they were saying, but they added non-plants to it and no one can do shit about it because who is defining ‘plant-based’? Honestly, to me it makes more sense, to get into the semantics of the word ‘based’, that it would mean something that is centered on plants but not 100% entirely made of plants. Like how movies are ‘based on the true story’ or ‘based on the book’ but are never exact copies. They’re just based on it. And I realize that mainstream companies do this because using the word ‘vegan’ would scare away potential nonveg customers – but would it really? Is there any evidence that Joe Spare Ribs wouldn’t try the new vegan menu if it said Vegan at the top but he would if it said ‘Plant-Based’? 

And this rant, and be sure that I’m always going to make this rant (see, e.g., my review of Plates) ​is a little unfair to put on this review, because the chef and staff at Tredwells seem much more amenable to using the V word than others; I mean the chef even has a vegan cookbook. But, it’s messy to me that they commit so hard to the phrase that it informs the code for their regular menu – V means vegetarian, but P-B is used for plant-based. That’s not a very commonsensical code for vegans to look for on a menu. I see that on a menu, I think there’s peanut butter in there and they’re coding it to warn the peanut allergy sufferers, but then, as a fanatic lover of peanut butter, I would do my peanut butter dance and order every peanut butter thing on the menu and so when it turns out it was all the vegan stuff I would, well I would be fine but disappointed because hot damn I love peanut butter. You get what I’m saying. I’m joking yes but it is a wee bit unintelligible for something that is supposed to easily inform customers, especially since vegans are probably the ones looking for the plant-based items. People just trying to eat more vegetables but without real restrictions can use the common sense skill of reading item names without needing a code. I would never think to look for p-b next to a dish name to see if it’s ok for me. And I’ve never seen that before anywhere, so it seems like bending over backwards to avoid using the v word. That kind of mental acrobatics is a big turn-off and I wish people would just embrace the word vegan, especially as ‘plant-based’ continues to get more and more bastardized by commercial ventures. 

Aside from my requisite p-b rant (not peanut butter) (I know you thought I meant peanut butter right), the experience at Vegwells supper club was a real treat. Everything was delicious and some dishes were extraordinary. I have no idea how they will top these desserts but I believe in them. And I’ll let you know, because I will definitely be going back.

Tredwells “Vegwells” Supper Club, London, England, United Kingdom, Europe for right now
Water speed: I was happy to get a pitcher so I didn’t have to worry about it, but before that, the waiters did a good job filling the water glasses of normal people and their normal drinking speeds.
Service: Overall very nice. It was really hard to get the bill at the end (we paid before, as I said, but you had to pay for service and any drinks you got at the end) because everyone was finishing at the exact same time, so I wish next time you could just pay for service beforehand too, like we did for Plates and others. 
Bathrooms: Around the corner so you pass a little window into the kitchen on the way. Fine, clean individual doors marked separately for men and women.
Food:  Fantastic! And we’re getting closer and closer to getting sufficient protein at these things! Sun’s out guns out!
Bonus: Amazing desserts! Like seeing a double rainbow.