To Live and Eat in L.A. – A Vegan Food Photo Blog

It’s no secret that I can’t cook. Well, it’s not that I can’t cook, it’s that I usually don’t. I am perpetually in awe of people who on a regular basis go to the trouble of creating amazing meals and desserts from scratch. To me, you people are like superheroes… it amazes me that in the same time that I can waste sitting around doing nothing, you kitchen folk can whip out a casserole or a cake likes it’s nothing. That’s pure magic.

Me? I generally can’t be bothered. I do enjoy cooking when I actually get around to doing it, but when I do it’s a big deal. Geez, what a production just to get vegetables cleaned and chopped! I’d much rather just enjoy the fruits of someone elses more talented labor. I’m blown away whenever someone feeds me something they’ve made, as I know that even the simplest things take so much time & effort to create. Many of you out there spend a lot of your time in the kitchen cooking up awesome dinners and incredible desserts for the people who matter to you, and for that you deserve mad respect. Cooking with care & love is just about one of the greatest (and sexiest) things you could ever do for someone, so in case no one’s thanked you for it lately, allow me: THANKS! I could not be a Foodeater without you Foodmakers.

You know where this is heading, right? You guessed it- I cooked! While it is a rare occurance that I bust out and cook up an entire feast, it does actually happen once in a blue moon. This latest cooking adventure took place because of a wonderful offer I took advantage of courtesy of Basu’s Homestyle, a new Indian food service here in Los Angeles. Basu’s make delicious traditional masala’s (sauces) that you can use to create an amazing Indian meal in very little time. As of this writing, Los Angelenos can try Basu’s yummy offerings at the Whole Foods hot bar on Santa Monica & Fairfax (and they plan to expand to more locations in the near future). Mr. Meaner over at Quarrygirl.com did an excellent write up of the prepped Indian goodies by Basu’s that you can now get at Whole Foods, including: basil vindaloo with peas and mushrooms, tofu apple masala, vegan curried beef with basil vindaloo, channa dal and peanut masala with roasted red potatoes. Oh man, it all looks so good.

While I haven’t tried the ready-made options at Whole Foods yet, I was lucky enough to take Basu’s Homestyle up on their generous free taste-test of their masalas and other goodies. At first figured I’d just serve the sauces over rice but they gave me so much great stuff (Masala Sauce, Peanut Masala Sauce, Chana Dal, Tamarind Chutney and Saffron Rice) that I was immediately inspired to cook a real meal with it.
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I’ve been cobbling together a post about my recent visits to both locations of Bulan Vegetarian Thai Kitchen. Apparently great minds really do think alike, as just earlier today Bulan was also featured over at quarrygirl.com. Not wanting to steal any of the glory away from that great review, after conferring with the Lady of the Quarries herself, I’m going to go ahead and post this now anyways. We both ate different things, so this way you get to see even more of the deliciousness that Bulan has to offer… and they get double the free advertising :)

Bulan’s food contains “NO meat, NO refined sugars, NO m.s.g. and NO trans fats”. Most of the menu is vegan, with many of the vegetarian items being vegan optional. Everything is clearly marked on the menu so you know what’s what. The food here is not of the same variety of those many other vegan Thai places around with variations on the same menu. The food is a cut above, with more authentically Thai style cooking and higher quality ingredients.

My first visit to Bulan was as their location on Melrose, just west of La Brea. We started off our meal with a palate cleansing blast from the sweet & sour florescently green lime sodas pictured at the top, then began our feast with the Tempeh Appetizer: “nutty-flavor fried bean curd served with sweet & sour sauce”. Just lovely… I could snack on these all day.
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Kinta Restaurant serves what they call “New Malaysian Cuisine”. My Portland friends suggested it to me as soon as they learned I was on a mission to try as much of the awesome vegan & vegetarian places in their lovely city as I could. Kinta is not all vegetarian, they will add in chicken or shrimp by request. Most of the menu is totally vegan however, with exception of the egg noodles, though vegan rice noodles are available for any of those dishes instead.

If you’ve never tried Malaysian food before, imagine a well-crafted blending of Thai food, Chinese food and Indian food… well, that’s what it always makes me think of when I eat it. There used to be a great little Malaysian restaurant here in Hollywood years ago (on Wilcox if I’m remembering correctly) where I had developed a major obsession with their cashew curry. Damn that was good! Then one day they were just gone… that was well over a decade ago at this point and I hadn’t had Malaysian food since then, so I was very excited to have it again here and now in Portland.

For starters we had the sweet potato fritters and curry puffs shown above, both delicious. The batter (made of chickpeas) on the sweet potatoes was thick and crunchy and lightly spiced with something unidentifiably great. I don’t know if these are made with an egg wash or not, so be sure to ask if you need to. The curry puffs (pastry shells filled with curried potatoes, shitake mushrooms and crunchy woodear mushrooms) were of an equally high yum factor, tasting a lot like an Indian style samosa. The dipping sauce was just ketchup, which actually worked quite well.

These refreshing drinks are a tart and perky tamarind & lime concoction, two of my all time favorite flavors. Reliable as always, here they did not let me down. I wanted many refills.

Here we have the Tropical Malaysian Curry Soup: Curry in house-mixed Malaysian spices. The way it works here at Kinta is you choose your entree item, be it a noodle soup like what I chose, a noodle stir-fry or a rice dish, and then you choose from an impressive list of fresh and mostly organic vegetables. They’ve got a standard list of items like bean sprouts, broccoli, carrots, eggplant, etc… but they’ve also got stuff that gets added to the menu as it comes into season, including some of the more interesting Asian greens and veggies. The silly thing is that I don’t remember what all items I picked to go in mine, though for sure I got the broccoli, tofu, and beet greens. There was more in there as well that I’m forgetting.

This soup was so delicious. Along with the cuisines of other countries mentioned above, Malaysian food also reminds me of Indonesian food, as it’s got a similar sort of pungency to the flavors that’s always quite striking. I’m gonna say that it’s a sort of flavor that’s got a bit of funky going on… it’s not exactly foul, but there’s a certain dark musky or mustiness to it that while being super delicious also always makes me think of dirty socks or B.O. Now don’t go letting me ruin your appetite or turning you off of Malaysian food… I mean, just look at that incredible soup… of course it was good! I’ve got nothing against funk when it’s done right. And I tell you with funk this good, I think Malaysia should change it’s official name to Funky Town.

OrganicGirl ordered the Macadamia Curry: – Malaysian curry spices infused with Macadamia nuts. Wow, this was out of this world! I think she got it with the onion infused tofu, eggplant, amaranth greens and I’m thinking perhaps those little brown guys in there are shitake mushroom. This dish was particularly rich in the funkified goodness of secret Malaysian curry magick that I described above, and the macadamia nuts gave the entire thing a most wonderful, full-bodied silkiness. Outstanding.

Overall I loved Kinta…. loved the food, the concept, the friendly service and plenitude of vegan options. The simply prepared food was simultaneously beautiful to look at and a pleasure to eat. If you enjoy Asian and especially Southeast Asian food, or even if you’ve never tried it and are open to full and exotic new flavors, move Kinta to the top of your Portland food list for a rewarding foodie experience.
www.kintarestaurant.com

Stayed tuned for ‘Foodeater Does Vegan Portland’, Pt. 8!

You’ve seen & heard me rave on about the alarmingly good food at Vinh Loi Tofu. Vinh Loi is in my opinion not just one of the best vegan restaurants in Los Angeles, but some of the best food, of any kind, anywhere. I’m so not exaggerating. The food that Kevin Tran brings out from that tiny little window in the wall behind him takes flavor and ingenuity to an entirely new level. It doesn’t matter if you’re a hardcore vegan or a guiltless meatlover, the meals being served at Vinh Loi transcend all such labels.

If you’ve been there before one of the first things you noticed was how tiny the place was. Cute and clean, but very small, with a little market area in the back. The exciting news is that all this has changed! The big counter that took up a lot of the front room has been replaced with a much nicer and smaller unit, opening up a large area of the restaurant for more tables and chairs, it’s a lot less crowded now. Also the market area has been removed, creating even more seating in the back. It’s now a really comfortable space for a sit down meal (it was ok before but this new layout is a big improvement).

More importantly, not only is there now a nice new color menu with pictures, but Kevin is also constantly creating new dishes and re-inventing old ones… for example, he is indeed now serving his very own version of vegan Pho. That’s right folks, you heard it here first! Go try it… tell me how it is, I haven’t had it yet. See all those tantalizing looking dishes up on the wall? Those are just some of the newer dishes added since the menu was printed. The hardest thing about eating at Vinh Loi is deciding what to order!

And decide I eventually did. For this visit I picked the Curry Udon with Chicken.

The chicken, vegan of course, is made from some magical concoction which once began as a soybean. What I can tell you is that it’s unlike any sort of fake meat items you’ve ever tried, tasting both authentic and yet not so real that it’s too real, with flavors that just burst in your mouth of heat and ginger and lemongrass and multitudes of goodness unrecognizable to mere mortals such as myself. There’s no point in thinking of it as a meat substitute, it’s something else entirely. And that’s only the chicken…

The curry covering these perfectly cooked udon noodles is simply not something that my limited culinary vocabulary is able to properly describe or do justice. This is by far one of the most delicious things I’ve ever tasted. Seriously, there’s no way around it, these noodles are just phenomenal. The flavor starts off for me as a Japanese style curry, but how it takes off from there in it’s entirely own directions is something of legends. This is the curry of the Gods right here. There’s plenty of veggies in there as well, cabbage, carrots, bean sprouts, and as you can see a giant heap of fresh and glorious cilantro. The chilies are too hot for me even though I do like things rather spicy, but if you can take the heat these will rock your socks off.

I’m telling you, this dish kicks all kinds of ass, proving once more that vegan food isn’t all pansy-hippy-granola. There’s at least 30 or more new dishes up on that wall that I haven’t tried yet… what’s a girl to do?! Vinh Loi’s also now got extended hours (open everyday from 9am to 9pm!) and a brand spanking new website as well, so click on over, then drive on out to humble Reseda to get your serious eating on: www.vinhloitofu.com

My advice? Go hungry… go very, very hungry!

I love the food at Follow Your Heart but it’s more on the hippy end of things, so I wasn’t sure how well they would pull off Indian Food.

This is the ‘Tandoori and Curry’ plate, and I’m pleased to report that it was fantastic. “Tandoori Spiced Vegetarian “Chicken” and a Savory Tofu Curry, Served with Basmati Rice, a Vegetable Samosa and Mango Chutney.”

It was a large serving of food. The chicken was some sort of gluteny-seitan concoction. It was a bit on the chewy side, almost jerky-like, but that was a good thing. The tofu was also firm with a really nice texture, and both the tandoori and curry flavors were great. The samosa was tasty, though nothing special. The mango chutney was sweet and I enjoyed it with the rice. Overall a very yummy dish. FYH, sorry I doubted ya!

I made this one up as I went along and it came out fantastic. It went something like this…

First I started heating up some olive oil and crushed garlic (one large clove). Then I added in chopped red bell pepper, chopped “baby bella” mushrooms and roughly chopped artichoke hearts (from a can, drained and rinsed) along with some lemon juice and rice vinegar. As the pepper started to soften I added in one tub worth of crumbled super-firm tofu. As this cooked I also added in some sun-dried tomatoes (these had been soaked in warm water first for about 15 minutes, then chopped up), fresh basil, yellow curry powder, coriander, black pepper and cayanne pepper. I let this cook until most of the liquid had been soaked up and the tofu had just started to brown around the edges.

This was so quick and easy to make, and every bit as tasty as something that would get served at a restaurant. Don’t be afraid to make your own version of tofu scramble, throw in whatever you’ve got on hand, season to your liking (may I suggest curry?) and there you have it: dinner! Or breakfast, or what have you…

Oh these were so tasty! Vegan Plate serves up this lovely appetizer dish of vegetable steamed dumplings slathered in a delicious green curry sauce. The sauce was rich with curry, coconut and basil… truly one of the tastiest green curries I’ve tried.

I love it when I make up a dish, don’t follow any recipes, and it turns out good.

This curry turned out really good in fact. It went a little something like this: the main ingredients are sweet potato, asparagus, portobello mushroom and baked tofu (‘Royal Thai’ flavor by Wildwood Organics). I started the sweet potato steaming first, once it started to soften I added in the rest. While they were doing their thing I made up the curry.

I put directly into a small saucepan about 2 cups of plain soymilk, 3/4 cup of lite coconut milk, big chunks of peeled garlic and ginger (which I removed before serving), a few basil leaves (I wanted more but I’ve already depleted my little plant of too many leaves), less than a teaspoon each of garam masala, yellow curry, turmeric, and a dab of sambal (spicy-sweet Asian chili paste). This was simmered until the veggies were done steaming and I mixed in a bit of cornstarch at the end to thicken it up.

It turned out even better than I expected it to. Sweet, savory, spicy and organic… just the way I like ‘em.