To Live and Eat in L.A.

[Update 2/2010: Sadly Weird Fish has removed most of these delicious vegan options from their menu... which sucks. I'll leave this up for historical purposes so that we can all recall sadly what we're missing.]

Let’s head back up north to check out another delicious meal I had on my recent visit to San Francisco. I’d heard quite a bit about Weird Fish, a restaurant in the Mission District that along with serving the real deal, also offers a delicious version of vegan fish & chips, along with many other vegan specialties.

I was eager to try this place… I loved fish & chips as a kid so if they could pull off a reasonable vegan facsimile I would be very pleased.

They did, and I was.

Before we get to the fish, let’s have a gander at this gorgeous appetizer I shared with my buddy, The Buffalo Girls: seitan with buffalo sauce & vegan ranch dressing. I wasn’t quite prepared for how awesome these faux-wings turned out to be…

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Tags: fried, seitan

When I first introduced you to Shojin last year, the vegan Japanese restaurant downtown, I had no idea this restaurant would quickly become not only one of my personal favorites, but also one of Los Angeles’ best overall Japanese restaurants, vegetarian or otherwise. One of the most impressive things about Shojin is that they’re not content with just having a set menu, they’re always adding new items from fancy new desserts to adventurous entrees that I’m practically powerless to resist. Their menu is constantly growing and there are usually always a number of specials on offer that go even above and beyond their regular selection.

After having not visited Shojin for far too long I ended up recently getting to eat there twice in one week, much to my delight. For the first occasion I took myself there on a date as my reward for having survived 2 1/2 weeks of hell, aka, jury duty. The second trip was for my best girlfriend Michelle’s birthday dinner. If I had my druthers I would happily eat at Shojin seven days a week… I could never get tired of this food.

I’m combining both these meals for the sake of this blog post and will show you all the appetizers, main courses and dessert together so it doesn’t get too confusing. Put on your bib, this might make you drool a little bit…
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Tags: Japanese food, seitan

[Update Nov. 5, 2009: Sadly SnackBar has closed and is no more. It's now been turned into a trendy burger bar. Puke]

I love it when places you wouldn’t expect to have anything vegetarian, not to mention vegan, end up having great vegan options. Such is the case with SnackBar, a cool bar in Hollywood tucked away off Cahuenga Blvd. inside Space 15 Twenty -a small yet cute & funky outdoor mall (consisting of a great bookstore and a few shockingly overpriced clothing & jewelry stores). Along with all their snazzy drinks, Snackbar also has a full menu of burgers, salads, sandwiches and snacky things, most of which involve meat and/or cheese, but for a number of pleasing exceptions…

Ah Sweet Potato Fries, a perennial favorite of mine. They use actual sweet potatos, the yellower variety, not the orange variety many call yams but which often show up as sweet potato fries -meaning, these aren’t super sweet. They were awesome however, very lightly salted, perfectly cripsy on the outside, soft and piping hot on the inside. They weren’t at all greasy and seemed more liked baked potato wedges than something that had come out of a fryer, but I can’t say for sure. On that note, I didn’t ask if there was a seperate fryer (I kind of doubt it), so if you need to know that, ask them first.
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Tags: bar, buffalo wings, seitan, snacks

Mani’s Bakery Cafe on Fairfax, which has been in business for over 20 years, is one of those places that people seem to either love or hate. I haven’t come across anyone who’s neutral about it. Me? I’ve got my foot firmly on the LOVE side, which is why I was sad to learn that Mani’s is having a hard time staying in business during this lameass economic meltdown.

Back in January the founder of Mani’s posted on their blog in regards to being in dire straights, basically putting out a plea for help in the form of business and feedback. The story was picked up by Quarrygirl who wrote a great review and helped get the word out that Mani’s is in urgent need of support. The story was also picked up by Eater L.A. where a bit of a backlash started to go down in the comments, a.k.a, those with their feet firmly on the HATE side. Poor dear Mani’s basically got shredded by Eater L.A.’s commentors… so much so that Mani’s then in turn responded to this back on their own blog. Wow… such drama!

While it’s always helpful to take into account the feedback that’s out there whether it be from online reviews or word of mouth, ultimately you won’t know if you like a place unless you try it for yourself. One mans trash is another mans treasure, and vice versa. While I don’t doubt that there is some truth to the negative stuff floating around out there, I for one have only had great experiences each time I’ve been to Mani’s, including great food (it’s more than a bakery, it’s also a full service, vegan-friendly restaurant) and a nice staff. If you were to avoid Mani’s soley because of the gangbang they just received on Eater L.A., you’d be sorely missing out on what for many has become an established local favorite. It’s an awesome place worth saving… just look at some of this excellent food:

Let’s start at the most logical beginning: breakfast. This is the Breakfast Wrap: “The whole enchilada’s wrapped up for your morning meal. Black beans, guacamole, spinach, mushrooms, garlic, cilantro, and your choice of turkey ham & scrambled eggs or vegan tofu scramble in a whole wheat tortilla. Served with our Ranchero Sauce and Pico de Gallo.”
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Tags: baked goods, breakfast, cupcakes, seitan

Flore in Silver Lake has become one of my favorite lunch spots. It would probably be one of my favorite breakfast spots too if I were ever up that early. I’ve eaten there a bunch of times lately and have been saving ‘em up just for you.

Let’s open with the Avocado and Seitan Salad: a bed of mixed greens with sliced avocado, daikon sprouts, grilled seitan and tomato with tahini dressing. I love this salad and order it often, you can see a previous version of it here. It tends to look a bit different each time but the jist is usually the same, and it’s always tasty. There’s a lot more of the seitan in there than the picture shows, it’s hiding under the sprouts.

Now for my new favorite sandwich, Flore’s Club Sandwich: battered & baked tofu, lettuce, tomato, avocado and daikon sprouts served with eggless mayonnaise on toasted organic sourdough bread. Served with their awesome potato salad. This sandwich is so good, the way they make the tofu is fantastic… it’s chewy & slightly crispy with really good flavor. Their fake tempeh bacon rocks too, adding the perfect touch of meaty smokiness to make this a really hearty meal, made even more so by the buttery fresh avocado. YUM.

The yum doesn’t end there, I’m also giving Flore the distinct honor of being my current favorite veggie burger of the moment. As described: The Flore Burger: Our own black bean burger grilled and served with tomato, sprouts, green leaf lettuce and Thousand Island dressing. I also had them add in the extra avocado and cashew cheese.

This is one outstanding vegan burger. I sometimes worry that bean burgers will tasty too beany… you know, nothing but a mouthful of mashed beans like some of those hippie burgers? Nope, this was no granola hippie shit, this was an action packed powercombo of black beans, brown rice, oats, corn and I don’t know what else they stuffed in there but I can tell you that they worked it. It was solid, thick, fat, delicious AND healthy. I slathered that sucker up with both the cashew cheese and Thousand Island, packed on the avocado slices… then had to figure out how to get that monster into my mouth. I love love love this burger and if I could marry it I totally would. Consider yourselves invited.

And what’s a raving review about a restaurant without the obligatory desert porn?

This precious beauty is a vegan lemon cupcake. Sounds simple but it was anything but… more like smooth and silky and sinful. When you taste vegan treats this good it baffles the mind why people still cook with milk, eggs and butter by choice. It’s so not necessary and exquisite deserts like this are proof. Flore is also now selling the vegan Twinkies (because the vegan Twinkies are taking over the world).

There are a number of both good and bad reviews of Flore floating around out there, the bad stuff mostly having to do with service issues. While some of that stuff is to an extent true, I’ve been lucky to usually get that one excellent waitress who just kicks ass. I don’t know her name but she’s the dark haired gal who’s always there and is often the only openly friendly person working. She more than makes up for some of the restaurants other shortcomings, and their great food wins out over any other minor complaints that hipsters on Yelp like to make about other hipsters.

Oh and they’ve got their own website now so I can send you somewhere other than Yelp or Myspace to check them out:
www.florevegan.com

Tags: burger, salad, seitan

Every once in a rare while you get to taste something that is so delicious and such a cut above the rest, that even while you’re experiencing it, you realize that this very moment is going to be memorable. That’s how I felt on my recent visit to Shojin, the vegan Japanese restaurant in Little Tokyo. Specifically, my rapture revolved around their exquiste BBQ seitan, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

You may recall my previous visit to Shojin restaurant back when my lucky friends and I were invited to their special pre-opening tasting dinner. That meal was excellent in every way, so it’s a mystery to me as to why I hadn’t been back since then.

To correct this oversight, one of my lovely foodeating assistants treated me to lunch at Shojin. The lunch menu had a limited selection from the full menu, but there were plenty of great options to choose from. To start our meal, our main entrees were served with soup and a side salad.

Even though it was a really hot day outside, the warm soup was light and refreshing. It was a delicious quinoa soup made with fresh organic vegetables that our waiter proudly and excitedly let us know had been acquired fresh just a few hours earlier at the nearby farmers market. Awesome! The small salad was crispy, tasty and super fresh as well.

We also ordered the Cold Green-Tea Buckwheat Noodles: Garnished with shiso leaf, grated radish and ume paste (pickled plum), mixed sea vegetables, kaiware sprouts (sprouted daikon radish seeds) and scallions, topped with roasted sesame seeds and nori (seaweed). This was beautiful and came served with a slightly salty, I’m guessing soy-based dipping sauce. I really liked the green tea noodles but I’m not a huge fan of sea-flavored stuff, and this had a bit too much of the ocean going on in it for my taste. If you are a lover of all manner of seaweeds and sea veggies, this one is for you.

Ah, but when our main dishes arrived is when things got really exciting! We both ordered the Shojin Style Bento Box which changes with different daily specials from three kinds of traditional vegetable dishes, brown rice and a choice between the Crispy Seitan Cutlet, Barbecued Seitan or Garden Seitan ball. Thank goodness there were two of us so we could each try the others! I went straight for the BBQ seitan while she got the cutlet.

From top left to right up there, first is the Kale & Mashed Tofu Salad: lightly steamed kale in mashed tofu & sunflower seeds. This was ok but the flavor was very simple, almost bland, so it was a little bit overwhelmed by the other stronger flavors it came served with. On the top right is a hijiki seaweed, carrot and gobo salad which I wasn’t crazy about. I know I should get over it because it’s all so healthy for me, but still I can only take so much of that sea taste. A little goes a long way.

On the bottom left of the bento box are some of the most deliciously prepared lotus roots that I’ve ever tasted. These were so good, done in the traditional Japanese style, but done perfectly. Then we get to exactly what made this a meal I won’t be forgetting any time soon… the barbecued seitan.

Shojin’s BBQ seitan is pan fried with their secret sweet soy barbecue sauce. It’s fantastic, I’m literally drooling right now as I’m remembering it, trying to explain it to you while knowing that mere words just aren’t enough. I’ve never had seitan that tasted anything like this before, the texture was the work of a true seitanic master.

This will probably gross some of you out, but have you ever tried eel before? Yeah, real eel from a sushi restaurant. Well, eel does not have a fishy taste at all and has a very silky, fatty texture a lot like salmon (eel sushi is usually not served raw, but grilled). Ok, gross part almost over- point being that this seitan achieved that same type of texture which reminded me a lot of eel… it was silky and had a fatty mouth-feel to it, without being at all oily or greasy. Slighty crispy on the edges with a meaty bite to it, this seitan is what finger licking good is all about, though I did not use my fingers. The BBQ sauce was totally amazing, sweet and savory and bold and just… wow!

Here’s a close-up of my friends pick, the Crispy Seitan Cutlet: Deep fried crispy seitan cutlet with home made miso demi-glace sauce. This was equally great, the seitan we already just discussed was incredible… so just imagine “incredible” times “fried” and this is what you’d get.

We both loved it, all of it, even the parts we didn’t love. The BBQ seitan seriously blew me away and I can’t wait to go back there to get the full order of just that. The folks who run Shojin are just so friendly and eager to please that the whole time we were there we couldn’t wipe the smiles off of our faces. It’s almost like going to a fancy spa, but with great food instead of a massage. While it’s true that the location is a little odd (inside a Japanese mall on the edge of Little Tokyo that’s about to become a Korean mall), I actually really like going there. It’s a totally different world, and Shojin offers a wonderful way to experience it. Go there for the lunch specials or go there for a more elaborate dinner with unique Japanese desserts. Either way it’s a win/win situation.

Speaking of dessert, it’s one of my favorite reasons to visit Little Tokyo. In particular, my sweet tooth satisfies itself at Fugetsu-Do Sweetshop which specializes in traditional mochi treats.

“Mochi is a Japanese confection, found usually in the shape of a small, round rice cake which can be eaten with condiments such as kinako (roasted soy bean flour), manju (sweet red bean paste), soy sauce dip, and seaweed. Traditionally, mochi is made by pounding steamed glutinous rice in a large wooden mortar, called the usu, with a wooden mallet called the kine. Mochi-tsuki is the Japanese term for the old-style method of pounding the steamed glutinous rice used to make mochi.”

They’re usually filled with sweetened red, white or azuki beans as well as various tasty fillings. Most all of them are completely vegan. I’m 100% addicted to mochi desserts and if left to run wild in their cute little shop, I could do both myself as well as their inventory some serious damage.

We got ourselves a nice assortment. Those on the top row that are wrapped in shiso leaves are my favorite. They are called Kuzumochi: Mochi filled with sweet azuki bean paste. Their website says that this is a seasonal item which is only available in the month of July, but they usually seem to have it available whenever I got there (and this was mid-August when we got them). While they are sweet they’re also slightly salty, a really nice combo. The pink ones are filled with white bean paste and the texture reminds me a lot of… wait for it… testicles. It’s true, but in a good way. Soft, chewy & tasty pink baby testicles. Don’t blame me, I didn’t invent the stuff. I don’t remember exactly what the other two had going on, but you can rest assured it probably involved some kind of sweetened bean (if I recall correctly the orange ones were indeed orange flavored). Mochi treats are awesome, and frankly, I’d rather see mochi take over the world than cupcakes.

I suggest indulging in a fun and filling afternoon in Little Tokyo. Ease the stress factor by riding the Metro into Downtown and choose your own adventure depending on which of the nearby stations you exit at. Head on over to Shojin on 3rd St. at Alameda for a remarkable lunch, then walk on down to 1st to Fugetsu-Do and get your fill of sweet mochi to wash it all down with. Don’t forget to enjoy all the fun stuff in between, you’re going to need to walk off some of that food.

(Update) – I just also discovered that Fugetsu-Do has a branch location inside of the Mitsuwa Market, which guess what… is situated inside of the same mall as Shojin! I have not had the mochi from there and I would still suggest checking out their main shop on 1st because it’s really cute, but now there’s no excuse to avoid the mochi if you’re at Shojin, since all you’ve got to do is walk to the other end of the mall to get yourself some. Sweet.

www.theshojin.com
www.fugetsu-do.com

Tags: bbq, Japanese, mochi, seitan

I was down on Melrose to photograph some street art which of course lent itself as the perfect excuse for lunch at M Café de Chaya. But really, who needs an excuse when food this good is just a hop, skip and a jump away?

What we have here is the “Carolina-Style Barbequed Seitan Sandwich” consisting of “thinly sliced grilled seitan basted with our own zesty barbeque sauce and piled high on a house-baked whole heat bun with grilled onions, pickles, and creamy (vegan) coleslaw”. I got it with out the onions, natch, and had the peanuty kale salad on the side.

Maybe I was just really hungry after all the walking I’d just done (Highland to Fairfax thru the Melrose alleys then back up thru the alleys across the street). but everything about this meal was phenomenal. The delicious seitan was chewy and meaty, the texture reminding me a bit of Chinese restaurant-style BBQ pork (you know, the kind that’s usually some ungodly shade of florescent pink). The BBQ sauce was excellent, more on the sweet side than the spicy side but still with a nice, peppery kick to it. The bun was perfectly fresh, nicely toasted and had that wholesome goodness flavor to it. The salad was lovely too, the flavors of kale and peanut playing very well together.

I have yet to taste anything at M Café de Chaya that isn’t amazing. May that day never come.

Tags: bbq, seitan

I took an out-of-town friend by Pure Luck today, he was as excited to hear about their microbrews on tap as I am about their bbq jackfruit. Sadly they were still closed for the holidays. So instead we bucked up our chins and headed west down Melrose towards M Café de Chaya.

This yummy hunk of yum is the “Melrose Avenue Muffaletta” with: “grilled seitan, spicy seitan ‘salami’, miso-cured tofu cheese, roasted red peppers, sun-dried tomatoes, carrots, arugula & olive spread, in a sourdough boule… served by the wedge”. It was every bit as good as it sounds and looks. Very action packed!

The delicious side dish is the ‘Maple Veggies and Brussels Sprouts with Chestnuts”. I’m pretty sure that the other stuff going on in there involved eggplant, yams and adzuki beans.

This place is super trendy, expensive, and trying to find parking nearby pretty much sucks, but I love it all the same.

Tags: muffaletta, sandwich, seitan