resistance is fertile

living underground in the real world

NYC walk March 23, 2011

Filed under: NYC,Restaurant rants and raves,self-titled — lagusta @ 8:55 pm

A few weeks ago I took a walk in New York.

That’s really all I have to say.

It’s 7 PM on Wednesday night and I have this THING I’m trying not to think about until Monday (I have a 3,000 word blog post [I'm not kidding] ready to be posted if/when it happens on Monday, don’t worry) and I thought I’d post photos of the walk to distract my stomach from knotting up until then.

*

A few weeks ago, I was staying in Jacob’s hotel room in New York for a couple days (the pleasures of a free hotel room 2 hours from your house are very pleasurable, indeed.), and though I brought no less than four moleskine notebooks to doodle in and five New Yorkers to read, I helpfully neglected to bring socks, underwear, a toothbrush, a scarf, or a comb. Some of those I could steal from Jacob, but not underwear or a scarf.

And hey, am I the only woman around who even wears underwear?? Not to name names, but recent girltalk has made me realize that almost none of my friends even bother (this is what we talk about when we make your chocolates, yes.). When did this happen? How often do you wash your pants, women?

So, on a bright almost-springy New York morning, I had some breakfast at Teany (not vegan any more! I guess Moby sold it off?), then set off toward Chinatown in search of underwears.

I found two pairs of undies at the lovely organic/sustainable boutique Kaight, where if I had endless clothing funds I’d probably buy all my clothes. They were on clearance for $10—an amazing price for organic cotton underwearz, except that they only had XS. You’d think on the LES, land of leggy ladies, XS undies would sell out immediately, but no. Because I am a chump who was too lazy to pull them on over my tights, I just bought them. If you see me constantly digging XS underwear out of my S behind, please know this is why.

I poked around a couple more Lower East Sidey boutiques looking for cool scarves, but I couldn’t find anything under $100, so I gave up.

Then I had lunch with my bestest bestest pal Mary at Barrio Chino. I guarantee you haven’t been to Barrio Chino because pretty much everyone who reads this blog is vegan and it’s not vegan so BE EXCITED! You’re going to like Barrio Chino. The margaritas are lovely and the vegan options are scanty but delicious (as you know, that’s my preferred restaurant style). The cactus salad is especially tasty.

Mary and I talked about everything in our hearts, and I got those good chills you get when you’re pouring your heart out to your bestest girlfriend. We were also the only people on the Lower East Side wearing color, and between the two of us we were wearing a LOT of it. My tights are deadstock vintage weirdo super tight tights with stirrup heels! I got them in order to put the packaging on the pantyhose wall, and was pleased when the tights were wearable too.

After reluctantly leaving Mary, I intended to take the subway to meet Jacob up at Radio City where he had a show. But he had a few hours until he was free, and I felt like walking. Also, I figured a springtime long NYC walk would be a good bookend to the autumnal Chicago 10-mile walk.

Off I went.

I got to Astor Place and that cube thingie my mom told me she once slept under for a night. Oh, the ’60s.

I kept walking. Soon I was at my old stomping grounds in Chelsea, where I went to cooking school. I turned around to take a photo of the Flatiron Building, why not.

The air was really nice, crisp with the promise of warm around the corner.

Or….was it?

No, it was pretty nice.

Nice enough for this guy to be blowing giant bubbles, anyway.

I was really into this guy.

I think if you take photos of a street performer, you’re obligated to toss them a few bucks. So I did, and kept walking.

Before I knew it, I’d walked 47 blocks up Sixth Avenue and was standing in front of my old office building, where I was once a secretary for a year at Simon & Schuster. So weird.

Even weirder:

Even though I was wearing shoes with absolutely no support whatsoever, my feet were holding up amazingly well. It was a midtown miracle!

And then just one more block and I was there:

I found my sweetheart’s tour bus around the corner and took a nap in his bunk, all snuggly and warm in the middle of midtown.

Perfection.

 

the great debate July 29, 2010

Filed under: NYC,Restaurant rants and raves — lagusta @ 4:07 pm

Dudes.

It’s happening again. I’m spending two days in NYC hiding from my out-of-control life while my sweetheart works around the clock, and we’re having friendly squabbles over where to eat. We’re in the most veg-friendly city in the entire universe (suck it, PETA, you know nothing), albeit in a bit of a dining black hole stuck here in Midtown, and Jacob’s saying things like “They got me take-out from Zen Palate delivered last night just because it was close by, and it was horrible, as I knew it would be. On the upside, I’ve had lunch at ‘sNice three days in a row.” Which is prompting me to say things like “I hereby vow to never go to a veggie restaurant ever again.” Menus have gotten so much better over the years, but there is still so much veggie burger bullshit that I just want to scream. Things are better, but I want them to be perfect.

So we’re stuck in the same place again: Jacob looks at menus of vegan places, and I look at Chowhound and Zagat to find actual good places where we have to ask a million questions. I dream of Ecuadorian llapingachos and Ethiopian breads. Jacob says we should walk the 40-block round-trip to go to Blossom, I say we should walk an equal distance to go to Kalustyans (I like walking when in NYC!). I threaten to bring him lunch from a hole-in-the wall Mexican place with beans and rice with unknowable ingredients, and he gets a scared look in his eyes.

Here’s the best way I can sum up the problem: I want to eat non-white people’s food made by actual people of color. I don’t want to eat “karma noodles” made by a trustafarian blathering on about the life-saving benefits of rejuvelac. I don’t particularly care that you offer Daiya cheese for your sandwich. I’m glad that you have a $24 homemade ravioli entree with cashew cream sauce, but I can make that at home.

I want authentic food that excites me, made authentically vegan.

I just want the whole world to become vegan so they can cook for me, is that too much to ask?

 

NYC LES dining update June 8, 2010

Filed under: cooking is vegan (of course),NYC,Restaurant rants and raves — lagusta @ 7:55 pm

First of all: this scarf with this dress: yea or nay? I can’t decide. (Yeah, I made that headband by shortening the skirt of the dress, of course!)

Second of all:

The continued girlification of me continues to bewilder me. My shoes keep getting higher and higher. Very strange. When Jacob saw me in these (which, in truth, I bought mostly because my beloved beaten-up blues kill my feet and the blisters had suddenly [coinciding with walking past a shoe store I'd long wanted to explore, strange how things happen, isn't it?] become TOO MUCH RIGHT NOW MUST! GET! THESE! OFF! MY! FEET!), he said “Thirteen years with someone and one day you realize they’re a girlie girl. Who knew!” And I took his arm and tottled (I think I mean “tottered,” but “tottled” is cool, no?) off to dinner, like the brainwashed patriarchy-participant a part of thinks wearing heels makes me.

Oh, but dinner! That’s what I came here to talk about.

This post is a companion piece to this little list of Lower East Side veganosity, FYI. Links to all the restaurants mentioned here are on that page.

As it turns out, an old pal of mine is now the Executive Chef at Counter, so Jacob and I braved the INSANE RIDICULOUS prices to give it a whirl again, and it’s still solidly lovely. The prices aren’t too much if everything really is organic, but $12 for a martini, no matter how much I needed one after walking 10 blocks in 4″ heels, no matter what magical organic vodka you’re putting in them, was not going to happen (I save all my $12 for baths, as you might recall.). My bestie Maresa is actually currently working there making desserts too, which all seem imaginative and well-executed. (I mean, Maresa is perfect and amazing, but [for now at least?] she’s just the executor of their recipes, so even if they sucked you can’t really blame her. But they don’t suck!)

Counter’s a weird place in ways that I discussed in the post referenced above, but it certainly is nice to have a 99% vegan stylish bistro to go to.

For three times the price, however, I’d still rather go to Kajitsu and have my mind continually blown off. We went last week and I officially declared my love to them by bringing the chef chocolates and beginning an email relationship with our favorite server, Jamie (he emailed me to send some links related to making sake, which we chatted about at dinner. How sweet is that, yo?). Also! My former intern, the amazing Ann, is now interning there.

OK this is getting too gossipy. Kajitsu was great, everyone should go, will post pictures soon.

Before leaving the city, we again braved not-ludicrous-if-everything-truly-is-organic-but-I-personally-have-my-doubts prices and went to Caravan of Dreams for brunch. Why? Because literally no other place was open and we both needed food for our (separate, sob sob) journeys. It was horrible, as we both knew it would be. I have had a singular experience at CoD several times now, where I ask the waiter if I should order what I’m about to order, and they straight up say no. It’s a good reminder to trust your servers, and to let them guide you to the good stuff. I asked the waitress what she thought about the oat pancakes, and she said, “You know…they’re just like pancakes. Except…” “Except not fluffy and not good?” I said. “Yep.” She said. I got some polenta thing which wasn’t awful. Jacob got your standard tofu scrambler burrito with the requisite squeezie-tube sauce drizzled over it. (Drizzling sauce over burritos seems sort of horrible to me. My god I have a lot of peeves.)

Don’t ever go to Caravan of Dreams, OK? Promise?

Instead, go to the newly reopened Teany, just a few streets away, and get a perfectly serviceable TLT sandwich. The Bluestockings counter woman I asked if it was open said it was and mentioned that it is no longer owned by Moby, but the menu and decor seem mostly unchanged, though there are more seats.

Proving my intense hypocrisy, Teany is the one place in the world where I order the ridiculously sugary, Earth Balance-laden desserts that are not usually, to put it kindly, to my taste. (To put it unkindly: are ruining the entire world in 50 different ways.) The same thing happens every time: I eat half my strawberry shortcake (which you can get in fucking January, cottony fraises and all) then take the rest home and eat it at midnight and marvel at how that fluffy Earth Balance frosting coats your tongue so horribly.

Mon petit ami, on the other hand, is purely happy, and also does the same thing every time: orders one dessert,

then decides to that two would really be better. (While I just mush around my cake.)

Ah, NYC.

 

monday miscellany: six things. A movie, a meal, a trade (with you?), and more. April 7, 2010

Filed under: cooking is vegan (of course),culture and its discontents,i heart feminists,Monday Miscellany,NYC,Restaurant rants and raves — lagusta @ 1:27 am

1) This is more of a note/promise/reminder to myself: I really want to a) fix up my New Paltz dining guide and b) work on a veggie-friendly Hudson Valley dining guide. Start taking notes on places and sending them to me, OK? What hidden gems do you love, upstaters?

Also, I just created a new blog category to fit all my restaurant notes into. I’ll go through and re-tag them soon so you can have a handy swear-y vegan-y snooty foodie dining guide right here!

2) This blog, pointed out to me by the ever-fabulous Kara of Wintergreens, is ridiculously fascinating.

3) Eventually I know I must do this, though I will throw the entire library into a very pretty sort of chaos. On the other hand, I could just buy them–ha! Who besides weirdly rich and uncultured people and film sets actually do this? (via Brittany)

4) How to Train Your Dragon: I saw this tonight with 2 BFFs and my bestest 7-year-old pal. I knew nothing about it, didn’t feel like seeing a movie, and was worried it would be too actiony/childish, but by the end I was unapologetically in a puddle of happy tears. (Our bestie Ebert might say I have a 6-year-old’s taste, but I’d argue that it’s solidly that of a 7-year-old, as we both agreed immediately afterward that it was our favorite movie [It's probably safe to say, however, that he doesn't share my other favorite movies: Antonia's Line, Small Change, Au Revoir les Enfants, & Shortbus.].)

First of all, the primary dragon protagonist, Toothless, IS MY CAT SULA. Everyone we saw the movie with agreed. He looked and acted exactly like him, which was pretty awesome. I had no idea my most fearful cat had a whole other career in Hollywood.

More interesting to non-Sula-the-cat pals is this: it seemed to me that HtTYD is the perfect Avatar-type movie for people (like, everyone sane) who loathed Avatar with such righteous ragey fury. It has the same “be nice to the earth and animals!” message, but somehow it’s so much more interesting/well-done/not headachey/not so dudey/not offensive to Native peoples/not so annoying/not too long/ basically just 20 trizillion times better in every way. There is a tiny pro-pets message that will irk the hardest of the hardcore animal rights activists out there, but overall it’s ridiculously heart melty.

5) The other night, we all went to En Japanese Brasserie (previously mentioned by me here), and it was super lovely, a great addition to the ever-growing roster of amazing places to eat in NYC. They make their own artisanal tofu three times a day, and though the vegan dishes aren’t marked on the menu and at first glance it might seem like there isn’t much, a consultation with the waiter will help guide you to what’s safe. They put fish sauce in the shoyu though, so be sure to ask for straight up soy sauce. We had good success by asking for a few things on the menu minus their fishy broths and things, and there were even a few killer desserts—the haunting shiso sorbet was a perfect ending. Give it a try! (We also saw Anna Deavere Smith there, happily knocking back wine and gabbing with a gal pal in high style, not an hour after I’d been gushing about my love for Nurse Jackie, making me not only psychic but also keeping my streak of seeing someone famous on (or near) the street every time I come into the city lately [Scarlett Johansson, Neal Patrick Harris, that skinny weirdo who's married to Ferris Bueller, and that cute guy in Gogol Bordello are all recent sightings, I'm sort of horrified to admit. I'm not a celebrity-y person, I swear! But it's fun when the big ones walk right past you!]

6) Finally…wait, what was the last thing? I can’t remember.

Well, how about this: did you know that the piers on the west side of Manhattan are at the street numbers minus 40? So, Pier 57 is at 17th street. And that the Titanic was supposed to dock at Pier 59 (19th st!)? And that the 7 points in the Statue of Liberty’s crown represent the 7 continents and 7 seas? And that I’ve been doing touristy things in NYC with guests?

Oh dang, wait, I just remembered:#6 was actually important!

It was that I’ve got to do some overhauls to lagustasluscious.com. Are you a great graphic designer who might want to trade mad HTML skillz for food (if you’re in the HV)/chocolates/cash/ some combo of the three (preferably heavy on the first two)? If so, email me some samples of sites you’ve made, OK? Let’s talk! I found my amaaaaaazing bluestockingbonbons.com designer through this here blog, so let’s try again (she’s too busy with general awesomeness to do another site for me, alas. There’s only so many chocos one vegan can eat, ya know?)!

xoxox

atsugal

 

lentils and rice (mujaddara), but, like, not the shitty health food hippie kind, and also: KOSHARI! January 17, 2010

Filed under: NYC,recipe!,Restaurant rants and raves — lagusta @ 5:26 am

I’m just gonna tell you right now that I’ve had two glasses of wine, and that is about all I can ever handle before I start going a little wild and loopy and happy and, um, what’s that word?

DRUNK.

So let’s see how this recipe goes. I’m going to illustrate it with snaps of weird things you might find in Latina markets. (Also known as “Mexican markets,” “Latino markets,” and “Hispanic markets.” I like ladies, so I say Latina markets. Also the store I shop at is called Casa Latina!)

Thanks to lovely lovely Moom (sister of eternal BFF Than, whom you know) for asking for the recipe and giving me the impetus to post it. She asked me for my recipe and said that hers is similar to that served at Kalustyans. I like everything at Kalustyans, I would marry Kalustyans if it asked me and if we could live in the “50,000 kinds of rice” aisle, but I think their mujaddara is a wee bit on the dry side. Moom mentioned that she was thinking of amping hers up by using shallots instead of onions and here’s a confession (one that I think a Vietnamese cook like Moom just might find slightly horrifying) I hate shallots so much. Not eating them, but cooking with them. Well, not cooking with them, peeling them. I hate peeling them so much that I haven’t touched one in about half a decade. Please downgrade me in your esteem accordingly.

I’ve got no pictures o’ lentils n’ rice, but I have a sneaky feeling you can picture it. Picture it all vibrant and lovely though, laced with shredded greens and topped with paprika and juicy, not dry and hideous (like hippies make it. Did I just say that?).

In addition to lentils and rice, which is also called mujaddara (or mujadara, or mujadarra, and is sort of pronounced like “mu-JAHT-ra”), which if you believe in fairy tales is what Esau sold his birthright as firstborn son to Jacob (not my atheist Jewy Jacob, some other Jewy Jacob) for. What does that even mean? You’ve got me, but then again, I don’t believe in fairy tales, so maybe it’s not for me to know. Point is, peeps have been eating this combo since Jewfros were invented, because it’s tasty.

And as usual, bubbaloo, there are tricks:

  1. USE A SHITLOAD OF OIL. See below. Olive oil is your flavor carrier, and if you don’t use enough it will be dry and dry and sad and tasteless. Have a heavy hand with the evo and you’ll be happier later.
  2. Fry the hell out of the onions. They shouldn’t be clear or “soft” or “translucent,” as you sometimes see cooked onions described in recipes—they should be browned. It should take you a good 20 minutes to cook them. Cook them over super high heat and they could get bitter, but cook them too low and they will never cook. Take the Middle Way.
  3. Use enough salt. As usual, enough is: a lot. Comparatively speaking. (Compared to what hippies would use, that is.)
  4. Use enough paprika. See above (#3). See below.
  5. This is one of those recipes that is simple, but not exactly easy. For example, if you forget to add the spices to the oily onions and just sprinkle them over the top when it’s all done, they will have almost no flavor, because you need to heat them to make the flavor bloom. The directions are the way they are for a reason is what I’m trying to say, does that sound preachy?
  6. Also, it seems to me that this is usually served with some sort of pickle, and that’s a good idea. It livens things up a little bit. I usually eat it with picked pepperoncini peppers. At Kalustyans they give you pickled beets and peppers and all kinds of deliciousnesses. Pickled chipotle peppers would be nice, as would those little tiny red peppers…argh, what are they called? I have a huge box of them in my walk-in at work, thousands of miles away…they are little cherry peppers, pickled in sort of a sweet brine. I’ll think of it, it’ll come to me…………………Update, an hour later: PEPPADEW PEPPERS! They are nice, check ‘em out. (Upstaters, I know Mother Earths carries them)

OK, so after the mujadara, I’m going to give you a special variation which is even better: Koshari. It’s modeled on the koshari at a certain nameless restaurant on Main Street in my town, whose version is so profoundly mediocre that I knew I had to make my own. (Most of my recipes are created out of snobbishness, yes, how did you know?)

Let’s get started, Softer Violet:

(more…)

 

beloved kajitsu September 1, 2009

Filed under: cooking is vegan (of course),NYC,Restaurant rants and raves — lagusta @ 3:27 pm

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An update on my favorite restaurant in the world: Kajitsu: my sweetheart Jacob has been there every month for the past three months, taking various friends and work mates every time, and everyone has loved it. Veronica is headed there tonight to check out the September menu (Veronique: report back!), and I’m hoping to get there in a few weeks when I’ll be in the city to be in an art show (!!! details to come!!!).

Veronique mentioned that she was checking out various internetty reviews of it before her visit, and she found some douchey reviews on Yelp. This made Jacob (who was hanging out at the kitchen at the time while I was making unbelievable hand-pulled noodles I spent eight hours on while Veronica made pretty much every other dish for the week) instantly go online to investigate, and inspired a long ranty conversation between the three of us about why vegans care so much about fuckin’ doughnuts and shit and not enough about, say, Kajitsu’s homemade soba noodles (yes, Jacob, as previously noted, embodies both sides of this debate). Basically, why Kajitsu isn’t getting major press in the vegan food world just blows our collective mind.

The outcome of this conversation is the brilliant manifesto below, written by my beloved about our very most beloved restaurant and posted at Yelp, SuperVegan, & Happy Cow.

As a long time vegan who travels for a living, I make it a point to go to vegan as well as haute cuisine restaurants all around the world, no matter the cuisine or cost. This includes an experience at an authentic vegan shojin restaurant in a Zen Buddhist monastery in Kyoto.

Having spent most of my time in New York I’ve frequented practically every vegan / veggie restaurant in New York City including Candle 79, Hangawi, Counter, Dirt Candy, Pure Food and Wine, etc. I make it a point to also dine at high end restaurants that accommodate vegans including Per Se, Nobu, Craft, Charlie Trotter’s and Alinea (in Chicago).

I’ve been to Kajitsu three times in as many months and have had the pleasure of experiencing their last three menus which change monthly to feature seasonal elements. Kajitsu combines high-end dining with truly unique authentic ethnic cuisine. The dining experience is exquisite with impressively informed and passionate servers and a tranquil and thoughtfully designed setting (including many antique place settings and furniture). It’s worth noting that, as the Kajitsu website indicates, shojin cuisine is considered the foundation of all Japanese cuisine, including kaiseki (which is derived from shojin), and has always been a vegan cuisine.

The menu, as pointed out by other reviews, is prix fixe at a $50 or $70 level and I’ve always gotten the 8 course meal as it really is the better deal and experience. Neither I, or the more than 20 people (vegan, veg, and none*) that have accompanied me, have ever left less than satisfied or hungry.

The sake selections are great and the seasonal frozen sake is a treat in the summer months (the spoon that it’s served with has a 1000 year old glass bead hanging from it!) The Nama Fu (something I’ve never had before in the US) comes from a multi-generational owned family shop in Japan and is a wonderful replacement for the typical seitan / tofu / tempeh ingredients.

At this price range it’s certainly a special occasion destination and definitely worth visiting each month to explore the new menu. Every dish is impeccably executed with flawless technique, masterful flavor pairing, and inspiring presentation. Each plate was a joy!

I look forward to our new monthly tradition of visiting Kajitsu.

(for pictures and a thorough review of my first visit to Kajitsu, please visit my partner’s posting** here)

*”Vegan, veg, and none” is a cute way to describe flesh-eaters, is it not?

**Jacob wrote “posting” because he REFUSES to write or speak or think the word “blog.” Once upon a time we were united in our hatred of the word blog…sigh.

 

three perspectives on vegans dining at nonvegan restaurants August 29, 2009

Filed under: cooking is vegan (of course),Elsewhere,NYC,Restaurant rants and raves,Upstate NY — lagusta @ 8:57 pm

Here’s a question I’ve been thinking about a lot:

Vegans: do you make it a point to go only to vegan and veggie restaurants? I’d like to know. Here are my thoughts on it, as well as my (probably incorrect) interpretations of those of the two vegans I’m closest to: my moms & my sweetheart.

My thoughts:

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The number of photos I have of me looking bizarre while eating is truly amazing. Also, I’d really like someone to explain why I’m wearing two sweaters in L.A. Also what’s happening with my bosoms.

  • If I ever eat another shittyass veggie burger, or even a mediocre veggie burger, or even a pretty good veggie burger, I am going to die.
  • If I see another menu with a mediocre tempeh reuben/seitan fajita dish/portobello sandwich/cole slaw with veganaise mayo (sigh)/terrifying soy buffalo wings/whitey burritos/underflavored whitey tacos/stir-fries (oh. god.)/and the hummus/and the bland chili/horrifyingly bland peanut noodles/sad sad sad uncrispy salads with truck lettuce and sad sad sad gloppy dressings, etc. etc, I. Will. Die.
  • [insert long cheffy snobbish rant here about how I make my own tempeh and can't possibly be expected to eat that bitter shit in regular tempeh reubens and would never own a restaurant because then you have to make what people want to order instead of vice versa, which is how my weirdo business works because I'm such a diva.]
  • Why do we go to these places, when we could go to, say, an actual Mexican place run by actual Mexicans who actually know how to cook and can make us actual Mexican food that is 1,000 times better? I do not have even one more inch of stomach space for a burrito as big as my head stuffed with iceberg lettuce and crunchy beans made by…well, I was just about to write the most horrifying sentence about trustafarian hippie vegans, but why be so mean? Trustafarian hippie vegans could make this non-trustafarian hippie-hating long-time vegan a good meal, I will admit that it is possible. I will merely say that they so rarely do and will not slander those who are, sigh, basically my people.

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  • By “these places,” I am specifically talking about places like: Chicago Diner in Chicago (where last night I had a truly dreadful dish called “Oaxacan Ravioli” whereby I must give the cooks points for trying, but whose execution was mindblowingly horrid (here’s a tip: ravioli should not be so “al dente” [i.e., undercooked] as to CRUNCH when you bite into it, unless it is the famous St. Louis-style “toasted ravioli,” which this most assuredly was not); Kate’s Joint and Quantum Leap and Caravan of Dreams and bunches more in NYC; one zillion crap vegan Thai places in LA with plasticky soy protein dishes; this one place I went to in Boston last year I can’t remember the name of (it was upstairs, and Asian, and horrrrrid); and I’m sure you can think of more.
  • The other thing is that when you go to nonvegan places & order their vegan dishes, you show them that there is a market for vegan things, and that’s good, right?
  • OK, I’ll admit it: Chicago Diner has the best vegan strawberry milkshakes ever.

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Really. Amazing.

My sweetheart’s thoughts:

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The number of photos I have of my sweetheart eating something sugary is truly amazing.

  • YUM! Seitan!
  • Ooh, terrifying soy buffalo wings!!
  • I’ve been on tour for weeks and am subsisting on hummus and kombucha from our rider and the last thing I want to do on the half hour I have before I have to rush back to the venue is worry that the chilaquiles from the awesome-looking taco truck on the corner have secret cheese in them. Plus, I can trade tickets to the show tonight to the cool vegans at this place in exchange for backstage doughnuts! Doughnuts!!!!!

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“Dudes! I got the doughnuts!”

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  • I wonder if Lagusta could FedEx some peanut butter cups to the next hotel? I’m getting a little low.
  • Oh my god Chicago Diner has the best vegan cookies & cream milkshakes ever. I hope they use real Oreos. Wow, I’m so happy that Oreos are vegan these days. No more Hydrox for me! Oh boy. I’m going to get some Oreos on my way back to the venue.
  • Oreos!!!!!

My mom’s thoughts:

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OK, I need to work on my collection of mom-eating photos.

  • Chicago Diner is SO AWESOME. I love it SO MUCH. They always donate to whatever animal rights campaigns we’re working on, and they support all the groups I’m in as much as they can. Everyone is so nice and cute, and when Lagusta’s sweetheart is in town we go and he loves the milkshakes so much.
  • Hmm, what’s this in my soup? A door hinge? Oh my. The rest of the soup is pretty tasty though!*
  • Look at that cute dog!
  • One reason I love going to vegan restaurants is to support other vegans, and vegan businesses. Why worry about what’s in the food at nonvegan places when you can have peace of mind at all-vegan places?

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This ice cream has Oreos in it!!!!!

What are your thoughts?

—

—

*TRUE STORY.

 

Your new favorite NYC restaurant: Kajitsu June 5, 2009

Filed under: cooking is vegan (of course),NYC,Restaurant rants and raves — lagusta @ 12:29 pm

So, we went.

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And as I predicted, it was amazing. I’m sorry, Hangawi, I’ve got to bump you down one spot: Kajitsu is now officially my new favorite restaurant in NYC, or, to be honest, pretty much the whole world. All vegan Zen Buddhist Kyoto-influenced (shojin) cuisine—is there anything else to say?

The night in pictures:

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First course, and I’m gonna straight up tell you: my least favorite. That reddish pool is umeboshi paste, and, having suffered through too many classes on the joys of umi at my macrobiotic-leaning cooking school, I am not a fan. It’s an ancient Japanese condiment, but to me it tastes one-dimensionally salty salty salty. But the handmade lotus root “mochi” filled with shiso wasabi was delicious. And look that that adorable garnish: a ginkgo (I think) nut with a pea shoot poked into it.

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You already knew, dear internet, that I am constantly tossing off witticisms that make sane people (Veronica, on my right) slightly uncomfortable all the time, but now you know another truth about me: I have a freakishly small head.  (I also dress slightly like a nun.)

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Everyone always says it, and I suspect it sort of annoys Selma, but she is FREAKING ADORABLE.

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Back to the food: after the first course, soup, of course!

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And, oh, maybe my favorite. What is the secret of Japanese clear soups? I believe I have a special affinity for making soups. But I can’t make a perfectly clear broth with as much pristine flavor as I’ve had at Japanese shojin restaurants. This one was “clear soup with spring mountain yam filled with yamogi paste,” and oh, oh, oh. Transcendent. So much more flavor than a picture can convey.

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Juan, Than (I love it when JuanThan are together! Say it: wonton!!), Jacob, and Carolanne, Selma’s unintentionally-hilarious partner. Carolanne is one of those people who is constantly coming out with deadpan, oddball little speeches that make me laugh every time, though she’s not trying to be funny. She’s just bizarre in the way that all interesting people are, and I adore her.

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From top: spinach tossed with tofu paste, pine nuts and deep-fried fu (a bound salad, very creamy and nice); roasted corn purée over rice (garnished with cornsilk. Oh, the loveliness. I could eat this for breakfast for the rest of eternity), carrot pâté with mustard miso and, if I am remembering right, those tiny dots on top of the pâté are shoyu “caviar.”

I think the caviar was made with a caviar machine, something I have been keeping in the back of my head as a future project. The pâté was most likely made with agar-agar, it was firm, sliceable, and ultra carroty.

What is fu? I didn’t know either, and I’m sort of ashamed I didn’t. Fu is a Japanese version of seitan (which is Chinese)! They gave Selma and I painfully adorable little booklets that explain it. At the end of this post I will scan in the relevant pages.

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YUMS.

Oh, and the dishes. Apparently a lot of them are Japanese antiques, some up to 200 years old! We were very very careful with our chopsticks after hearing that.

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Homemade soba noodles—very hard to make because buckwheat (the primary flour in soba noodles) has no gluten, making it super hard to work with. These were cold, with nama (=super high quality) shoyu and the requisite scallions and very high-quality (but I do not think real) wasabi.

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We all adored our smart, awesomely-coiffed, sweet waitress. She put up with Selma’s and my endless questions with complete aplomb, even when Selma wanted to know how she could cook the bamboo in her yard like the bamboo in this dish.

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Grilled fresh bamboo shoots from Kyoto with vegetable tempura and deep-fried fu. There was also a delicate little millet cake, and shiso-wrapped white asparagus tempura that melted my heart. I usually don’t eat white asparagus because it strikes me as somehow miserable that the spears are deprived of all sunlight so they retain their pale beauty. Poor asparagus (yes, you can roll your eyes at my tenderheartedness)! Eggless tempura is a feat, indeed, and here it was executed flawlessly—it wasn’t cloyingly thick or heavy or anything other than absolutely appropriate.

A Bloodrootie in NYC is a rare occurrence, and Selma and Carolanne were recognized by not one, but two devoted Bloodrootistas: one was a woman eating at the restaurant whose parents live near Selma and Carolanne and who used to come to the restaurant before she moved to NYC, then this young woman, a former Bloodroot cook, dropped by when she heard Selma would be in town. Selma introduced us and I promptly forgot her name.

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The dishes kept coming out (can you believe this entire meal was just $70 per person? Plus some of the most amazing sakes on this side of the planet.): rice with snap peas accompanied by house-made pickled vegetables. Little French Breakfast radishes, picked with their greens still attached, perfectly crispy and deliciously pickley.

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Now the sweets: “Japanese pastry made of blueberry-infused mochi” shaped to look like the irises in season now. Selma rightfully pointed out that blueberries won’t be in season for another month or so, but these were delicious.

There were maybe three or four whole blueberries: two on the plate and one or two inside, as well as the blueberry-infused adzuki, but the whole blueberries popped and exploded in your mouth and made you remember all over again why blueberries are so delicious.

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That experience is what I love most about fine dining: small plates and concentrated flavors reinforce the sumptuousness of pure ingredients. Particularly in Japanese cuisine, flavor is exemplified through subtraction: three blueberries taste somehow more of the pure essence of blueberry than an entire slice of blueberry pie.

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My experience with blueberries in this dish reminded me of the Infamous Plum Encounter from Milennium, (except that in this case the delicious plum wasn’t an aberration from the rest of the meal).

The mignardises were the little sugary candies designed to go with bitter, emerald-green, bamboo-whisked, frothy matcha tea.

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The circle, triangle and square is the logo of the restaurant, which was expertly explained to us by our waitress, and whose significance I have of course forgotten.

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It reminded me of other sugar candies I’ve had with other matcha tea in Kyoto:

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Selma gave the chef one of the cookbooks:

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And that was it.

We tumbled out into the sweet early summer air, feeling light and sated and perfectly at peace.

Then, the tragedy.

I forced everyone to go to a new vegan ice cream shop around the corner that replaced glorious tastes in our mouths with an onslaught of trashy sugar and soymilky ick. OK, so it’s sweetened with agave, that’s fine. I’d prefer a little real nice sugar instead of a headachey ton of agave syrup, but that’s just me. Even the coconut-based flavors didn’t do it for me. I’m just getting to this place where I don’t get excited just because ice cream is vegan, I also want it to be sophisticated and nuanced and good.

In short, Stogo = don’t go. I don’t know what people on SuperVegan are talking about. It gave us all instant sugar headaches and stomach aches and was just so….what can I say? American. Overdone. Too much and too little at the same time. I guess I’m happy they are there because boring mainstream people will now understand that their kind of ice cream can easily be vegan. It’s not my style—I’ll take blueberry-infused adzuki beans and bitter tea any day.

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(Photos by me and Than Luu.)

July 2009 updates:

  • Jacob went again (I had to work, boo) and had their newest menu, which he actually liked better than this one. He reported: “I want to talk Kajitsu up to everyone because i want it to last for forever! it’s right now my favorite resto in NYC, if not tops in the world! and the menu changes every month, they serve amazing sake, it’s in the east village, what else do you need??!!!” Wow.
  • Then Veronica went with her family for her birthday : “It was exquisite! Everybody loved it, but how could they not? Our waiter was super nice, and he was talking to us about how he wants to own his own farm some day. He’s growing blue corn in the Bronx this year, and next year he hopes to grow vegetables they can use at the restaurant! Adorable! Also, they brought out an extra dessert for my birthday: Sesame tofu!!!  It had a cherry (and I think he said something about adzuki paste) sauce and a perfect little cherry on top, and it was AMAZING!”
  • Yeah, we’re all obsessed with this place, OK?

And now:

FU

fu-one

fu-two

fu-three

 

to do: FUN May 17, 2009

Filed under: chocolate,cooking is vegan (of course),culture and its discontents,NYC,Restaurant rants and raves — lagusta @ 8:58 pm

IMG_4586Photo: Than Luu

I’ve been keeping a list of places to go in NYC (and around the world) on my computer for a while. It’s wildly random, but why not toss it on the blog?

(Updated April 2010!)

The notes are from reviews or hearsay I’ve read. I’m a little bit too lazy to make links to them all, but I bet you know how to use Google?

OK, Here’s where you learn a deep, dark truth about me, and will begin to understand why my friend Than calls me “Lagusta Yee”: all I care about in the world is Japanese noodles. I try to hide it most days, but wanting noodles takes up roughly 90% of my waking hours. Thus, a lot of my go-to restaurants involve noodles and/or Japanese food of some sort that might tangentially involve noodles.

Have you been to any of these places? Give up the dirt! Noodle porn? Send it right along, I live for it!

NYC

Matsugen: pricey Jean-Georges noodle shop.

Ippudo NY: homemade noodles

Kyotofu: Japanese veganish sweet treats. Jacob went and liked it. (update here!)

Kajitsu – Via Veronique. My new favorite restaurant I’ve never been to all my eating-out money goes to, oh, I love it so. It looks like it could be a contender for best meal ever (update: YES), which was a 4 hour meal I had at a (vegan) Zen Buddhist temple in Kyoto. From their website: “Kajitsu serves shojin cuisine, an ancient Japanese cuisine developed in Zen Buddhist monasteries. Following the Buddhist principle of not taking life, Shojin cuisine does not use meat or fish. Meals are prepared from fresh, in season vegetables, legumes, wild herbs, seeds and grains, chosen at the moment in the season that best reflects their flavor. At Kajitsu we make our delicious and wholesome dishes from high quality ingredients prepared with traditional Japanese culinary techniques.” Dying, dying dying DYING TO GO. With any luck, I’ve got a group of pals all ready to go next week. Report coming!

Rosanjin: a kaiseki (the Japanese ceremonial, elaborate meal that began as an accompaniment to tea ceremonies) restaurant on Duane Street. The New Yorker made it sound good. Then the NYT did the same, gave it a beautiful two-star review and made a point of mentioning their vegetarian kaiseki menu. $105 prix fixe vegetarian menu–Jacob has a birthday coming up, what do you say? Let’s do it!

Cho Dang Gol: Korean restaurant at 55 West 35th Street (212-695-8222). Selma went here and said reported that they have great homemade tofu. As with all Korean restaurants, be sure to ask a million questions to find out what has fish sauce, and don’t eat the kimchi (fish sauce guaranteed)!

Taim: NY Mag voted it best falafel 2006. 222 Waverly Pl, 212-691-1287.

En Japanese Brasserie: NYT called it “A Paean to Tofu in a Japanese Pub”!!!! (Update: awesome.)

Amma: apparently good Indian with lots of veggie dishes.

Pho Grand: I’m sure the pho isn’t vegan [insert long long rant here about this one place in Honolulu (Super Pho!) that makes vegan pho and how much I adore it], but I hear they have an avocado smoothie (called “avocado juice” on the menu) as well as a shave ice dessert that both sound like Hawaii and happiness to me. 277C Grand St at Forsyth, 212-965-5366. Also, something called “pickled lemonade”!

(Going through my files, I am physically restraining myself to not start writing a giant food lovers guide to NYC—Kalustyans! Bonnie Slotnick Cookbooks!!—another day, another day.)

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Photo: Than Luu

JAPAN

Shinyokohama Raumen Museum, Yokohama, Japan. Ramen museum, need I say more? Pitter patter goes my heart. RAMEN MUSEUM!!!!

Nakaiseki Sen, a vegetarian restaurant in Kyoto (they have a cookbook called Saisai Gohan by Yumiko Kanou)

Ichiwa, a mochi shop/stand in Kyoto that serves just one thing: aburi mochi (grilled mochi rolled in soy flour and served with a sweet miso sauce). The proprietor’s family has been making aburi mochi for 23 generations. How can this be??

Ikkyu, a shojin ryori (Zen Buddhist veggie food) joint in Kyoto (this might be where my magical meal mentioned above took place. I never got the name!). It’s outside the Daitouku-ji Zen temple.

Kawamichi-ya, a noodle shop in Kyoto

Okutan, a tofu restaurant in Kyoto

(The above Kyoto picks came from a Saveur Magazine article on Kyoto from May 2007)

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Photo: Than Luu

ELSEWHERE

PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND

  • Anne of Green Gables stuff, obs. But also:
  • P.E.I. Potato Museum!

CHICAGO

  • Alinea. I’ve read so so SO much about it. They’ve got to have some vegan stuff, right??

UPSTATE

  • Also via Veronica, Cow Jones, a vegan shoe + other awesome stuff shop in my very own neck of the woods!

EUROPE (Flea markets in Paris)

Marché Popincourt, R. du Marché-Popincourt, 11th, Paris: flea market! (Sat-Mon)

Les Puces de Saint-Ouen, 7 R. Jules-Valles, (Marché des Antiquaires) bet. Porte de St.-Ouen and Porte de Clignancourt, just outside the 18th, Paris: flea market! (Mon-Sun)

Marché D’Aligre, Place d’Aligre, 12th, Paris: flea market! (Mon-Sat)

Marché aux Puces e Montreuil, Ave de la Porte de Montreuil, 20th, Paris: flea market! (Sat-Mon)

Marché aux Puces de la Porte de Vanves, Ave Georges-Lafenestre at Ave Marc-Sangnier, 14th, Paris: flea market! (Sat and Sun)

(all these, via an article in Gourmet)

To be continued!

 

breaking: new york restaurant hostesses are mean February 5, 2009

Filed under: cooking is vegan (of course),NYC,Restaurant rants and raves — lagusta @ 4:05 am

Wow, look at my sweet ‘stache!!!

_igp0562My dreams of becoming the upstate J. D. Samson might not be dashed after all. (Don’t worry, that’s just chocolate on my hand. Or is it?)

Enough exhaustion-induced hijinx! I have serious news for you tonight, internet!

Breaking news, in fact, on the Dirt Candy front!

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(Oh hey, also! Jacob and I [read: Jacob] built a lightbox photo-taking thingie! Thanks to blogreaders E and V for tips—it’s awesome. Super pro food photography is now mine! Oh, Jacob is making me say that these are just tester shots and are not truly representative of the greatness to come.)

Can I state first of all that I really want this restaurant to succeed? I do, truly: I feel not one bit of schadenfreude when reporting its annoyances (but I feel lots [for everyone else in the world] because I spelled schadenfreude right on the first try)—in fact, it’s because of my intense love of NYC veggie restaurants (and veggie restaurants in general) that I feel the need to hate on them in the name of making them better. I deeply believe in the whole a-rising-tide-lifts-all-boats idea, and I want there to be amazing veggie and vegan restaurants out there—not only so I can go to them on my infrequent jaunts out of my own kitchen, but more so that when I tell people my business is vegan they think of Hangawi (creativity and beauty), not Kate’s Joint (grease and hipster ick). Also, I like Amanda Cohen’s blog. And, as I said before, we have a mutual close friend, so I shouldn’t talk too much shit about her online.

But I’m going to anyway!

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It is with annoyed sadness that I report that my sweetheart Jacob went to Dirt Candy tonight and was so incredibly rudely received that he didn’t even stay for a meal.

First, can I tell you about Jacob’s Palate? I feel the need to capitalize the name of his truly astonishing taste buds, because in our eleven years together I have watched his palate develop into a truly fearsome instrument. In addition to living with me while I was in cooking school/working in restaurants/launching my cooking business, his ramblin’ sound engineer/tour manager/band manager life has exposed him to amazing (and awful) vegan options (and lack thereof) in every single state in these here United States (he finally knocked down Alaska this summer), as well as Japan, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and pretty much everywhere else.

(Would you like to know the hardest time he’s ever had finding something to eat? I think it was the time when an unnamed beloved Americana singer-songwriter couple brought him to a certain festival in a certain state not only to be their tour manager and sound engineer, but also for the express purpose of enjoying seeing his Jewy vegan skinny “I-grew-up-in-the-Chelsea-Hotel* ass squirm at the backwoodsiness of it all. Their instructions to him were simple: “bring your own food, and be scared when people come up to you during our set and say that we’re not really country. If they use the word “folk,” bolt immediately.” He returned home wild-eyed and starving.).

In short: he’s sophisticated, and no bullshit veggie wrap will ever cross his lips. Jacob is not impressed easily. So, when he and our BFFs Black Gold (album out now! Show tonight in NYC!) sauntered up to a certain new veggie-but-decidedly-not-vegan restaurant at 8 PM on a frigid Wednesday night in the middle of a horrible economic recession, they did not expect the reception they got. When they politely (band boys are always polite, did you know that? It’s a little known fact.) said they didn’t have a reservation, but would be delighted if they could snag a table for 4, the hostess literally laughed in their faces. Literally! She then told them that if they wanted to leave their phone numbers, she would call them if a table became available, though it would probably be around 9:20-10.

Thusly chastened, they retreated to the neighboring bar to discuss tour routing (you and I would call this “what cities the tour should go to in what order”), and called the restaurant at 9:30. They were met with extreme haughtiness and told that if they wanted to come by in fifteen minutes a table might be opening. They traipsed over, and a different rude hostess said a table “might open up” in another fifteen minutes. Everyone understands about tiny restaurants having a wait, but not a single “I’m sorry” or token “thanks for coming” or anything was offered.

So they left, but not without Jacob peeking at the menu and reporting that nothing looked good.

Bleg, ick, and MEH.

I’m over Dirt Candy. (They went to Counter and it was perfectly fine.)

You could say that this attitude is the behavior of a few rogue employees, but I don’t buy that. When you own a restaurant, you are your employees—you know you will be judged by them, and you need to teach them how to act. Dirt Candy is getting a lot of press now, and I’m sure they are riding that wave of haughtiness that comes with quick success. What they have forgotten is this: NYC restaurant patrons are fickle, and new restaurants are opening all the time. Vegans, on the other hand, never forget a snub.

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PS: Speaking of NYC veganness, how did I miss this?? I’ve been ignoring Supervegan lately, that’s how.

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Behold! Isn’t it rad?

.

*True!

Update! PS: I emailed Than from Black Gold to get his take on the night, and here’s what he had to say:

Well I’d just add that when we first asked for a table, the super rude hostess laughed and huffed “NO!” Who says that?  Then she said maybe 9:20. She had a tremendous cloud of bad energy around her that I think bummed everyone out. Yeesh.

When we called back she said “well it won’t be til 9:45-10.” To which I replied “u said 9:20!” she then gave a bs answer, admitted she was wrong but did not apologize. To cap it off she said, with an insanely disrespectful take it or leave it attitude, “well if u want a table you can come back at 945 and we may have it.” so rude. So unprof! I wanted to kill.

I told Jacob I hereby hex those idiots and await their demise. Veg karma is a bitch!  Life Is too short to deal with people who have hate and neg energy in their heart, and consequently, in their food.

 

 
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