Vegans and the City: Part 1 – Buddha Bodai

Last weekend, I had the honor and the pleasure of taking a break from my summer training in Philadelphia and meeting up with two of my beloved vegweb friends in NYC.  Cali, Kennedy and I met up for some vegan food, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, some more vegan food, some walking, a little more vegan food……It was so nice to be able to agree on restaurants, share off each other’s plates, and bond over our love of cruelty-free cuisine.

Our first stop was Buddha Bodai, a Chinese restaurant that’s 100% vegetarian.  They feature a lot of faux meats–chicken, beef, fish, duck, and jellyfish, to name a few.  I am not usually a faux-meat type of person, but these were absolutely delicious–far better than any “real” meat I have stashed in the depths of memory.

First, we ordered the baby cucumber.  It was basically cold, crisp slices of pickles with sesame seeds sprinkled on top.  These were so, so good–they were nutty, bright, and not too salty.  They were nice and cold, which was a treat after walking in the blazing sun all day.

Next came the appetizer plate.  I can’t remember exactly what everything was supposed to be, so I’ll have to consult Kennedy’s notes and get back to you.  But I know that the one on the right is the tofu chicken, and the pink in the middle is jellyfish, both of which were quite good.  We thought it was eerie how realistic some of the skin was.  They also put some candied walnuts on top, which were positively yummy.

We could have stopped right there and called it a meal, quite honestly, but we were going all out.  We still had three more dishes to go, starting with the sweet and sour chicken.  This one had a very thick sauce (almost too thick) and some pineapple and green peppers mixed in.  It was good, overall.

Next, General Tso’s beef.  We concluded that while the chicken had the better meat, the beef had the better sauce.  It also had some darn good broccoli, which was a welcome change from the overcooked, brownish broccoli that’s the only cooked vegetable in the dining hall where I’m eating during my training.

Next was some of the best rice I’ve ever eaten.  I give you veggie fried rice in all it’s splendor:

Room for dessert?   Heck yes!  We split a piece of cheesecake.  It was my first experience with vegan cheese cake, and it won’t be the last.  This tofu-based cheesecake was surprisingly similar in flavor to dairy-based cheesecake.  I do like a nice, thick crust on my pies, and this one was kind of wimpy.  Otherwise, it was great!  Note the sexy red drizzles and brown top:

In the end, it was a great value–lots and lots of food for a relatively low price.  I’ve rarely felt as full as I felt after that meal.  We sat for a long time before venturing back out into the devil sunlight.

And that was just the first meal!  Up next: cupcakes, sorbet, waffles, and french toast!

Bonus pic: the three of us on the subway!

Chickpea cutlets and choosing between your siblings.

If I were stranded on a desert island with one of my sisters, I would definitely pick Alyssa. Because I love Alyssa more, right? FALSE. What a terrible thing to say! Everyone knows I love Erin way more! Actually, it’s because Alyssa and I eat virtually none of the same foods. So, I wouldn’t have to share my food supply with her. But Erin and I, on the other hand, love the same foods! In fact, we made a bunch of these foods this weekend when she came to visit. So many foods, in fact, that I will probably need three entries to discuss them all.

Exhibit A: chickpea cutlets. Chickpea cutlets are from Isa and Terry’s newest cookbook, Veganomicon. They are über famous for their awesomeness. Basically, you mash up some chickpeas with gluten flour, bread crumbs, vegetable broth, garlic, and spices. You knead the dough a bit and then you form them into, well, cutlet shapes. Erin was the expert cutlet-shaper sous-chef.

Then you just cook those suckers in a frying pan. And that’s it! They take less than a half hour to make in total. Beside them are some steaming hot lemony roasted potatoes from Veganomicon as well. They might be my favorite way to make potatoes yet. I also ate mine with asparagus and kale, and Erin had hers with carrots.

The chickpea cutlets actually don’t taste overwhelmingly like chickpeas, but they do taste overwhelmingly like happy. Just like Isa says, they are vegan food that you can cut with a steak knife. Erin and I both thought they would make the best burger ever as well. I even think Alyssa would like them. And that’s saying something.

Bonus picture! Erin and me in Cascadilla falls.

Up next: banana ice cream and pancakes! But not together. Though that would be a great breakfast.

Scrambly tofu scramble and musings on turmeric.

This tofu scramble is doubly scrambly (say that out loud, please) because I made it in a hurry. It is really more of a veggie scramble with tofu than a tofu scramble with veggies because of all the vegetables–broccoli, onions, mushrooms, zucchini, yellow squash, and spinach. Well, mushrooms aren’t a vegetable, they are a fungus. But they might as well be an honorary vegetable because it’s lonely in the fungus food group. Heck, it’s not even a group, it’s just “fungus” in the singular. Poor shrooms.

Tofu scramble makes me nostalgic because it is one of the first recipes I made after going vegan. It is, I think, one of my favorite dishes to make. You can use any ingredients you have, you can use any spices you like, and you can make it for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. So much awesome in one little meal.

I used turmeric to make it yellow, which got me thinking about this enigma of a spice. Does anyone really like turmeric? Does anyone actually use it for its flavor and not to color foods radioactive yellow? Honestly, by itself it tastes like powdered sidewalk chalk that’s gone a bit stale, if such a thing were possible. But it does turn tofu into sunshine, and that’s what matters here.