the vegan fork: February 2007

Saturday, February 24, 2007

Seattle Treats

Don't' think that I ate all this junk food in one weekend -- these pictures come from several visits over a period of time. I just hadn't gotten around to posting them. The city of Seattle does do vegan junk food amazingly well though...

Cafe Flora:

I've been to Cafe Flora a few times. The first time I went I thought everything I ate was pretty awful, but I later decided to give it a second (and third) chance, and it's gotten better every time. One of my favorite things is the pate platter. I don't have a good picture of it, but it's definitely worth ordering. The lentil pate is delicious, and it tastes great with the caremlized onions and crackers. The olives and pickles are only "okay," not great, but all-in-all the platter works well.

This picture is of one of the worst entrees I've tried -- it's potato gnocchi with sweet potatoes. It sounded great, but it was kind of greasy and had some oddly thick weird-tasting sauce on it. I managed to convince my dining partner to switch with me and ended up with something good that included a cilantro vinaigrette and some sort of flat bread (it's pictured behind the gnocchi).

cafe flora entrees

For dessert we had the chocolate cake with raspberry icing, which was really good. The cake wasn't dry at all, and the raspberry icing was delicious.

cafe flora vegan cake


Mighty-O Donuts:

After my previous disappointment at finding Mighty-O closed, I went early one day to make sure I could get some donuts. The six flavors (counter-clockwise, starting with the sprinkle donut in front) are: sprinkle, cinnamon-sugar, coffee, strawberry shortcake, good ol' glazed, and chocolate peanut butter.


mighty-o donuts

Now this was awhile ago, and the donuts were acquired at the start of a road trip (they were the only food we ate all day until dinner, as I recall), so the donuts were less satisfying as the day wore on and I became sick of eating only donuts. With that in mind, my tasting experiment is clearly flawed, but I will rank what I think the best donuts were anyway. From best to worst:

1. strawberry shortcake
2. good ol' glazed
3. cinnamon-sugar
4. sprinkle
5. chocolate peanut butter
6. coffee


For some reason Mighty-O's chocolate donuts tend to be dry, which is why the chocolate peanut-butter is ranked low. And the sprinkle wasn't great, but I've had that flavor since and they've been very good, so I think it was a bad batch.

I haven't been able to find the strawberry shortcake since, but I keep looking for it!

Pizza Challenge: Juliano's vs. Pizza Pi

I tried the two vegan pizzas in Seattle (at least the two that I know of) to compare them. It was very exciting to find two places that serve pizza with vegan cheese -- I don't think we have any places in NYC that do that.

Juliano's makes vegan and non-vegan pizza. They cook the pizza in a conveyor oven, so I believe you can actually order just slices of vegan pizza. And a pizza only takes 7 minutes from the time you order it.

juliano's vegan pizza

This Juliano's pizza has tomatoes, onions, and green peppers. It was a little greasy (I'm not used to greasy pizza since I usually only get it cheese-free), but delicious. The crust is very thin and very yummy. I can't remember how much the pizza cost, but I think it was around $17 or so (?). The vegan cheese was amazingly good.

Pizza Pi makes only vegan pizza. This one had fake pepperoni, onions, tomatoes, and green peppers. The crust is thicker than Juliano's, but still good and nicely chewy. However, the crust was very salty. The vegan cheese was okay but not great. The fake pepperoni wasn't very good. Overall, this pizza was NOT very good. This is especially true if you take into account the fact that it cost something ridiculous. I can't remember exactly how much, but I think it was around $25!


Pizza from Pizza Pi in Seattle

Clearly, Juliano's was the winner of the pizza challenge!

Globe Cafe:

This place is definitely my new favorite breakfast restaurant! The first time there I had the tofu scramble, which comes with grits, salsa, guacamole, broccoli, and your choice of toast or tortilla. I forgot to specify that I wanted a tortilla, but I ended up loving the toast because it was made with a yummy homemade herb bread. I know the picture looks kind of gross, with all that food oozing into each other and spilling off the plate, but it was delicious.

tofu scramble at Globe Cafe

I had the French toast another time. It was good, and I liked that it came with fruit, but, as French toast always is, it's a little too desserty for breakfast.

vegan French toast at Globe Cafe

The first time I went to the Globe Cafe, they pulled these huge cinnamon rolls out of the oven while I was there, and I just couldn't resist getting one. It turns out they look and smell a lot better than they are. The bread part was a little too bland and dry for my taste. It had chunks of coconut and nuts in it though, which made it kind of interesting.

cinnamon roll at Globe Cafe

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Washington Square Park Dosa Cart

I had been reading about the Dosa Cart in WSP at Sullivan St. and W 4th St. for years. I had walked by many times as it was closing up, or when I didn't have time to stop, or once when I realized as I approached that I didn't have any cash and that it was unlikely that they would take credit cards.

One time when I was particularly hungry and I walked by as the Dosa Cart proprietor was closing up, and I tried to convince him to make me a dosa anyway. He explained to me that I need to come earlier in the day, and in my desperate hunger I whined something like "but I work during the day." Fortunately I stopped short of stomping my feet and yelling "that's so unfair!" but needless to say, I was unsuccessful at getting a dosa.

Finally, last fall I was walking through the park on a Saturday when there was a street fair on W. 4th Street. And the Dosa Cart was there. I happily waited 15 minutes or so for my freshly-made masala dosa. I was amazed that it was only $4. I think they could easily charge double that. Everything served is vegan, with signs all over the cart announcing that.

The dosa was delicious and came with a yummy coconut chutney and a sambar soup. It was all nicely flavorful (although it could have been spicier) and not at all greasy.

I look forward to trying other flavors of dosas, if I can ever get there again when the cart is open...


dosa cart