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vegetarians
This is my favourite meal and has been since I was three – the precocious (and pretentious, no doubt) answer to my friends’ parents’ question as to my favourite food. Apart from the fact that there really isn’t anything fancy about it, it’s crazily simple to make. Despite being pastry-based and with a molten bed of mozzarella, it is very light, and perfect for a gathering.
I write this sitting on the flight to New York in stasis mode, having metamorphosed into a sedentary lump. The invisible but insidious radiation, and the already- breathed air must be to blame for my lack of concentration: I’ve started five films, and finished one – a saccharine, brainless comedy. And in this reduced state, my thoughts revolve around my stomach (more than usual). The looming flight attendant and her trolley are causing spikes in adrenaline –so attuned to the possibility of food delivery am I that I’m reacting pavlovianally to the click of the locker doors as the meals are unloaded. By flying west, I’ve gained time. More time equals more meals. I had breakfast and lunch at home, but the grey boredom of airports requires food for stimulation. The pre-flight, Prêt snack ritual has been observed. But that has not deterred me from munching through the 5pm dinner (chicken, and sticky-toffee pudding - and not bad actually. Better, in fact, than the recent attempt at a repast at The Palomar – see my review).
In-flight entertainment is clearly not being served by the screen in front of me, but instead by the rotating supply of snacks from the “Wonder Wall”. These fill the flight with purpose: I must try every one of these matte- packaged, faux-healthy snacks. Initially, I feel pride as I conquer them: a nut-free, oat bar so small that I need to have two just to make sure I document the flavour correctly; a tiny packet of popcorn that is apparently “cheese toasty and caramel flavour” (too weird not to try); some vegan sour sweets (only four in a pack - what a tease, two please); olives; hand cut crisps that promise to be artisanal (I’m sold); two-bite bars of Himalayan salted chocolate that barely register due to their shrunken format.
At 11pm UK time, I’m served afternoon tea (a selection of cakes, a scone, and some mayonnaise-suffused sandwiches). I persevere with these. There’s no stopping me now.
It’s half an hour until landing, and reality is beginning to set in. I’m surrounded by a shameful nest of wrappers: unequivocal evidence of my greed and boredom.
Pride has turned to nausea.
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After a day of recovery, I launched myself on to the NYC dining scene. I’m mainly vegetarian, so most restaurants set out below are either fully plant-based, or vegetarian/vegan-friendly. This is by no means an exhaustive list but an account of the places that I enjoyed (with one rather off-putting experience).
Vibe: Vegetable-focused Modern European cuisine in an earthy chic paradise.
Highlights: Though not vegetarian, the vegan and vegetarian options are numerous and innovative (refreshingly not pasta or risotto). Order several of the sweet pea pot pies which are so good I’ve had to replicate them twice since returning to London. The Macro plate and banoffee pies are also must-eats. Booking is essential.
Lowlights: None.
Good for: vegans/vegetarians/restricted diets
Where: Lower East Side
Vibe: Vegan innovative Mexican style cuisine in a vibrant, bustling urban cafe
Highlights: No one at my table could get enough of the nachos with vegan chorizo, fermented black beans, turmeric vegan queso fundito, spicy vegetable relish, and vegan sour cream. The crispy chayote ‘fish’ tacos with chipotle almond butter and pickled red onion are also deliciously different.
Lowlights: no booking, and the tightly packed restaurant mean that you should avoid peak meal hours. Service also slows drastically during these times.
Good for: vegans/restricted diets/casual dining/adventurous eaters
Where: Lower East Side (near China Town)
Vibe: rustic-modern take on Southern-American comfort food.
Highlights: The buttermilk biscuits are freshly baked, and so light they melt on your tongue. The side of honey butter just helps them slide down even more sweetly. Crispy topped and golden, with unending tangles of molten cheese, the mac and cheese is amongst the best.
Lowlights: The fried chicken. I may have gone with warped expectations – I had primed myself for strips of chicken breast coasted in thick crispy-crunchy breadcrumbs (especially good at London’s Mother Clucker). However, what arrived was a basketful of dismembered chicken body parts. The rebellious wing bone protruding uncomfortably from the thin batter was enough to put me off. However, this may just be a personal dislike.
Good for: comfort food/family gatherings
Where: East Village
Vibe: Casual Asian-American cross-over cuisine in a dark wooden pub from Top Chef contestant, Dale Talde
Highlights: I’m not a big meat eater, and I never eat chicken wings. However, I make a very rare exception for the Kung Pao wings which are ridiculously sticky and succulent – order many. The Pad Thai puts most to shame with its zingy freshness too.
Lowlights: The bibinkga divided opinion with its eggy coconut texture. I came around to it after the third mouthful.
Good for: inventive cooking/vegetarians/brunch/casual dining
Where: Park Slope, Brooklyn
Vibe: Airy, female-flocking, vegan café (also in London)
Highlights: The salad portions are generous – my favourite is Spicy Thai which, with its kale base, crispy wontons, apricot-glazed tempeh and spicy peanut dressing, is a mouth workout in a bowl - but every mouthful is worth savouring. The tempeh-lentil chia classic burger and kale-artichoke dip are also major hits.
Lowlights: The London branch is not restful as you have to wait for your name to be shouted out to pick up your food. The NYC branch I visited was great.
Good For: vegans/vegetarians/healthy eating/casual meals
Where: West Village
https://eatbychloe.com
Vibe: artisanal vegan and dairy ice-cream served from wholesome butter-coloured trucks and stores around NYC
Highlights: the vegan honeycomb is a sludgy grey but don’t let that put you off. Made with cashew coconut and cocoa butter it is ambrosial. The non-vegan peanut butter and marshmallow crunch and Sicilian pistachio are also sublime.
Lowlights: It’s addictive – I began to think they were stalking me as I managed to go past at least one Van Leeuwen truck or shop every day… and failed to resist each time.
Good for: vegans/vegetarians/innovatively flavoured ice creams
Where: multiple locations
http://www.vanleeuwenicecream.com/
Vibe: pared down, fresh out of oven, open bakery
Highlights: multi-everything bagel – get there early in the day to get it piping hot from the oven
Lowlights: Addictiveness – I once ate 4 black seed bagels in a row.
Good for: breakfast on the go, vegans, high-carb gluten-full diets
Where: Nolita, Battery Park City, East Village
Vibe: stripped back, no-frills bakery for some straight-to-the-point indulgence
Highlights: Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter chip cookie – thick, crunchy on the outside, fudgy inside loaded with an abundance of peanut butter chips – there is a reason it has been named best cookie in NYC.
Lowlights: Lines for the bakery can get rather long, so go at a strategic, off-peak time
Good for: over indulgence and sweet-tooth satisfaction
Where: West 74th St, Harlem
https://www.levainbakery.com
Vibe: Hole-in-the wall, cheap, simple and brilliant Mexican food haunt. London could do with mowing down its innumerable greasy kebab joints and replacing them with this.
Highlights: the pollo asado burrito. Spicy, fresh, busting with flavour and filling
Lowlights: None
Good for: late night cravings, fresh Mexican food, done well (a rarity in London), vegetarian, vegan
Where: Lower East side
The child behind me was whining like a kid goat being dragged to slaughter. The woman on my right was snoring so loudly that she was trapped in an ineluctable cycle of waking herself up before falling asleep again. The man on my left had either forgotten that handkerchiefs exist, or rather enjoyed the sound/sensation of snorting every last drop of unconquerable mucus into the innermost depths of his Eustachian tube, only for it to creep back up again at ten second intervals. My choir master couldn’t have conducted this orchestral animal pen better. Before I’d even sat down, I’d already lost one armrest and some precious space to the woman overlapping my seat on the right. Not prepared to cede the other armrest, I draped my left arm determinedly over it, only for the mucus snorter to pile his arm on top of mine. I was forced to retreat after half an hour, having been worn down, too, by his second tier of offence: the occasional lifting of his arm to allow puffs of BO to corrupt my nostrils. The last straw was when the trolley, preceded by the unmistakeable signature stale aeroplane scent, reached my row, only to deliver some form of unidentifiable swill. My only escape was to conjure up a memory of last week’s brunch at Grain Store, King’s Cross….
An oasis in the desert that is the North London restaurant scene, Grain Store opened a year and half ago with others such as Caravan and Dishoom following suit. Locating it in King’s Cross has afforded the restaurant an atmosphere unlike most central London restaurants: a sprawling high ceilinged airy haven, urban rustic in feel, with an open kitchen. The cuisine is vegetarian-focused (very on trend for 2015) and excitingly innovative.
To start we tried the beetroot, apple, celery and pomegranate molasses juice and the hibiscus and raspberry cocktail. The beetroot was pleasant but, tastewise, the health benefits were a little too evident. The latter, however, was very good.
Focaccia with olive oil followed – freshly baked, with the crunchy dukkah addition an innovative twist on the standard.
I ordered the yoghurt and chickpea pancake with avocado, tomato and jalapeno salsa and merguez. The pancake, laced with slices of merguez, was velvety and wonderfully savoury. The salsa was well flavoured, but could have verged more dangerously on the side of spicy.
I’m a rather fierce food predator and so managed to steal a forkful of my dining companion’s Moroccan carrot salad, with spiced labneh and linseed flatbread. Well-spiced, fresh, and visually and texturally vibrant, I was struck with all too familiar food envy (not in place of my dish but as well as).
The empanada was also a success. I didn’t manage to try it but heard satisfied mumbles coming from my other dining companion.
I did manage to try the Korean slaw, Kaffir lime chicken burger with a fried egg on a muffin.
Succulent, savoury, spicy, slightly sweet and citrusy, the Korean slaw is a reason in itself to visit Grain Store. I shall dedicate some time attempting to replicate it. The burger was also delicious, although there was not enough of it.
Dessert was unavoidable. The baked apple, rosemary crumble, and crème fraiche with caramel sauce possessed all the right textures as well as flavours: sweet, salty and slightly perfumed by the rosemary. However, I am a crumble fiend and firmly believe there should be more crumble than fruit – much more – and this did not vaguely meet my crumble quantity requirements, nor those of my dining companion.
The special of the day was blueberry tart. It was as you would expect a good blueberry tart to be – the pastry crisp, and the blueberries jammy, but I would have liked a touch of citrus to offset the sweetness.
Overall, it was a great experience - so much so that it managed, in recollection, to transport me away from the animal pen sights and sounds during my recent flight. The atmosphere is informal yet chic, the service is fine, and the food strays into far more exciting and modern territory than many London restaurants dare to do, especially for brunch.
Food: 8/10
Ambience: 9/10
Service: 6.5/10
Loos: 7/10
Price: ££££
Suitable for: casual dates, friends, family, brunch, all-day dining, vegetarians, vegans
Are you going on a ‘detox’?
Now that the last of the dregs of turkey/mince pie/stuffing/Christmas pudding/trimmings have finally disappeared, all that is left is a memory solidified in the form of a protuberant belly. Guilty already, or made to feel guilty about not feeling guilty, the media are swooping in with various juice cleanse, carb-less, gluten-free ‘detoxes’ which guarantee a temporary weight loss by simply starving the body. The word ‘detox’, however, means absolutely zero. To quote Edzard Ernst, Emeritus Professor of Complementary Medicine at Exeter University: “there are two types of detox: one is respectable and the other isn’t. The respectable one is the medical treatment of people with life-threatening drug addictions. The other is the word being hijacked by entrepreneurs, quacks and charlatans to sell a bogus treatment that allegedly detoxifies your body of toxins you’re supposed to have accumulated”.
So, if you’re minded to eat healthily after all the excess, then good quality, wholesome food is a much more sustainable way to go. Eating at Rabbit, the sister restaurant of The Shed, seems to fit in well with this philosophy. That’s not to say that I didn’t succumb to excess whilst there, and nor is it so worthy that eating there becomes an endurance test.
Rather, the ethos behind the restaurant is creating interesting, innovative and tasty recipes using seasonal and fresh local produce. The diner is reminded of this by the rustic outdoorsy interior, a bushy fox tail suspended above the open kitchen which brings you closer to nature whether you like it or not.
Whilst deciding what to order for our degustation my dining companion and I ordered a couple of “mouthfuls”: beetroot crisp, goat’s cheese, with pear jam:
And a mushroom marmite éclair.
As I noted in my most recent recipe, I had been averse to goat’s cheese after I overdosed when I was seven - until Rabbit cured me with the beetroot crisp. My dining companion was a marmite loather but it was incorporated so beautifully into the rich earthy truffleness of the éclair that he too overcame his dislike.
Still poring over the menu the couple at the adjacent table came to our aid, and very enthusiastically. So enthusiastic, in fact, that they admitted to having worked their way through every dish and would happily do an encore. They even donated the remainder of their butter with the instruction to slather it on whatever we could. One we had paired it with the freshly baked wild yeast bread it we began to understand the couple’s eagerness to share the joy. Freshly whipped, lightly salted and garlicky with finely chopped shallots:
The menu is simply divided into slow cooking and fast cooking. Although innovative in its layout, it was a little confusing regarding the size of the dishes, how many to order, and what the ideal dish pairings were. Both of the waitresses were absolutely delightful: friendly, informative and attentive without being intrusive, they guided us through the menu.
Our fast cooking dishes arrived first:
Brussels sprout, hazelnut, cheddar, and apple salad. The cheddar, as a rather unusual ingredient, drew me to the salad. It tied the ingredients together with its palate tickling savouriness.
The quail with roasted barley, turnip, shallot, and chickweed was also a success flavour-wise in its succulent sweet stickiness. I did, however, face an unwelcome surprise when I crunched down hard on a concealed bone…
Next to arrive in the flurry of dishes was grilled venison, onion squash, honey, pumpkin seeds, and reindeer moss.
Once again chef Oliver Gladwin’s creativity and sensitivity to ingredients shone through. The venison was perfectly pink, tender and complemented both visually and in flavour by the smooth onion squash puree.
The last of our main courses was the slow cooked black winter truffle, wild mushroom ragu with celeriac and sage oil.
The deep rich narcotic aroma of truffle preceded the dish’s arrival. Nor was its perfume illusory. The sage leaves were crisp to the point that they shattered against the other elements. The wild mushrooms were comfortingly meaty, chewy and luscious, and the puree of celeriac, so often dismissed as an ingredient, was sumptuous and creamy with a subtle tang of lemon. This is a dish that would unite meat lovers and vegetarians in perfect ambrosial harmony, and so good my dining companion and I were left fighting over the last mushroom- definitely one of my top dishes in London.
For dessert my dining companion ordered the magnum vienetta parfait: velvety ice cream rippled with layers of slated butterscotch and dark chocolate. It was with great reluctance that he allowed me to try it.
I was obliged by my maple syrup obsession to have maple syrup pudding, preserved plum, rum, and buttermilk.
This was intelligently assembled with the sourness of the buttermilk ice cream slicing through the sweetness of the pudding element. I would have liked a little more maple syrup on the plate, but as I’m an addict of the stuff it could just be me. The plums were a little under-ripe, too, but I imagine when they’re in season this dessert really comes into its own.
All in all, dining at Rabbit was a wonderful experience: great service, a tastefully playful rustic atmosphere, and innovative, fresh, flavourful, high quality cuisine. Ignore the detox lies, simply eat well – Rabbit is a great place to do just that (unless you find yourself eating the whole menu as the couple adjacent to me did, clearly easily done).
Food: 9/10
Price: ££££
Ambience: 8.5/10
Service: 10/10
Loos: 7/10
Suitable for: casual dates, celebrations, brunch, dinner, family, friends, vegetarians, vegans
