st. louis: vegan in the heartland pt. 1

the Shangri-La Diner, an all-veg. restaurant

As most of you know, Daiku was born and raised in St. Louis and most of his family still lives there. For this reason, we visit there at least once or twice a year. I've actually lucked out- my mother lives in Northern Virginia, my father lives in Los Angeles, and Daiku's parents live in St. Louis, which gives me a chance to visit 3 exciting foodie destinations on a regular basis. However, a lot of people are surprised that I can find good food to eat here in the midwest. I hope to help dispel the idea that good vegan eats and the middle of our country don't mix by this post, and my next post about Kansas City.

Even though this was my 8th year of visiting St. Louis, I'd never been up the arch! Well, we had to rectify that, so Daiku, his brother, our neice, and I decided to take the trip to the top on a hot and muggy day.

From the top, we had a clear view of downtown St. Louis

and the Mississippi River, which even at this point in early June had risen to unusual levels.

Speaking of the Mississippi (I know, I know, horrible transition!), we went to the Mississippi Mud House cafe on Cherokee Street. We had heard really positive reviews of this place, and we all enjoyed it.

Here's a shot of the inside of the cafe- enlarge the image to read the funny sign on the wall.

In addition to the refreshing coffee drinks that we all enjoyed, I ordered this avocado, bean, and veggie wrap. The wrap was listed as having cheese. When I asked to have the cheese left off, the cashier said, "are you vegan?" When I said yes, she replied "me too. The dressing on that wrap has dairy in it- do you want me to replace it with a sweet sesame dressing instead?" Of course I did- and I thanked her for watching out for me. The wrap was really delicious and cooling on a hot day.

Just down the street from Mississippi Mud is the Shangri-La Diner, an all-veg diner that serves up a menu of comfort and even, dare I say, junk food- just the kind of stuff you crave from a diner.

The inside is colored in bright shades and filled with kitschy decorations and Beatles memorabilia.

Since I was full from lunch, all I had room to order was a milkshake. (As you know, I can never pass up a vegan milkshake!) I got a blueberry milkshake to go- and it was so good! It was really creamy, but also nice and icy.

Another restaurant we visited in St. Louis was Joanie's pizzeria. While they specialize in pizza, they also have a full sandwich menu including not one but two vegan sandwiches. One was a grilled veggie sandwich, but the one that caught my eye was the cold veggie sandwich. Since this whole trip was about beating the heat and humidity, I ordered the cold veggie sandwich and I am so glad that I did. On a multi-grain baguette, they piled a huge amount of fresh and marinated veggies- red pepper, onion, tomato, cucumbers, lettuce, and perhaps most refreshing of all, tons of fresh basil. This sandwich, served with fresh-made chips and bottomless iced tea really hit the spot.

Here is a shot of some wild strawberries that we found growing one day in a park. They were really cute, but not really edible.

One night, Daiku and I went out to eat with 2 of our more adventurous relatives, who said they wanted to try Vietnamese food. We ended up going to Lemongrass, a wonderful restaurant with an extensive (and veg-friendly) menu. For appetizer, we all shared an order of deep-fried tofu, which came with a wonderful and sweet-tangy dipping sauce. The texture of the tofu was perfect, and I'm glad, since it left our relatives with a positive impression of our favorite bean-curd-y cake of goodness!

For my entrée, I decided to order something I'd never had before- a rice hot pot. Oh my gosh, am I glad I did, because this was one of the best things I'd eaten in a long time! The rice came sizzling in a very hot dish, which meant that the bottom was nice and cruncy, and was topped with an amazing assortment of veggies (broccoli, baby corn, carrots, onions, snap peas, and more) and tofu. All of this was in a super-spicy sauce- all in all, a very unique and satisfying dish. We all left Lemongrass very satisfied- I think we have two new fans of Vietnamese food on our hands! Good thing St. Louis has so many good options to choose from if that is what you're craving.

Finally, I want to pay homage to my favorite fruit, the cherry. My love for this stuff knows no bounds. My in-laws watched, horrified amused, as I worked my way through almost 5 pounds of cherries that we brought home from the market. This healthy snack kept me going for much of my week in St. Louis- not only were the cherries delicious, but they kept me hydrated, and helped me avoid cravings as I hung out with people eating all manner of not-quite-vegan food!

Soon, it was time for me to head to Kansas City on the train- stay tuned for my report from that city, which I visited for the very first time. Well, not counting the airport. And trust me, the city is way cooler than the airport!

Restaurant Information:

Mississippi Mud House
2101 Cherokee Street
St Louis, Missouri 63118
314-776-6599

The Shangri-La Diner
2201 Cherokee Street
St. Louis, MO 63118
314 772 8308

Joanie's Pizzeria
2101 Menard (at Russell)
In Historic Soulard
St. Louis, MO 63104
Tel: (314) 865-1994

Lemongrass
3161 S. Grand Blvd.
St. Louis, MO 63118
(314) 664-6702

st. louis: vegan in the heartland pt. 1

Washington D.C. : Sticky Fingers

I love my visits to Northern Virginia, because they give me a chance to sample some of the many great vegetarian and vegan restaurants there. (See these two previous posts.) On this latest visit, Daiku, my mom, and I got to visit perhaps the best-known of them all: Sticky Fingers. I don't know why I'd never been here before, because it was definitely worth the visit.

Somehow, even though we were faced with this amazing array of sweets, including a huge selection of cakes and cupcakes, Daiku and I opted to go with savory options. You can see from the below photo that we had a lot to choose from:

(Yes, those red tubes you see are Teese!)

Daiku went with the tempeh chicken salad sandwich. The filling was very flavorful, and punctuated with little bits of red onion and raisins.

I decided to treat myself to a veggie dog. When they asked if I wanted that topped with chili and cheese, I had to go for it. And the result was yummy! Even though it looks really decadent, the chili-cheese dog is a nice, edible portion of hot-doggy goodness, and very affordable too.

My mom was the only one who went for dessert- along with her coffee, she ordered the oat square.

Even though it looked really plain compared to the flamboyant cupcakes and sticky buns in the display case, the oat square was delicious and was definitely an excellent choice. It was not too sweet, and had a pleasant chewy texture with a tasty creme filling. Yum! We had to take some coffee and desserts to go with us.

Sticky Fingers was very crowded and filled with groups of friends hanging out and sharing good food. They also had plenty of take-out options- I wish I worked around there so I could have lunch here every day! I can definitely see myself going back there on future visits, laptop in hand to take advantage of the wi-fi and coffee refills on offer.

Our stay was otherwise very low-key, we enjoyed a lot of home-made meals. However, one thing stood out at my mom's house, that I just had to document and share with you. My mom had picked up some vegan ice creams in anticipation of our visit. My aunt also brought some over during one of her visits. I also found a stash of ice creams on sale at the local Whole Foods. The result? Kind of ridiculous, but also kind of fabulous:

From top to bottom: Sharon's coconut sorbet, Purely Decadent chunky mint madness, Temptation peach cobbler, Sharon's lemon sorbet, and Trader Joe's cherry chocolate chip. It seems like overkill, but when you combine a big family and a very hot summer, we had no problem working our way through these. I was grateful, as always, to have such a thoughtful (if sometimes over-the-top) family!

Restaurant Information:
Sticky Fingers Bakery
1370 Park Road NW
Washington D.C. 20010
Phone: (202) 299-9700

Washington D.C. : Sticky Fingers

all I have to offer is this strawberry shaped like South America

Hello blogland! As you've probably realized, I'm just not very good at blogging on the road. However, Daiku and I will finally be back home in Syracuse tomorrow after a month away, and I promise to update you all then. In the coming days, you can expect posts on vegan eats and travel in the following locales:

• Washington D.C.
• St. Louis
• Kansas City
• The U.S. Virgin Islands (St. John and St. Thomas)

And, possibly the coolest thing I've done in a while:

• The vegan dessert class I took yesterday with Fran Costigan at the Natural Gourmet Institute in New York City

But until then, please enjoy the above photo of a strawberry whose inside bore an uncanny resemblance to South America. I can't wait to catch up with all of you and see how the month of June has been going for you!

image courtesy of: http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/

all I have to offer is this strawberry shaped like South America

2 quick (and slightly crazy) tips

image courtesy of: http://trackingtj.typepad.com/

Ok, I promised the recipe for chocolate-mint crumb topping, and here it is! Well, actually, it's not so much a recipe as a bit of a long story. You see, I don't love the creme filling of creme-filled cookies. Those commercials showing people licking their oreos? Yuck! Meanwhile, I love the cookies themselves. Especially cool flavors such as Trader Joe's candy cane Joe-Joe's. I was lucky to be around their stores back during the holidays when these limited-edition cookies came out, and stocked up on a few boxes. I love the flavor, but as usual, not so much the filling. But I felt wasteful when I would scrape it out and throw it away, so a new solution was born. I'd scrape the filling into a covered refrigerated dish. After a few cookies, there was enough leftover filling to experiment with! I notice that most crumb recipes are a mixture of fat, sweetener, and flour. I thought, we already have the fat and sweetener covered here, so I just added some cocoa powder and voilà! A very intense minty and chocolate-y crumb was born! However, I was stumped as to how exactly to convey that without saying "hi! I'm a crazy person who keeps cookie filling in a jar in the fridge! I'm cookoo for cocoa puffs!" But I realize that you don't have to do all that- just combine some shortening, some sugar, a drop or two of peppermint extract, and some cocoa powder, mixing with a fork until you get a rough crumb. Then, sprinkle the mixture on top of your cake or cupcake batter before sticking it in the oven- it can't get any easier than that!

Ok, you are probably thinking that that is enough crazy for one post, right? Wrong! I got one more crazy tip up my sleeve. All of my cake pans (2 rounds and one spring-form) are 9 inch ones. I have often heard that a cupcake recipe is enough to make one round layer of cake (with a higher baking time). However, whenever I made cakes, my layers came out very thin and disappointing. So I thought to myself, what would happen if I multiplied a cupcake recipe by 1.5? With some encouragement from the PPK, I proceeded. My nightmare was that this would be too much batter and that the cake would be under-cooked, or sink in the middle, or have too much baking powder, or some other mishap. However, this did not happen.

What did happen? I present you, THE BEST cake I have ever baked:

I used the marble cake recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World, multiplied every ingredient by 1.5, and baked it in my 9 inch spring-form pan for about 45 minutes. The results were beautiful, perfectly textured, and wonderful-tasting. Look how thick that cake is! In fact, I thought it was too pretty to frost (I love how the marble pattern resembles the marks on a cow!) so I just topped with with some organic strawberries. Since then, I've tried the 1.5 rule with another cupcake recipe, with similarly pleasing results.

In conclusion, mint crumb topping can be yours even without a stash of Joe-Joe's, and if like me, you don't have any 8 inch or smaller cake pans, fear not! 1 (cupcake recipe) x 1.5 x 9" pan x 45 minutes baking time = perfection!

2 quick (and slightly crazy) tips

memorial day in NYC: some snapshots

**warning** extremely picture-heavy post! (I'll keep my words and descriptions very brief)

Daiku and I got to spend Memorial Day Weekend in New York City. Here is what we did:

we marveled at super-expensive gas prices in the Bronx

I found myself stuck in midtown (horrors! I try to avoid ever being there...) during an appointment that Daiku had. Fortunately, there was the Turkish parade to keep me entertained.

here's the view from one of my favorite gallery buildings in town. I was lucky that even though it was a holiday weekend, some galleries were open. If you're ever stuck in mid-town Manhattan and want a respite from the tourists, business people, and ritzy stores, go to the gallery building at 24 west 57th street. Then, just ride the elevator to each floor, there are at least 1 or 2 art galleries on every (public) floor. One of my favorites, the Galerie St. Etienne (specializing in German Expressionist art among other things)is there.

stopped into Sacred Chow for some beet-apple-cucumber-ginger juice for me

and a meatball and vegan cheese hero for Daiku.

saw some cool graffiti

helped my friend Tony celebrate his 30th birthday with the help of some lychee martinis (yum!) - sorry no pictures of the camera-shy birthday boy!

saluted Lenin (he saluted back!)

tried some awesome raw nori snacks that our friend Dorota introduced us to (seriously addictive- I want to figure out how to make these at home!)

baked some chocolate-chocolate-peppermint birthday cupcakes (I promise to share the recipe for the chocolate-mint streusel soon!)

hung out in our old 'hood in Queens

where we found out our old block (the top apartment is where Daiku and I used to live) has been renamed after our then-landlord ("the king of Long Island City") (!!!)

went to Red Bamboo for a huge PPK meet-up in Brooklyn (including meeting Jess of Get Sconed! yay! pssst- she's the girl with the pink hair hiding behind the menu in the above photo...)

the only food I got to photograph before the sun went down were these collard green rolls and buffalo wings, unfortunately.

aaaaaaand, dressed Dorota's kitty Willis in this awesome skull cap that we found. He seems to like it, no?

The weekend was a blast, filled with friends old and new, celebrations, good food, cute cats, and a chance to visit 4 out of 5 NY boroughs. (I've never been to Staten Island). This was one of our first really good-weather weekends, and Daiku and I enjoyed walking, talking, and laughing a lot. I hope you enjoyed the photos!

memorial day in NYC: some snapshots

why yes, their milkshakes DID bring me to the yard

Bazu and Vegetalion outside Strong Hearts Cafe

Greetings from Kansas City! I have had a serious internet and blogging withdrawal for the last week. As Daiku and I were visiting my family in northern Virginia and then his family in St. Louis, blogging and blog-hopping were not always doable. But now I'm in Kansas City, in a hotel with wi-fi, and loads of free time on my hands, so expect to hear a lot from me this week as I go back in time to catch you guys up! In this post, I have a restaurant review, a product review, and even a bloggy meet-up, so hopefully it will make up for my recent absence.

notice the cool vegan cookbooks on display!

First up, a review of Strong Hearts Cafe, the newest addition to Syracuse's vegan dining scene. We all anticipated its late May opening date, and Bridget, Trac, Daiku and I went there for lunch the day after it opened. We all understandably had high expectations- it's not every day that a 100% vegan restaurant opens in our back yard!

The food menu (you can click on the above photo to enlarge it) promised to be exciting, but I was there for one thing and one thing only - milkshakes! When is the last time you had a vegan milkshake? Too long for me! Strong Hearts has an extensive milkshake menu, each named after a particular hero.

After much hand-wringing and deliberation, I decided on the Malcolm X- a chocolate and cherry concoction. As you can see, it was huge! And very delicious.

Unfortunately, I was the only one in our group who was fully satisfied. A lot of menu items were not available. Here's Trac's chickpea salad sandwich. She thought it tasted ok, but better presentation (say some garnish, a pickle, or some chips to liven up the plate) would have improved it.

Service was also really slow. Bridget was on her lunch break, and did not expect to have to wait over 30 minutes for her order. When they arrived, she reported that her BLT and pasta salad could have used a lot more flavor.

Daiku agreed about his BLT- in fact, this entire sandwich only had one strip of bacon inside!

But, I didn't want to leave it at this. This cafe has so much promise, that we all agreed that the food and service must have had an off day, because some wrinkles needed to be ironed out so close to the grand opening. I promised myself I would go back to give Strong Hearts a second chance.

That second chance came a week later with a wonderful opportunity. The lovely Vegetalion was visiting Upstate NY and we got to plan a meet-up in Syracuse! Naturally, we decided to go to Strong Hearts. Here she is with her milkshake- a chocolate peanut butter concoction (I forgot which hero it was named after, though! John Brown?)

And here I am with my "Tiananmen Square Guy" (green tea) milkshake. We both loved our shakes.

The food was a vast improvement, too! Here is Vegetalion's chickpea salad sandwich- served on more substantial bread and with more filling this time.

And here's my chicken caesar salad. The vegan chicken strips were quite tasty, better than a lot of meat served at other vegetarian restaurants. And the dressing, a tangy Asian twist on caesar dressing, was heavenly. It was also such a blast to meet up with Vegetalion and get to know the person behind the blog!

Yay for happy endings! I love that Strong Hearts exists just a short bike ride from my home, and I can't wait to go back and try their breakfast menu. The owners are also extremely nice and responsive. I wrote them with an ingredient question and they wrote back quickly and answered my questions. This is the type of place that I am very happy to support. Their milkshakes drew me in, and I will not rest until I've tried all the flavors! (that could take a while- see for yourself by checking out their menu!)

Strong Hearts Cafe
719 E Genesee Street
Syracuse, NY 13210
Phone: (315) 478 - 0000
Fax: (315) 478-0001
Email: info@strongheartscafe.com

Next, a product review. Like a lot of you in blogland, I recently received a shipment of ProBars to sample. Daiku and I were excited to see this beautiful assortment of whole food bars- no soy protein isolate in these! We got to taste 5 flavors: maple pecan, cocoa pistachio, kettle corn, cherry pretzel, and sesame goji.

Here is a close-up of the cherry pretzel flavor- notice the big chunks of pretzel, the cherries, and all the sesame and flax seeds! I love eating a power bar whose ingredients are so easily discernible. These all tasted good, but the kettle corn was our hands down favorite. My only concern with ProBars is that they pack in a hefty amount of calories- over 400 a bar. While they are substantial, I think that they would be ideal for high-level athletes or those looking for a meal replacement rather than a snack. Daiku and I split all of them. I should note however, that all those calories are nutrient-dense and healthy, so I really can't complain all that much!

Finally, an update. You may remember my previous post where I wrote about that large group of rescued rats who needed homes. Well, I'm thrilled to report that a fellow Syracuse blogger, Rachael, and her partner, adopted 3 of them! Click on her blog post to see photos of these adorable little guys! You rock, Rachael.

It's good to be back on-line- hope to post more and pay all of you visits very soon!

why yes, their milkshakes DID bring me to the yard