I stumbled upon an article which is discussing vegan food in Philadelphia. The article is basically indicating that a large percentage of the people who are eating at several upscale vegan restaurants in an around Philadelphia are not vegan or vegetarian. Hmmmm...  Perhaps I need to plan a trip to Philadelphia next time I am back east...

One mil­lion Amer­icans now fol­low a veg­an life­style, according to the Veg­e­tar­i­an Re­search Group, making them a cer­ti­fi­able de­mo­graph­ic that doesn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly need the im­pri­ma­tur of carnivores. Still, the new gen­er­a­tion of Meat­less Mon­day-ers can only help the cause — more de­mand for veg­an cooking means more se­ri­ous veg­an res­tau­rants. And these more se­ri­ous veg­an res­tau­rants, at least in the Philadelphia re­gion, are evolving to­ward an al­to­geth­er new kind of cui­sine that all can en­joy.

Last time I checked, which was quite a while ago, I believe that 5% of the USA population was vegetarian, and of that only about 1% were vegan. Well, if there are 330 million people in America, then 1% of that number would be about 3.3 million people. Perhaps I am incorrect. Well, if the VRG is right, and there are only about 1 million vegans, then only about 0.3% of the USA population is vegan. But how can "they" determine how many people are vegan anyway?

Regardless, it's nice to see more and more vegan restaurants, especially upscale vegan restaurant popping up in various locations around the USA - not just in New York, Los Angeles, and Portland.

If you're interested, here's snippets from the article.

Upscale veg­an eateries in the Philadelphia area have a dirty lit­tle se­cret: “I’d say at least two-thirds of our cli­en­tele are not veg­e­tar­i­an,” says Ross Olchvary, chef-own­er at New Hope’s Sprig & Vine. “I think most of them are just looking for some­thing dif­fer­ent.”

Rich Lan­dau, chef and co-own­er of Center City’s Vedge, with his wife, Kate Jacoby, has observed a sim­i­lar pat­tern. “With so many celebrities like Bill Clin­ton, Mike Ty­son, and El­len De­Gen­er­es talking about eating veg­an, peo­ple re­al­ize that it’s not just some cleanse, and it’s not some hip­pie-dip­py diet of steamed beans and len­til loaf. It’s a le­git­i­mate way of eating,” Lan­dau says.

One mil­lion Amer­icans now fol­low a veg­an life­style, according to the Veg­e­tar­i­an Re­search Group, making them a cer­ti­fi­able de­mo­graph­ic that doesn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly need the im­pri­ma­tur of carnivores. Still, the new gen­er­a­tion of Meat­less Mon­day-ers can only help the cause — more de­mand for veg­an cooking means more se­ri­ous veg­an res­tau­rants. And these more se­ri­ous veg­an res­tau­rants, at least in the Philadelphia re­gion, are evolving to­ward an al­to­geth­er new kind of cui­sine that all can en­joy.

One of the most im­por­tant hall­marks of the new veg­an food is the move away from big slabs of er­satz meat on the plate. A veg­an, even a Phil­ly one, cannot live on im­i­ta­tion cheese­steak alone. At Lan­dau and Ja­co­by’s former res­tau­rant, Horizons, customers came to ex­pect the sei­tan and tofu dishes they were used to seeing. “It became a kind of stig­ma, when peo­ple only focused on what I call the ‘fake steak,’ ” Lan­dau says. “When we opened Vedge, we wanted to move away from processed products. We wanted to fo­cus on what peo­ple grow and what you eat through the seasons.”

“I think in gen­er­al, veg­an cooking used to be more about mimicking existing dishes, but now we can say we’re striving to cre­ate some­thing new,” Olchvary says.

The veg­e­ta­ble-for­ward style exemplified by both Vedge and Sprig & Vine (Olchvary got his start in Horizons’ kitch­en be­fore striking out on his own), focuses in­stead on the par­tic­u­lar fla­vors and textures that can be teased out of pro­duce. The re­sults are dishes such as Vedge’s roasted maitake mush­room with cel­ery root frit­ter, or Sprig & Vine’s cur­ry-fried cau­li­flow­er with potato pave, co­co­nut-creamed chard, and gin­ger-on­ion braised collards.

“Some of our techniques in­clude mar­i­nat­ing vegetables be­fore roasting or smoking them, which tru­ly max­i­mizes the fla­vor,” Lan­dau says. A prime ex­am­ple is his “pas­tra­mi”-spiced carrots, served over a sau­er­kraut-bean pu­ree. The gar­licky, pep­pery, tangy notes play­ful­ly evoke a Reu­ben sand­wich, offering a gratifying in­ten­si­ty with­out the as­pi­ra­tion to “re­place” the deli orig­i­nal.

“I like to call our cooking in­gre­di­ent-inspired,” Olchvary says. “I will pick­le it, grill it, broil, poach, de­hy­drate — what­ever it takes to bring the veg­e­ta­ble’s es­sence to the fore­front and let it shine.” Late­ly, he’s been excited about his for­ag­er’s re­cent batch of Jap­a­nese knot­weed. “It has a tart fla­vor like rhu­barb, and when you sau­te it, it takes on a mild, al­most ar­ti­choke-like qual­i­ty.”

Olchvary’s fa­vor­ite sta­ple is cash­ew cream. Soaked over­night and whirred through the food pro­ces­sor, cashews make a mild­ly fla­vored, pro­tein-dense base for every­thing from cake frost­ing to a “cheese” spread. “We can usu­al­ly achieve the same mouthfeel, textures, and rich­ness you can get in non-veg­an food.”

The re­sult of all of this in­ven­tion and nov­el­ty is that diners, both meat-eating and non-, are coming away from their veg­an dining experiences satisfied. “Customers used to come in and say, ‘I’m here for my wife, but I’m going out for a cheese­steak af­ter­ward.’ Now we don’t hear it as much,” Lan­dau says.

Not every meal calls for mush­room car­pac­cio, how­ev­er, and for the rest of the time there is a growing list of more ca­su­al, everyday options. Black­bird Piz­ze­ria in Queen Village is a strict­ly meat- and cheese-less af­fair, while Pure Fare in the Rittenhouse Square area offers a host of veg­an options along­side its non-veg­an foods. HipCityVeg, which opened this week in the Rittenhouse Square area (from yet an­oth­er Horizons alum), is a fast-food con­cept slinging burgers, salads, and sandwiches. Falling square­ly in the mid­dle is Miss Ra­chel’s Pan­try, a soon-to-be-opened res­tau­rant on West Passyunk Avenue, serving prix-fixe meals at a farm­house ta­ble that seats 14.

“There are def­i­nite­ly junk-food vegans out there, but most of us start to crave some­thing more af­ter a while,” says chef-own­er Ra­chel Klein, daughter of “Table Talk” columnist Michael Klein. “I grew up veg­e­tar­i­an and I no­ticed that most of the offerings were greasy sandwiches or fan­cy places I couldn’t af­ford. I’m trying to give peo­ple those in-be­tween options.”

Klein, who first sold her wares at rock shows a few years back, has ex­pand­ed the busi­ness to of­fer in-home services to like-mind­ed eaters as a per­son­al chef and ca­ter­er.

While Klein’s cooking is de­cid­ed­ly hom­ey, focusing on the foods that re­cent veg­an and veg­e­tar­i­an converts might be miss­ing, she, too, has seen an evo­lu­tion in her kitch­en style. “I’ve moved away from processed fake meats, and while I still use tofu and tem­peh, I try to keep every­thing fresh and healthy and lo­cal.”

Her most pop­u­lar dishes in­clude a shiitake-gin­ger ri­sot­to topped with aga­ve-glazed beets and a sweet po­ta­to la­sa­gna with a tofu-based ri­cot­ta cheese.

Klein is pleased that the options are opening up for veg­an eaters in Philadelphia. “People be­come veg­an for dif­fer­ent reasons — some for health reasons, some for an­i­mal rights — but now most of us can say that we don’t have to feel like we’re sacrificing.”

If you live in the Los Angeles area, you can now order vegan chicken at Chipotle.

This option is not available at all LA area Chipotle restaurants. In fact, it's only available at two of their stores:

• 244 South Beverly Dr. - Beverly Hills, CA 90212
• 121 N. La Cienega Blvd., #114 - Los Angeles, CA 90048 (right by the Beverly Center)

For some vegans, the idea of eating in an omnivore-oriented restaurant is not palatable (pardon the pun) because, by eating at this type of establishment you could be said to be supporting the unnecessary slaughtering of animals for food.  But PeTA is urging you to try the vegan chicken at Chipotle, and we are too.  The more people who ask for vegan fare, the fewer animals who are ultimately slaughtered.  And, if we can get the fast food chains to start carrying vegan fare as part of their standard menu, then omnivores who don't have the slightest idea what "vegan" means might find themselves eating vegan.  Of course, it's "fast food" so there's the whole issue of whether or not it's healthy food, but that's fodder for another post.

If you live in the Beverly Hills area, or if you'll be visiting, I urge you to go to either of these two Chipotles  and order the vegan chicken burrito. This mock-meat burrito features Garden Blend: mock chicken strips marinated in chipotle adobo sauce and then grilled. The burrito also comes with black beans, rice, and toppings.  Bring your friends. Bring your carnivore friends and offer them a taste. Let them see that they can eat well without having to eat meat. The only way that vegan food will become accepted into the mainstream food establishments is if the restaurants feel that enough people are willing to order the product.

So if you live in Los Angeles, or happen to be visiting, make sure to go to either of these two Chipolte restaurants and order the vegan chicken burrito.

Shojin's Caterpillar Roll

Jane and I are off to Montana for a week.  Since it looks like vegan dining will be Taco Bell and The Pita Pit, we figured we'd get a quick fix from our favorite vegan restaurant, Shojin.

As always, dinner was fantastic.  We started our dinner with our all time favorite, the Caterpillar Roll.  When we first went vegan the idea of "vegan sushi" was a bit of a joke to us.  Sushi was fish, and we had loved it.  But let me assure you, we are converts.  This roll starts with a base of Shojin's barbequed seitan and is topped with sliced avocado.  YUM!  We've tried other vegan sushi, but this is our absolute favorite.

Our next course was the Barbequed Seitan.  It's sliced seitan with some kind of light barbeque sauce.  In our opinion, Kimiko (Shojin's master chef) makes the best seitan.  It's far and away better than any other we've ever eaten.

Shojin's Seitan Pepper Steak

One of the reasons we enjoy Shojin so much is that they are constantly changing their menu.  They keep the core items, but add things as certain foods become seasonally available.  Our main course was the Seitan Pepper Steak, which is one of those new things.  It was delicious.  If you haven't tried Shojin, and can get to Little Tokyo in downtown Los Angeles, go... you won't be sorry.

So we're sated, and hopefully our expectations of our food options in Montana will be exceeded.

Click here for Shojin's website.

Flore Cafe Breakfast Burrito

So after my gaffe last week, of confusing Flore with Flore Cafe, I convinced Jane we needed to head on back out to Silver Lake.  Last week I reviewed Flore in Silver Lake.  This time, we were off to Flore Cafe (really).

Jane had the Breakfast Burrito, and I had the Tu-No Melt, and of course, we shared.  The Breakfast Burrito was okay, but not something we'd enthusiastically recommend.  You could do this at home with better results.  It had too much rice and potato and was very bland.  And there's only so much hot sauce you can use!  Everyone recommends the tofu benediction, we should have gotten that instead.  Next time.

Flore Cafe Tu-No Melt

As for the Tu-No Melt, I'd wanted to try it  when we were at Flore, but ordered the Quesadilla instead (which was delicious and I didn't regret my decision one iota).  Flore Cafe also offers the Tu-No Melt, so this time I had to order it.  It was delicious.

Overall, we were pleased and will definitely be back.  Everything tasted really fresh.  We really recommend both Flore and Flore Cafe.  But I want to stress, the ambiance in these places is not wonderful.  They both resemble an eatery or deli more than a  restaurant.  But the food is fresh and good, and the service we received was wonderful in both locations.

Just in case you're confused, here's a quick primer:

• Flore Cafe is a vegetarian restaurant
• Flore is a vegan restaurant
• Flore Cafe is at 3206 W. Sunset Blvd
• Flore is at 3818 W. Sunset Blvd,0.5 miles down the block!
• Flore Cafe used to be the Vegan Spot
• Flore is the original restaurant (they are owned by the same person)
• Flore Cafe serves breakfast all day long
• Flore breakfast served until 1 pm.

But no matter which restaurant you wind up eating at... YUM!

Bengan Ka Salan

Jane and I were in Santa Monica today and stopped in at Akbar, possibly my favorite Indian restaurant (they also have locations in Pasadena, Marina del Rey, and Hermosa Beach).  Although they are not a vegan restaurant, they are familiar with vegan cuisine.  We didn't have to go through an explanation of what we could and couldn't eat with our server.  Always a joy!  She even suggested we order the Roti bread instead of Naan as their Naan is made with milk (or was it eggs, I can't remember).

Anyway, this dish is sauteed chinese eggplant in a coconut tamarind sauce, you determine the level of spiciness.  Yum!   If you are in the Los Angeles area and enjoy Indian cuisine, I'd suggest a visit.