Not to mention the “Irish cream cheese.” Is that made from Baileys?
Where can I get delicious bread? no oil and no enriched flour?
Most artisanal breads: Tartine, Lodge, Bub & Grandma …
1 Like
Robert is right, also stick to bread like baguettes, batard, boules. Breads like pan de mie, brioche, focaccia hamburger buns will usually have oil or butter or both.
Artisanal bakeries commonly don’t use enriched flour, though some do, e.g. La Brea.
Enriched flour just has small amounts of B vitamins added to partially compensate for the nutrients lost when the germ and bran are removed. Otherwise it’s the same as other white flour. If you eat a healthy, balanced diet, you don’t need to worry about the minor nutritional differences between white, enriched, and whole wheat.
https://www.bakingbusiness.com/articles/47115-a-brief-history-of-food-fortification
If you actually try it, you will understand what I mean. It’s not like instead of a cow burger, they have a soy burger. There is very little resemblance between the food at Wild Living Foods and regular food. If you were eating the “pablo burger” there without seeing the menu there, you would not call it a burger. But yes, you have effectively made the point that Wild Living Foods names its dishes uses existing names for regular food as opposed to coining new names like cobrati, franze, and lisjohn for its food.
Oh, my god, finally an answer:
Mama Los Angeles, a platform that highlights multicultural cuisines and dishes, recently made an Instagram video about Jade Wok’s house special tofu, learning that it was a recipe that has been in the business for over 30 years. It was a Malaysian family dish that has been passed down from owner to owner. The tofu is made from scratch and lightly deep fried, and then served swimming in a rich sauce that has mushrooms, fermented black beans, and ground pork.
1 Like
Thanks! Finally an answer to Jade Woks house special tofu origin.
I suspected it was a family home dish didn’t expect it to be from Malaysian family though
Same! And if this is a Malaysian family dish I want to be Malaysian
Is there a recipe?
Sadly, no. They show a little of the process but definitely no ingredient list or instructions. I guess I would almost never make it, anyway, because the of the homemade tofu and the deep frying. Like, the sauce is amazing also but seems pretty achievable; it’s that custardy tofu with the chewy, shaggy crust that makes it for me.
Making your own tofu is kind of a production.
As we slowly are stepping out and meeting with folks we have missed greatly… We recently made some social dates with some Vegan friends and used it as a great excuse to try two of the Vegan Food Events around town. I had been already following some of these chefs on instagram. I’ve found that they have a legit passion for the flavor and not just replacing this for that or relying on faux meat (which aside from Quorn and Impossible Mince in Curry I am not a fan)
The first event was Vegan Exchange in North Hollywood, every Sunday 11a-5p. It was super easy to get to via the B Line and we opted to get there at noon. It was a perfect time because it wasn’t too busy and we were able to get a nice stand up table behind the trucks
One of the vendors I really wanted to try was Champignon Eats which makes Mushroom Burgers including one with Enoki Mushrooms. I love mushrooms and Enoki are among my favorites. I was super curious on how it would work… would it be each enoki fried, would it an enoki cluster smashed and fanned… Well it turned out to be each enoki battered and fried. The batter was SUPER crisp and more like a corn meal crust. It reminded me of the wonderful belly clams cups I would get in New England. It worked amazing well in the sandwich as the enoki held on to each other. It had a creamy ranch like dressing and the bun was super tasty and held together
Another vendor I knew I wanted to try was Mac N Cheese Rebel. I have been making vegan butter chicken and other recipes with cashew cream, so I was eager to try his formula for a creamy mac. I also loved that you could top the Mac N Cheese with various toppings like Fried Onions, Kale and Vegan Al Pastor?! I would have gotten Kale except I had to share with P and he prefers Cauliflower.
As you can tell my the demolished shape I returned to after grabbing a drink… It was delicious. Like better than so many other mushy, tasteless, greasy mac and cheeses I’ve had all around this town. Not only was the sauce nice and creamy with great cheesy taste. But I loved his use of traditional elbows. Al dente and it held the sauce. People getting too fancy with their mac and cheese pastas around here to their own detriment.
In Seeking out other bites, we all kept returning to Masaya. We got their lovely agua fresca, Cucumber Kiwi. Then P disappeared and came back with their Carrot Slaw dog. THANK GOD it wasn’t slathered in liquid smoke like I’ve seen in so many carrot dog and carrot bacon recipes. The sweet, savory, carrot actually worked with the slaw. Our friends ordered the Veggie tacos and really enjoyed them, they came on hand made tortilla, which was impressive on how much Joaquin is able to do in his pop up!!
Finally we rounded out the day with a Matcha Tea Cake from the Donuttery. In addition to being vegan, it also was gluten free. So glad they called it a tea cake vs. donut. It was dense, but moist. Very cake like, no weird texture or taste. The matcha flavor was true, not bitter of fishy. Would totally have it again!
After this success… we decided to try the Vegan Playground event over where we are. It’s held every Friday 5p-9p at Party Beer on Jefferson. Again, very train friendly to get there. It’s a little smaller of scale, but the whole thing is organized quite well and Party Beer manages to use all it’s space wisely. There not a ton overlap between vendors and the selection was good so there quite a variety of different bites.
We got there around 7:30 and things were in full swing, but starting to thin out. We didn’t have to wait very long to find a seat.
Being big hot dog fans, again, we tried a faux dog, namely a braut from All Vegan Franks. The flavor of the sausage was VERY good. However the texture was a miss. Way too soft and mealy. Honestly the Beyond Sausages that Dog Haus uses are better.
We also wanted to compare the Mac n Cheese. We got Avocadamama. The sauce was very nice, creamy and tasty. But it wasn’t what I would consider ‘cheesy’. Instead it was just a really nice pasta sauce. Although they got fancy with the pasta, it was cooked well. I still think smaller shells or elbows would have been better though.
The winning dish of the night however was from Maneating Plants. They specialize in Vegan Asian (which can be so hard to find) and although we wanted OOE, we opted for the Crispy Mushroom Bao. OMG. These were so good. Better than many Bao sandwiches we’ve had at restaurants. They were HUGE, several pieces of crispy mushroom. The Mushrooms were super crisp and the coating was almost like the one they use at really good fish and chips places. Cristaline. It so well composed with the scallion, spread (Which I am guessing has 5 spice) and a solid hit of Chile crisp. I love mushrooms. LOVE MUSHROOMS. This is in the top 5 of mushrooms dishes I’ve ever had. Just that good.
Instead of dessert, I opted to close the night with some milk tea. My friend who joined us scoffed… $8 for milk tea?!? And the truth is, getting Vegan milk tea isn’t some sort hardship around this town… Still, I was impressed by their menu and they seemed to be using real tea base. So I ordered the London Fog, a favorite of mine. They use Almond milk and flavor it with Vanilla and Lavendar… and when I took the first sip, I got a wonderful hit of the Earl Grey Tea and then a hit of the Almond Milk with the flavors and it was like this magical combo of Floral Tea and Horchata, I drink these all over and this one was awesome. Beats my current fave from Dulce and reminds me of something that DingleBerries would put together, Really, really nice. Would order again and again…
So as you can tell, we had a great time at both events and are very likely to go again. Opportunities to eat more veg is good… especially when Corporate America has your number down to a tee…
3 Likes
You have me salivating, @Dommy - everything looks so good, especially the mushrooms (I share your love for them).
Any chance you might share a recipe or guidance on this?
Sure!! I use Impossible or Beyond Ground bricks and then prep them like I would any other ground meat for either Japanese Curry or Keema Curry. I especially love it in Keema Curry… It’s so underrated…
I use this recipe… but there are many others online as well…
1 Like
Had both the veggie ball and the meatless/plant ball (Two different ones). The Meatless one has that plastic faux meat taste and processed meatball spongy texture. The Veggie balls are better tastewise, but don’t hold their shape well, kinda squishy and they completely fall apart in sauce. Due to a confluence of things, I have a lot of Vegan/vegetarian friends and party guests. I’ve tried them all.
Also, don’t do veggie Breakfast Sausage. Not even those new fangled ones.