garces - 2 for 2

you may remember our first GLOWING review of chef jose garces' mexican themed restaurant distrito from last summer. we talk about this dining experience a lot in our normal, non-internet lives as the perfect situation one could hope for when requesting special dishes due to dietary restrictions (whether they be voluntary or involuntary, mind you!). my second go round with garces was at the new garces trading co. on 11th and locust and, let's just say the dietary restrictions are a little more lax this go round.

i was acquainted with only the shell of the soon to be bistro, as i attended an open call for new employees back in january. offered a job on the spot, i ended up turning it down as brighter prospects were on the horizon. i promised chef greg (sweetest little chef dude i ever met!) i'd come back and see him when they opened. and let me say, i'm glad i did.

take the "tour" on the website, and you'll see the welcoming open room, lined with a cheese and charcuterie counter, coffee and housemade cookies and pastries, a PLCB wine store (where you purchase a bottle and then BYO to the restaurant) and a lovely little flower shop in the foyer. as well as bottle your own olive oil station and an assortment of housemade jams, jellies and sauces.

we nabbed a table during a busy lunchtime rush but were still graced with good service. a friend of ours working the line sent us a few treats which ended up sending us into the realm of LOTS OF FOOD. however, we happily ate everything knowing that a sunny walk home would calm our bellies. the meal:

the "chef's mix" of olives

baby artichokes with preserved lemon, olive oil and date walnut cake

Kunik - a soft ripened triple cream cow and goat's milk cheese
from Nettle Meadow Farm in New York, with white sangria honey
ordered as an app, eaten for first dessert.
yes, that's right, i said FIRST dessert.

eggplant antipasti with roasted red peppers, cherry tomatoes confit
aged balsamic and microgreens
my dining partner had a pretty insane duck salad
opposite me for this course that i neglected to photograph
it was pretty beautifully presented, i must say

funghi pizza with maitakes, royal trumpets, taleggio and black truffles;
this is one of my favorite pizzas i've had in the city since eating cheese.

i have no idea how we ate all this food, although i suppose i requested a small box for the last piece of pizza. after a meal that took over an hour, we relaxed and ordered coffee. i strolled up to check out the coffee bar when i discovered ::gasp:: cute little pastries! so tiny, so delicate, only two or three bites each, how could i say no? a small tart goes superbly hand in hand (fork in mouth?) with a cup of good coffee.

the marjolaine - almond daquoise, chocolate ganache, coffee buttercream

and so we ventured back into the sunshine. wallet a bit lighter, bellies a bit more distended. one hell of a lunch behind us, and no foreseeable need to eat again for the next 24 to 48 hours...

california part II

the california trip was just shy of a week, so i should be able to sum up the rest of the journey in this post. man, i wish it was a longer stay, something like 2 weeks, so a multi-day trip to LA could've been squeezed in, and relaxation could've reached truly epic heights (lows?).

either way, that's not how it goes for the likes of ry & me & our bank accounts, so we tried to enjoy each minute of every day, and what a rad trip it was...

on saturday, we woke up to a brilliant morning and biked our way through oakland (so charming!), to a diner called rudy's can't fail cafe. this kitchsy gem combines punk rock aesthetics (without any bad attitude from the servers), with classic comfort food. lots of vegetarian and vegan options, too, oh lordy the menu was packed with choices. however, we had a bit of a wait to get seated, and drank lots of coffee in the outdoor courtyard.


did i mention the weather was amazing? not warm enough to go without a jacket, but still sunny, clear, energizing, lovely.

after our hearty breakfasts and probably too much coffee, we biked into berkeley, and spent many hours in the amoeba records on telegraph. i bought a really good stack of vinyl, including a mae west collection of sultry jazzy numbers called "queen of sex." fighting our way through the crowds comprised of students and burn outs, we stopped in tiny deli for what were fast becoming ubiquitous late afternoon big bottles of beer.

biked up and further up winding hills into a very fancy neighborhood in berkeley, to a park that was essentially a huge rock from which there were breathtaking views of the bay and san franscisco beyond it.


other people slowly gathered across all facets of our little mountain, and we drank our hoppy brews and talked, and watched the lucky residents of the homes below go about their early saturday evenings. at one point, we heard a woman's voice gently shout "dinner time!" and saw a few children scurry out of the yard and up the steps...what a heartwarming little scene. so as the sun began to set, we quieted down, and watched the golden drama unfold.

after the beautiful sun finally sank below the horizon (and you could really see it disappear, until only a glow remained, then finally...nothing), i said "it would be funny if people clapped," and then they did - they applauded the sunset! the lack of irony and cynicism in the people out west is astounding, equal parts weird and comforting to a lifelong east coaster like me. we packed up our bags and empty bottles, and headed back down the steep garden path back down to our bikes.


a relatively quick shop in the berkeley bowl (too much to photograph to even try) for dinner wares, and then back to the apartment to make our meal: a big green salad with blackberries & easter egg radishes, pasta with mushrooms and peas, and an asparagus & brussels sprout salad with almond lemon pesto (one of ryan's new specialties). we ate heartily around their cozy table, sipping wine and listening to the records we'd purchased earlier.

later, a quick bike ride to eli's mile high club, a very divey punk bar (and oddly empty on a saturday night), for a few rounds of drinks and pool...


then we biked further into downtown oakland, toward the ruby room, which was in full swing with some sort of booze-soaked high school reunion where everyone was in costumes. it was a bit odd, and so we only stayed for one drink. back in the apartment, we ate some little snacks, talked some more, and turned in for the night.

after a quick breakfast in the morning, ryan and i swung by a car rental place, got ourselves a nice little 4-door, and headed south toward santa cruz! our friends patrick and janina moved out there in june, and i've missed them so. we drove down the coast, an epic and gorgeous landscape of mountains, gigantic trees, and beaches. we pulled off at pescadero beach to walk off some of the gnarly snacks we bought from a gas station. here is ryan looking very california:


i'd never been to santa cruz before, and it was a quaint beach-y town with a very 50's feel. there is a rad old boardwalk with wooden roller coasters that i sadly didn't take any photos of. also, just past the boardwalk there is the bridge where they filmed that scene in "lost boys." while we stood on the bridge at twilight, looking out over the dry riverbed below, patrick pointed out a blue heron standing gracefully on the riverbank. the night was cool, but clear, and it felt really special to be there with them.

we walked all through the town, to a badass sushi restaurant, whose name i can't remember. i didn't take any photos there either...by that point in the trip i was definitely slacking on the picture-taking. so just take my word for it that the sushi was incredible (there were macademia nuts in one of my rolls, and they have the option to get your rolls tempura-ed, like deep fried, like oh my GOD). full & happy, we walked over to logos, the very cool bookstore where janina is now employed. the store is just huge, so we spent an hour or so perusing all the books and records and meeting her co-workers. it's always nice to get to see a glimpse of a friend's day-to-day life who lives far away from you...like it kind of helps you feel closer to them when they're like "i'm at work, i can't really talk right now," and you can imagine exactly what that scene looks like.

we had some cocktails at a fancy little bar called the 515, including a really wonderful drink that i had, a spin on an old fashioned with herb infused bourbon, maraschino cherry, oranges and champagne. i don't always dig on the overwrought craft cocktail thing, but this was crazy good. and strong!!

back at the apartment, we stayed up late talking, trading stories, watching funny youtube videos and drinking cold bottles of beer. in the morning, we woke up to another beautiful california day, complete with cat:



also, remember how janina is an expert jam maker? well, even on the other coast, she's still at it. check this out: she doesn't have a shelf, or part of a cabinet dedicated storing her canned wares and preserves. no, she has an entire closet!


a very inspiring site to me, still weirdly intimidated by the process of canning. anyway, we had to return the car by 1PM, so we said our farewells with long hugs. the drive back to SF was quick and easy (we took the highway back), and we mentally prepared for our last day of the trip. we bummed around oakland with john in the afternoon, i met up with another friend for coffee in the evening, and we polished off some rippin' 'za at a pizzeria called lane splitters. finally, to our last bar of the trip and undoubtedly the best: a tiny, ancient dive called kingfish. this was my kind of bar: small without being cramped, $1 olympias served up by a wizened but friendly old man, a jukebox, a diverse crowd, low ceilings, a popcorn machine in the corner and...shuffleboard!



does anyone know of bars in philly that have a shuffleboard table? i was too drunk to play very well that night, but i do love a good game of shuffleboard. mary met up with us there after her drawing class, and it just felt so easy and regular to be meeting up in the night to drink and reflect on our days, just like we used to in philly. through my beer + bliss haze, i kind of let myself pretend that this was just another day in our lives, and not the last night of a brief visit.

loving people is hard sometimes. you want them to be near you, but you also want them to be fulfilled, and to explore, and to be where is right for them. you try to enjoy the times you do have together without constantly reminding yourself that soon you will have to say goodbye. you look at their faces and feel them in your arms when you hug, and you know that this is fleeting, and that it will be another 7 months at least before you get to do that again.

when we said goodbye on tuesday morning at the oakland airport, i felt so many things. i remembered the morning that john & mary drove away from our house in west philly for the last time, i remember how mary cried and how touched i was, and how deep it felt to watch them really go. i felt amazed at how many miles separate us now, but how from the moment we arrived, i felt instantly re-connected and happy. yes, the bay area is charming, and abundant and awesome, but we could've been in any little apartment anywhere with them, and i would have felt just as much joy.

za-nies (pizza and brownies)

we've talked about pizza here on VR before, and it should come as no surprise that we love it and want to make it our best friend. vegan pizza used to seem kinda daunting to me, what with making the dough and the sauce and the fake cheese. now it's something i can throw together (with some help!) a half hour before the ball game comes on. my pizza partner found a recipe for a quick pizza crust on vegweb, and while it wasn't the best crust i've ever had or made, it certainly was quick, which was what we needed. it was also pretty salty, which worked this time because the saltiness complemented the veggies on top quite nicely, but next time i'd cut down by about half.

we whipped up a simple sauce of sauteed garlic, onions, canned diced tomatoes and copious (accidentally copious, but actually made the sauce awesome) amounts of crushed red pepper flakes. after prebaking the crust and simmering the sauce, we heaped arugula, spinach, baby bellas, tofu ricotta and roasted red peppers atop and plopped 'er in the oven for 10 minutes, which is really all you need to warm everything up nice and toasty.

a side of brussels sauteed in red wine and garlic and voi-za. veggies for dinner in all their splenditude.



oh, i also wasn't sure what to do with this bag of dandies vegan marshmallows.

taking a tip from anabell's blog, i decided to top these not to sweet chocolate walnut brownies with the sugary pillows of vegan mallow. i adapted the recipe with pecans instead of walnuts and baked some dark chocolate chunks and dandies on top for the last 10 minutes. oh man, i love marshmallows!!!! what to do with the other half of the bag, vegan mallomars perhaps?


love,
lauren

zazazazazaz

pizza + beer = the best grown up snack of all time. when i was a teenager, i remember thinking that my life would be so awesome when i could just kick it with my friends, a six pack and a piping hot 'za. unlike most adolescent fantasies about the coolness of being older, this one was actually right on! truly, nothing makes you feel like all is well in the world like a frothy mug of suds in one hand and a oozy slice in the other.

dock street brewery opened in west philly a couple years ago. i've been there quite a number of times, and overall, it's been a mixed bag. my complaints are usually aimed at the service (ranging from "just okay" to "seriously unacceptable") and not the hand crafted beers or the offerings of the menu. in fact, i've never had a bad beer there, and their vegan options, though limited, are consistently good. this past monday, though, was unarguably my favorite dock street experience yet. let's review:

it was a warm and easy monday. ryan and i both had the day off, and spent the first few hours of the afternoon cleaning the kitchen and shopping for groceries. most people despise grocery shopping, but i find it really soothing. anyway, off to a good start. but suddenly we realized that it was 4 p.m and we hadn't had a proper meal yet! even though our kitchen shelves were well stocked, we decided to treat ourselves to a late late lunch out on the town.

we chose dock street because ryan said he'd had a week-long itch for pizza that simply had to be scratched. oh, and because spring time afternoon beer drinking rules, too. an awfully pleasant bike ride later, we were cozily seated in the airy dining room of the brew pub. unlike so many of my other visits there, the place was nearly empty and it was a refreshing change from the normal overwhelming din and clatter. the lofty ceilings (which sometimes escalate said din to headache inducing wall-of-sound), let the afternoon light zip around, and the atmosphere was super relaxing. the server came over right away and she was sweet and attentive throughout our whole meal. even the decor and seating has come so far since the dock street first opened (intimate, low wooden tables and chairs banquettes where there used to be cold, metal, high top seating, and actual art on the walls instead of vast expanses of white!).

we each ordered beers: i got the rye ipa, which i have enjoyed many times before. ryan ordered the hop garden, and both beers were so delicious. dock street really nails their brews every time, which is to be expected, since they are all being made barely fifty feet from where we were sitting! "unfiltered and unpasturized," as they make a point of noting on the menu, these glasses were filled with pure, 7% - 9% righteousness:


while there is a specifically vegan pizza on the menu, i just wasn't in the mood for it that day. so i did something i've never done, and now i can't figure out why it took me so long. i ordered a non-vegan (but still vegetarian) pie off the menu, but asked for crumbled tofu instead of cheese. oh foolish me of the past - why didn't you think of this before? it changes everything. so what i got was the greek pizza: black olives, sun dried tomatoes, roasted garlic, toasted walnuts, tofu-instead-of-feta and hold the mozz, with a big old pile of salad greens on top! the greeks may have invented democracy and gay sex, but that all pales in comparison to the holiness of this pizza.

dock street's pizza is famous and for good reason. it's out of the brick oven and on your table in seconds, the toppings are always generous and fresh, and the crust is transcendentally thin in the middle and hearty and chewy at the edges. i ate the entire pizza (hey! it was the "small" one) and easily could have wrecked half of another. i find myself frequently griping about the lack of good food in my neighborhood, but i guess i need to shut my mouth, or rather, stuff it full of more pizza a la greek.

love,
emily