a new icon

it's deeply enjoyable to me that because The Cheesesteak is one of philadelphia's edible icons (enough to warrant a televised showdown), the vegetarian/vegan cheesesteak has become another kind of icon for this town. an impressive number of bars, cafes and eateries boast their own version of this copycat sandwich. truly, these seitan beasts are everywhere.

do you know that i've never had a real philly cheesesteak? i have followed a meatless diet for so long, that a pat's, geno's, tony lukes' or whatever else has never touched my lips. this is a fact i'm pretty proud of. however, i have sampled dozens of vegetarian versions. like most popularized food items, some are great, some are bad. most are just okay.

this being said, i feel confident in claiming that blackbird pizza's is some next level shit. ryan and i met for lunch on friday and tucked into these beauties, pausing only to exclaim our delight between massive bites.


the seitan was very thinly sliced, perfectly peppery, and piping hot. there was no skimping on the onions and mushrooms, and vegan cheese was melted (YES - MELTED!) evenly over everything. the roll was crusty and sturdy - a detail so often overlooked in mainstream sandwich construction. i usually like to save half my sandwiches for round 2, but this one was too good and i showed no restraint.

now at $8 and change (and, don't forget to tip the nice vegans!), this sammie ain't exactly cheap - but who can put a price on joy?

love,
emily

we'll always love big pop-pa

today i crossed to bridge and headed to the always pleasing enigma that is the pop shop in collingswood, nj. the pop shop has been on our radar ever since we heard they had 30 different kinds of grilled cheese, all available with a soy cheese substitute.

a lot of things are enigmatic about this place. first of all, it's in collingswood, which is a cute town in new jersey. yes, cute and new jersey in the same sentence (sorry all you jersians out there). second of all, it's prettttty kitschy, with a retro 1950's diner vibe where kids and the elderly abound. there's a lot of things that could potentially go wrong with that sentence. kitsch. 1950's diner vibe. kids and the elderly. somehow, the pop shop pulls it off.

finally, the true veganness of this establishment has always eluded us. the soy cheese is vegan. the soy cheese isn't vegan, but there's a different dairy free cheese. there's no vegan cheese at all. the veggie burger is vegan, the veggie burger isn't vegan, etc. etc. etc. every time we go to the pop shop we grapple with these issues. it seems like they're changing their vegan and veg options pretty frequently. restaurant owners can do whatever they like with veg friendly dishes, but when you have this printed on your menu, you better have the food to back it up:

We conscientiously and consistently strive to respect and accommodate vegetarian/vegan practices and palates. The majority of our menu does start vegetarian or vegan and can be altered to accommodate special requests if circumstances permit. For example, all grilled cheeses can be made vegan. Keep in mind that we are a creamery and we love dairy so your salad, sandwich or bagel may have spent some time along side some beautiful bovine bounty before it reached your table. Enjoy!
- The Pop Shop Kitchen Staff

i mean, throw me a [vegan] bone here! also, the staff isn't the most knowledgeable and often times isn't even sure what we mean by vegan. i know i sound like a complainy caroline here, but when you so clearly try to highlight your vegetarian/vegan food policy, is it so much to ask that the staff actually know what they're talking about?

enough kvetching, my trip to the pop shop today was phenomenal. best ever. the waitress was SUPER sweet and answered all my questions without a twinge of annoyance. best of all, yes, the soy cheese was definitely vegan! i ordered a veggie burger with soy cheese, dijon mustard, mixed greens, tomato, caramelized onions and avocado on a ciabatta roll with a side of spicy fries.

is that teese? what is that!!

the ciabatta was probably a bad choice as i took the first bite of the crusty roll and half the ingredients inside fell out. also mixed greens does not a neat burger experience make. i blame myself and my poor choices, not the kitchen staff. after some really difficult knife navigation, i cut my burger in half with mild success. half the burger and a plethora of spicy fries (cajun spiced fries with sauteed onions and jalapeno peppers!) plus trying to save room for dessert equals leftovers!! and i will very happily eat those leftovers tomorrow. the burger was delicious.

speaking of dessert, the pop shop offers vegan ice cream options (read: chocolate and vanilla soy ice cream). i decided if i was going to order one of these less than exciting flavors, i should probably go for a sundae and not a cone. i went for it, like taking back sundae (this is terrible, but is it as bad as "just another manic sundae"?). a scoop of each vanilla and chocolate topped with peanut butter sauce, crushed peanuts, oreos, bananas and cherries. it was a true sundae!!! one i haven't had the likes of in years.

that was our waitress, making my sundae. no whipped cream please!

they also have killer buffalo wings made from tofu which i've had before, but not today. and apparently they have a new option: vegan pancakes! good for you pop shop, i applaud you. next time, i'm looking at an ice cream soda. they have a painting on the wall that says "be a jerk" and today, i'm feeling pretty jerky.

-lauren

to be or to adobe

last week em and i met up in south philly to check out a potential house (we moving south, ya'll) and decided to grab some dinner while we were at it. we went to the adobe cafe on east passyunk. we were REALLY excited. for a multitude of reasons.

the most important reason being that last time we went there, we completely and utterly failed at getting dinner. yes, even we sometimes fail. apparently the kitchen stops serving food at 11pm, which isn't unheard of. what IS unheard of, however, is when i asked for a menu at 10:45pm and you (the bartender) don't tell me (the hungry customer) that the kitchen is closing very, very soon. after some chit chatting and some beer drinkin, we finally decided what to order and armed with our choices, i headed to the bar to place our order only to find the kitchen was CLOSED.

confused? who cares. that was then, this is now. this time we were victorious. we think. well, we did order food, but we're not quite sure about the accuracy of the vegan title of said food. let's start at the beginning. the margaritas: definitely vegan, definitely boozy, really good:



the menu had a ton of veggie/vegan dishes so much to the point that we were happily overwhelmed with options. our first order of business:

em: is the soy cheese vegan?
waitress: ummmm, i'm not really sure if it's vegan. i think we might have a vegan cheese separate from that one. wait, let me ask this one guy that works here, he's vegan he would know.
em: well maybe you could just ask the chef?
waitress: this guy will definitely know better than the chef.

she comes back a minute or two later and tells us the resident vegan went on a delivery but she'll check with the kitchen. after a few minutes she passes by the table with a platter of food balanced on one hand and calls over her shoulder to us "it's vegan!"

well, that seemed a little sketchy, but we trusted her and the chef and went with it. i mean, they had tofu sour cream, vegan jalapeno aioli and so many seitan/tofu options, we figured they knew what they were doing. we decided to split an order of the vegan nachos, topped with vegan cheese, guacamole, pico de gallo and tofu sour cream. sounds good? SOUNDS GREAT. i haven't had nachos in a really long time and i immediately knew this was the app(etizer) for us.

see how the cheese stretches. IT STRETCHES! that's awesome, but also a bit puzzling. i've never seen vegan cheese stretch before. but guess what, we ate the whole damn thing, and it was worth it.

for an entree, i ordered the skillet seitan tips sandwich with a side of spicy french fries and a jalapeno aioli. em got a vegetable and "cheese" chimichanga and we went halfsies.

unfortunately, the sandwich was missing the zesty coleslaw that made this dish seem extra appealing. the seitan was done really well so it didn't matter, and although it was piled on a roll modestly adorned with lettuce and tomato, i slathered some aioli on there and went (half-way) to town. the fries were amazing. they nailed the fries and that's all there is to say about that.


after eating half the nachos and half the sandwich, there wasn't much stomach space for a deep fried bundle of fake cheese and vegetables. i somehow forced myself to have a few bites. the dish came with salsa verde and salsa roja, both a bit watery for my taste. the guac was good, simple and no frills, but not bad by any means. the spanish rice left a lot to be desired, pretty poorly spiced and bland. em pointed out that maybe alongside the punch packing chimichanga, the rice is supposed to be a plain counterpart. to this i say: meh. it wasn't very good and that's just a bummer. the chimichanga itself was deep fried to a golden brown crispy exterior with some cheese and peppers and onions oozing out when cut into. yes, i did say oozing. after a few bites i couldn't really go much further, but it was amazing.


all in all we were insanely full and very satisfied. the food was amazing and decently priced if not a bit on the high side. the margarita was just what it should be. the cheese.....the cheese. sigh, the cheese stands alone.

editor's note: i just called to sleuth out an end to this mystery and after holding a few minutes (worth the wait!) the kind gentleman on the other end assured me they have both a soy cheese AND a vegan cheese. well hallelujah, somewhere, somehow, a good vegan cheese exists.