Vedge Restaurant, Philadelphia: The World’s Greatest

September 4, 2013

Tal Ronnen’s Crossroads: The Best Fancy Vegan Meal In L.A.

September 20, 2016

Going into dinner at Crossroads, my first ever meal in Los Angeles, I was wary. I knew of Tal Ronnen, famous celebrity chef behind Oprah’s 21-day vegan challenge and Ellen’s wedding, and I was super psyched to finally eat at his fancy well-known restaurant on Melrose (so I could say “We’re going to Melrose” in Ambular’s voice). But I had heard from several people whose opinions I trust, and none of them agreed on whether the food was disappointing or BRE (best restaurant ever). Either the consistency at Crossroads is just nonexistent or some of my friends have the Sookie-preggers-tastebud-crazytimes, but luckily I guess I went on a good night. No, a great night. A freaking fantastic, fabulous night because this dinner was off the chizzz, people, and despite an absolutely stellar week of eating in L.A. (which will be my next like bajillion posts), Crossroads was the highlight among all highlights.

Now, not everything was perfect. Far from it. The service was nicht so good; we will get to that later. Notably, the lighting was not good for pictures, as you will be able to clearly (or blurrily) see. This is really upsetting because the food is so beautifully plated, but I guess they’re of the old-school belief that food is for eating and not photographing. Amateurs. No it’s not a big deal just a warning so you don’t keep shouting ah my eyes! Also, I was seated so I faced the bar, and there was a semi-famous woman sitting directly in my line of vision and I couldn’t figure out who she was! So that was a bummer! I think some sort of Real Housewife or mob wife or some such person I should probably be glad I can’t name. The group at the table next to us had to have been some sort of band or something. One of the guys was a f-ing slob, wearing like dirty pajamas to this insanely nice restaurant, and he was hairier than if Rob Delaney got turned into a woolly mammoth. Like his hair and his beard were on the table. So gross. And another guy was a dead ringer for Noel Fielding, giant witch’s hat and all. They have to be famouses, right? Or is that just how regulars in L.A. are too?
But the food was epic. So epic that I place Crossroads in the Michelin series I write. No, it doesn’t have a star, but you know what? It was much better than some meals that had even multiple stars attached (and it was more expensive erma p gerd) so I’m tagging it as such. CHANGE APPROVED. Also, Husband and I went with two local friends, so it was one vegan and three omnivores. They were all blown away by every course. Like BUHH LOWN away. I was so happy just for that! Let’s get down to it.

Little ball of heaven in the back, some necessary greens on the left

The concept is small plates, tapas style, allegedly coming out as each was ready but we realized that the sequence was actually following the menu order, which made more sense than otherwise. The waitress recommended 4-5 dishes per person, and I think we did 3-4 each (all for sharing) and had trouble finishing the final dishes, so keep that in mind. We started with the Charred Ricotta, served with crostini and apricot thyme glaze. I was never a huge cheese person, like I never cried and pissed and moaned about having to give it up like other prospective vegans do at all times, but this new wave of artisan (meaningless) vegan cheese is extraordinary, and this dish was a prime example of it. I don’t know what it’s made of, but unlike the plain whipped tofu I’ve had at other places who call such an abomination ricotta, this was amazing. I wish I could have this dish delivered to my house every single day, but that would be supes gross after a 12 hour flight. And then customs and stuff? Ugh. I’d still eat it.
Our other small starter was the Watercress and Peach Salad, which was refreshing and must have been pretty good considering I don’t particularly like watercress and I had eaten the peach of my liiife the day before. Oh California produce. The salad was tossed with hazelnuts and a mint vinaigrette, which was happily not minty at all. Strong start.

I can’t get over how blurry these pics are! This salad is total Blursula! Blahhh. But it was so good. And the ricotta oh man. It had like a protective shell and when you broke through it you were rewarded with the best cheese ever.

Amazingness

Next up was probably my favorite part of the entire dinner, and I think the dish that most impressed by friends. The Artichoke Oysters were served and eaten like oysters, with the little ball of artichoke puree, yellow tomato bearnaise, and kelp caviar over a grilled oyster mushroom and served on a meaty piece of artichoke heart. Oh my goodness, this is the most impressive thing I’ve eaten in a while. Just the sheer creativity of making something like that, and the genius in executing it perfectly, boggles the mind. I’m just obsessed! In the middle was a scoop of seaweed, my favorite thing, but I didn’t realize it until someone else ate it. And I didn’t even care! That’s how good these oysters were. Holy crap. Next time some asshat tries to have an argument about the whole ‘can’t vegans eat oysters they’re plants right?’ just be like why would you eat enlarged bougers when you could eat artichoke oysters?

the rancho carne toros

You’d think maybe after the life-changing events of the ricotta and the oysters, that the 300 subsequent dishes would be slightly disappointing, but you’d be mistaken. Everything was on such a high level, it felt almost criminal to be enjoying it without being Ellen myself. We tried another salad next, the Grilled Romaine, and although it was very difficult to share (being a wedge salad), it was my favorite salad. The grilled lettuce heart was smothered in harissa ranch dressing. I’m not a fan of ranch dressing, never was, even though I went to a college where people put that shit on their pizza. But this ranch dressing in this salad? I’m a convert. Well at least to Crossroads’ ranch. The salad was topped with pickled shallots, heirloom cherry tomatoes, and black olives, all of which nicely cut the heaviness of hot lettuce and ranch dressing. Such a wonderful combination!

Such a good dish for sharing, unless you are eating with me, because I will eat all the damn bread.

Speaking of pizza, the pizza section on the Crossroads menu was really difficult to pass up, but we had a feeling that their fancier-seeming dishes were the heavy-hitters, and we were right. Next we had the basic but delicious Lentil Flatbread, a wonderfully earthy and warm pita-like bread served with little dishes of marinated eggplant, braised banana pepper, and mushroom relish. I honestly couldn’t tell which vegetable was in which pot (I mean by color sure but you know what i mean), but it was all great.

could eat 100

The “Crab Cakes” (their quotes, not mine) were equally good while being a more familiar taste at similarly adventurous vegan restaurants. They were topped with the daintiest amount of tartar sauce and watercress. While the cake itself was really fantastic (I’m guessing hearts of palm? but it doesn’t say in the menu), it needed a lot more of the sauce. I guess we could have asked for some but they’re small bites so you don’t really realize it until after you’ve finished.

We also probably wouldn’t have asked because our initially-fine waitress became the Mona-Lisa-Saperstein WORRRRRRST seriously the worst. At one point, she tried to remove my friend’s wine glass, even though it still had a few sips in in. My friend said she wasn’t done with that yet, and the waitress put it down. But I guess she had been worn down by a terrible audition earlier in the day (probs all actors right?) and so this benign comment instead hit her as criticism of her performance in her day job and at the thought of her being a failure at that too she absolutely shattered, and was a total b word to us the rest of the time. I mean that’s just me guessing but I’m probably right. She rushed us from then on, couldn’t wait to get rid of us so would idle nearby waiting for us to finish a plate so she could quickly snatch it away. Like this was a busy restaurant with lots to do, but she would just watch us, ignoring her other tables, and look perturbed. What a terribleness.

hidden not-really-a-joke was because of ray romano you get it

Luckily, her inability to keep it together did not affect our enjoyment of our meal. No, we’re not done. Next was Grilled Romano Beans, which I’ve never heard of before but everybody likes them right so we ordered them. They were really good, still in their pods and barbecued with balsamic peaches, marcona almonds (those are the fancy almonds right), and black garlic chili vinaigrette. So damn good! That’s a lot of flavors going on but beans are pretty basic on their own so it was all working.

Next was a dish I know all my friends in England are throwing tomatoes at their screens over – the Grilled Fresh Baby Corn. People here just don’t do baby corn, what I can tell you? I can take it or leave it but this dish? I’ll take. I bet it could even turn the naysayers onto baby corn, it was RG. Harissa-spiced, mixed with crispy shallots and corn puree, this dish was so worth ordering, even though when my friend first ordered it I was like “you’re wasting a space on baby corn? why would you waste a space on baby corn?” but it was a good decision.

Our first of the Comforting Classics, as they’re called, was the dish most recommended to me – the Chickpea Cake. It’s a good deal heartier than the smaller plates, and so actually makes this very expensive food seem like a better value. The chickpea patty is served with porcini mushrooms, red spring onions, and sherry demi cream. I don’t know what makes cream ‘demi’ but I really enjoyed the chickpea cake and was glad I followed everyone’s advice. It seems like an entree you’d get at a nice comforting vegan restaurant, or maybe make yourself if you have a lot of time one night. Very solid and delicious.

Onto the last of our Comforting Classics, and the last of our savory dishes (I totally forgot to take pictures of some things in the ruckus of this amazing meal! sorry not sorry! Add like 4-5 other dishes and you’ll get a sense of how much food we ate!). The Scaloppini Milanese was so amazing. It could have easily been a hunk of Gardein or something at a lesser restaurant, but this patty, whatever it was, was incredible, with the perfect texture. The telltale syruppy but thin Milanese sauce took it to the next level, and like everything else here, was wonderful.

On to dessert!!! We were so full that we couldn’t even finish some of the above dishes, but we had to get dessert. I was actually in a place that would give me something other that fruit sorbet and fruit; of course I’m getting dessert! We decided to split two among the four of us, starting with the Peach Upside Down Cake. Proving that their pastry chef is as talented as the head chef, this wonderful cake was warm and full of deep brown sugar. The roasted peaches were just as good as all the other peaches we ate all night and all week (the best peaches in this state!) and complemented by the lemon cornmeal of the cake. The best part was the brown sugar ice cream it was served with, not that it was better than the cake but just because ice cream is my favorite. As such, the dessert I got to choose was the famous Hot Fudge Sundae, which yeah I could make and yeah I could have elsewhere but shush, it was awesome. The vanilla bean ice cream was served on top of a warm brownie (le sigh), mixed with banana fudge, whatever that amazingness is, and topped with hazelnuts and coconut whipped cream. Best sundae ever, yes.

Cake & ice cream!

Ice cream sundaeee!

Overall, this was an epic, spectacular meal, definitely one of my favorites ever. It was stupid expensive, but compared to similar restaurants, I think the value was so high that it was well worth it.

Crossroads, Los Angeles, California, US&A
Water speed: Decent. There were a few times when we had to flag people down, but overall it was okay.
Service: What a weird issue! The waitress was a total eggshell plaintiff or something. She just didn’t like us and make it hella obvious. Boo urns.
Bathrooms: I felt like I was in an episode of Gossip Girl when I went to the bathroom. They are small, with two stalls separated by the sink area, and blonde wannabe starlets apparently congregate in the sink area to fix their hair while I try to wash my hands. Their conversation was so hilariously stereotypical of everything L.A. I almost thought it was Improv Everywhere or something.
Food: Incredible! Not one bad note. One of the best meals ever.
Bonus: The atmosphere can’t help but be great, considering the location and the notoriety. Usually more famous people are there than were on my night, but even so, the food is so superb that I didn’t even care that it was apparently the one night of the year that Russell Simmons wasn’t there.

Sunday Night! Pizza Night! In America! – Al Roker

January 20, 2014

While most people were watching football today (American football, where the foot rarely touches the ball), I decided to celebrate Pizza Night In America (as Al Roker announces every week…right?) by breaking in my brand new pizza stone! Yes, thanks to my bestie known around here as The Bean, I can no longer complain about not owning a pizza stone! (And after buying myself a Vitamix for Christmas, I’m running out of equipment-based things to complain about. Not that I’m complaining.)

Blessed with a few rolls of Field Roast sausage waiting to be used, I decided to top a bean-spread-based pizza with it, along with roasted cauliflower, a ton of roasted garlic, and some greens I had lying around. As you may know from my past pizza-making expeditions, I’m a big fan of replacing cheese or cheese-like substances, and sometimes (like now!) even sauce, with bean spreads. White beans are really the tofu of the bean world (I guess aside from soy beans…), waiting to be turned into anything you want. Except for brownies. Seriously, chill with that noise.
I’m pretty sure the pizza stone ranks as one of the smartest inventions in human history. The crust slid right off the stone, it browned nicely all around, and even though I used about twice as much dough as I should have (you can’t really tell, but I redefined the term ‘deep dish’ – and so can you!), it cooked perfectly throughout the massive folds of bread. Delicious!
Obviously, this will work with a wide variety of items you might have on hand, but I have to recommend following my lead with spinach and pre-sauteed Brussels sprouts. Or, better yet, arugula and spinach mixed together. I’m not a huge fan of arugula eaten raw, but it’s great on pizza.
Sadly, I realized that I was out of nooch. I KNOW! Perish the thought. This is a really serious problem. Please, everybody, to avoid a fate similar to mine, please make sure that you have a backstock of nooch. Don’t fail your future self. Keep nooch well-stocked as if it was the only way to thwart a nuclear attack. Happily, I realized that I can make a cheesy white bean spread without nooch. (Not that I’ll ever do it again.) So the below recipe is great for those of you who didn’t prepare well, or who don’t like nooch.

SOME PRETTY GREAT PIZZA

Components:

1 batch pizza dough
1 batch bean spread
Sauteed Brussels sprouts
Roasted cauliflower and garlic
3 Cups fresh spinach
2 tubes Field Roast sausage

Ingredients for pizza dough:

4C wheat flour
2t salt
2C warm-to-hot water
1 packet active yeast
1.5 T sugar

Directions:

In a glass measuring cup, mix your sugar and warm water together. Add the yeast and make sure it starts jumping. Let sit for at least 5 minutes.
Mix your flour and salt together in a large mixing bowl.
Add the yeasty water to the flour bowl. Mix together and then knead like the wind.
Knead some more. Get out all of your anger at your past self for not stocking enough nooch.
Clean and oil the bowl, roll the dough around it in to get it all oiled up, and cover it with a dish towel. Let it sit in a warm place for 2 hours.

Ingredients for white bean spread:

2 cans (3 cups) white/cannellini beans
4T water
juice of one large lemon
2T soy sauce
1/2 cup cashews
3t dijon mustard
3T tahini
2t garlic powder

Directions:

Blend in a blender. Or a food processor. You got this.

For the Brussels sprouts:

1/2 pound shaved Brussels sprouts
1T olive oil
1/2 t salt

Directions:

I usually like roasting these, but today I was feeling sauteeing them first to soften and oilize them against the crunchy roasted cauliflower.
In a sauce pan, heat the oil over medium high heat, then add the sprouts and salt. Cook for about 10 minutes, until totally soft.

For the cauliflower and garlic:

1 head cauliflower, chopped very finely
1 head garlic, separated into cloves
2 T olive oil
salt and pepper

Directions:

Line a big baking sheet with parchment paper.
Spread the cauliflower and all the garlic cloves onto the sheet.
Drizzle the oil over it all, and mix with your hands to spread it and massage it into the cauliflower.
Sprinkle salt and pepper over everything.
Bake for about 30 minutes at 350F.

Assemblage:

Put your pizza stone in the oven and preheat it to 350F. Whee!!!
Roll out your pizza dough. Today, my dough was really yielding and it let me spin it like a real eyetalian.
Form the crust so that it puffs up when it bakes, because puffy crust is the best.
Spread the bean dip in a thick layer all over the dough (not on the crust part).
Top that layer with all the cauliflower and garlic.
Top that with the Brussels sprouts. Try to spread everything evenly. And densely.
Top that with the spinach. It’ll shrink down almost immediately upon being placed in the hot oven, so don’t worry about it being all poufy.
Top that with the sliced sausage.
Top that.
Bake for about 20 minutes until the crust starts to get golden.

Brussels, cauliflower, and garlic successfully placed.

How good is Field Roast. This kind was pretty darn spicy. Love it.

Now that is some crust.

I love sharing pictures of my yeast jumping because it is magic!

Look how pretty my new stuff is! Thanks brotherrrr.

Beans & cashews & other things oh my!

I want to go to there. Not to a saucepan. To Brussels. I love that statue of the little boy peeing. I don’t know.

Objects in picture look a lot bigger than they actually were.

GLUTEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I made hummus in a blender, look at me I’m a rebel.

Aw man it kind of looks like my pie mousse. It’s not!

Spinach! We’re movie clockwise here.

Cooked & shriveled.

Enjoy! It’s real good.

Is there anything better than Pizza Night? I might have to make this a regular weekly or biweekly fixture now that I have a Stone. So exciting! What are your favorite pizza toppings? Is pizza your favorite food? I went to a casting call when I was like 11 (just for shits and giggles) and about 30 girls were asked “What’s your favorite food?” Every single one of us said pizza, except for one girl, who said “raviolis”. I said to her, “Um that’s not a word. Ravioli is already the Italian plural form.” She got a callback. Bitch.