Vegan delights

[Guest guest]

Vegan delights

 

Whittier Daily news Wed, 08 Nov 2006 10:43 PM PST

 

Now, let me say from the start, that I'm not a vegetarian. Never have

been, never went through a college VUG (Vegetarian Until Graduation)

period, didn't even flirt with the notion during my wannabe hippie

years in San Francisco. I'm a card-carrying carnivore.

 

http://www.whittierdailynews.com/entertainment/ci_4518197

[Guest guest]

One World Cuisine and Madeleine Bistro create meatless cuisine so good that even

meat eaters will love it

By Merrill Shindler

 

 

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10px " ; } Now, let me say from the

start, that I'm not a vegetarian. Never have been, never went through a college

VUG (Vegetarian Until Graduation) period, didn't even flirt with the notion

during my wannabe hippie years in San Francisco. I'm a card-carrying carnivore.

But I'm a carnivore with a reasonable respect for the meatless lifestyle.

I've always viewed a vegetarian meal as just another culinary option - on any

given night, I might go out for Japanese, Italian, Chinese, Thai Ö or

vegetarian. It's just another way of eating - though it is another way of eating

that comes with a certain quantity of moral baggage, which may be what turns

meat-eaters off to the notion of going meatless for a meal. Go to a steakhouse,

and you don't get to read about the nobility of your culinary choice - there

isn't a PETA variant that applauds the consumption of sirloin. But it's the rare

vegetarian restaurant that doesn't remind you that you're doing the Lord's work

by chewing on brown rice instead of browned beef. Consider, for instance, the

menu at One World Vegetarian Cuisine, an excellent vegan (mostly) restaurant in

the midst of West Covina's Mall Land. Not only are we offered a fine selection

of meatless dishes, we're also given a list of

 

 

Famous Vegetarians from throughout history - including Buddha, Jesus, Da

Vinci, Einstein, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Paul McCartney, Pamela Anderson, Kim

Basinger and Mary Tyler Moore.

(Though the contention that Jesus was a vegetarian goes back a long time, in

Luke 24: 42-43, he does eat a piece of broiled fish. And it's likely that lamb

was served at the Last Supper. On the other hand, it's also likely that his

brother James was a vegetarian, so Jesus might have leaned in that direction.

But I digress.) At Ruth's Chris, they don't offer a list of famous steak

lovers. But vegetarian restaurants seem to harbor a need to justify their

existence. Which, as I've said, is odd - vegetables are our friends. And there's

certainly there's no need to improve the flavor of the vegetables, and the

vegetable creations, offered at One World. The seasonings are sufficiently

intense that it's easy to overlook the fact that there's no chicken in the

veggie ìchickenî nuggets (though they could be a tad crisper), no beef in the

grilled veggie ìbeefî teriyaki, no fish in the steamed veggie ìfish,î no turkey

in the veggie ìturkeyî burger. What I actually liked best

here were the preparations that tried the least to pretend to be meat dishes. I

thought the sundry Chinese and Thai preparations - the curry fried rice, the

crispy chow mein, the spicy curry tofu - were very good, good enough that I took

some home to see what they were like in the light of day. (In my kitchen, it was

clear that the Philly cheese steak was made with a meat substitute like seitan -

not a bad thing, but lacking the texture of a Spencer steak.) Along with an

extensive selection of colorful dishes, there are lots of fruity smoothies, and

tasty juice mixes (I like the Veggie Power - celery, peppers, apple, carrots and

cucumber). And there's a dairy-free vegan mocha fudge ice cream, and vegan green

tea ice cream. They may be devoid of dairy, but they're not without sweetness ñ

and lots of it. There's no vegetarian proselytizing at Madeleine Bistro in

the San Fernando Valley. For Chef David Anderson understands that his food is

all that's needed to bring in

legions of acolytes and true believers - locals who swear by the gospel of his

vegan cuisine. And it's certainly remarkable stuff, created by a chef with a

wildly impressive resume. Anderson has a bachelor's degree in music composition

from the Berklee School of Music. He has a degree in culinary arts from Johnson

& Wales University (where he graduated at the top of his class with a 4.0 GPA).

He was Bistro Chef at Restaurant Pot au Feu in Providence, R.I., before heading

west to cook at the Belvedere at the Peninsula Beverly Hills. He was sous chef

at the Inn of the Seventh Ray, and Executive Chef at Real Food Daily. And now,

with his wife, he runs Madeleine, which is one of the few white tablecloth vegan

restaurants in America - this is not necessarily a restaurant for the

Birkenstock crowd. It's a lovely room, the sort of low-light, understated

space that could easily be serving ahi tartare instead of red beef tartare - an

excellent preparation, perhaps the

restaurant's defining dish, served with croutons topped with warm tofu cheese,

English cucumbers and parsley oil. Though, that's not to imply that the

chanterelle mushroom tamales with basil oil, and the hoisin-lacquered seitan (a

wheat gluten thing that resembles meat, for those who don't eat meat), aren't

defining dishes as well. This is a restaurant that pushes the edge of the

envelope so far, you forget what the envelope originally looked like. Which is

to say, you forget that this is a meatless menu. To browse through the several

menus at Madeleine is to go on a culinary journey to a world you didn't know

existed. There's a brunch menu, for the meals served at midday on weekends, that

includes creations like a seven-grain porridge brulee; an Amazon breakfast made

with something called ìacai,î which is also known as ìwonderfruitî; it's deep

purple with a chocolate flavor, and crazy amounts of protein and fiber. Who

knew? Lunch leans towards salads and sandwiches,

several of them with Cajun and barbecue flavors, used with blackened seitan,

chicken fried seitan, pan roasted tofu and braised tempeh (fermented soybean

loaf). They offer a summer corn bisque at lunch, with pan roasted shiitake

mushrooms and tempeh bacon; a Chinese chicken salad made without chicken; and a

barbecued ranch chop made without a chop. In the hands of a lesser chef, they'd

be vegetarian wannabes. Here, they're fine dining without meat. Dinner is

the restaurant's centerpiece, a meal built around heirloom tomatoes and

chanterelle mushrooms, around gnocchi made from arugula and tomato risotto. If

you want to taste the very essence of Chef Anderson's cooking, go for the Friday

night Five-Course Tasting Menu, which costs $55 per person, and varies from week

to week. It matches well with some of the fine wines on the restaurant's list.

(Yes, a vegan restaurant with a well-conceived wine list, decidedly a rarity!)

There's a fine Sobon Estate Viognier, and a

lovely Phelps Le Mistral Red - good choices among many good choices. There's

Samuel Smith Organic Lager and Organic Ale as well. And for dessert, along with

the raspberry Napoleon, the bananas Foster split and the chilled

blueberry-merlot soup, there's a lovely trio of sorbets, perfectly meatless to

the very end. mreats One World Vegetarian CuisineHH 178 S.

Glendora Ave. West Covina (626) 917-2727 Lunch, Monday through Saturday;

dinner, every day. An island of veganism in the sea of fastfood, this casual

mini-mall cafe caters to a loyal following who show up for a meatless menu of

dishes with a distinct leaning towards Asia (summer rolls, spring rolls, autumn

rolls, Indian curry tofu, veggie Cantonese ìchicken,î crispy chow mein), and

Italy (Heavenly Pasta, One World Lasagna), along with sundry veggie burgers and

sandwiches, served in a warm setting where you'll feel as if you're doing

something worthwhile for your body. Under $10 per person. MC, V.

Exotic coffees, smoothies, fruit drinks. Reservations: Helpful.

Madeleine BistroHHH 18621 Ventura Blvd. Tarzana (818) 758-6971 Lunch,

Tuesday through Friday; dinner, Tuesday through Sunday;brunch, Saturday and

Sunday. The rarest of rarities, an upscale vegan restaurant, run by a

husband-and-wife team dedicated to creating meatless cuisine so good, even

carnivores will love it, something they do with cutting edge dishes like their

heirloom tomato ìtrio,î their truffled mac ën cheese, their Thai red curry, and

their porcini crusted tofu scallops; and do save room for dessert, especially

the sweet corn crËme brulee and the dairy-free bananas Foster. About $35 per

person. MC, V. Beer and wine. Reservations: Important.

 

 

Peter H

 

 

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