Two great American cuisines meet at Souley Vegan.

[Guest guest]

Sorry Fraggle............

 

By Anneli Rufus

 

Printer-friendly version | Send a letter | E-mail story

July 23, 2008

 

 

When even the tartar sauce tastes terrific — heck, when you even notice the tartar sauce, much less wish you had a whole jar — then a restaurant must be doing something right.

 

 

Chris Duffey

 

The barbecued tofu plate is a revelation, but don't ask what's in the sauce.

 

Souley Vegan431 13th St., Oakland 510-393-9186 Payment: Cash, major credit cards Hours: Tues.-Sun., 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Sample MenuSoul Food Plate: $10Barbecued Tofu Plate: $10Crispy Tofu: $5Red Beans and Rice: $5Strawberry-Ginger Lemonade: $3

And Souley Vegan is doing a lot right. Despite a noisy floor fan and a name that arguably should be spelled Soully or Solely Vegan, it's an animal-free-ingredients oasis in the gritty heart of downtown Oakland. If BART-escalator lurkers, skyscrapers, and fast-food wrappers eddying in an exhaust-scented back draft give you that looming-mortality anxiety — that inchoate aching for an antidote — then Tamearra Dyson's barbecued tofu and gingery fresh-fruit drinks might just be it. Or her garlic-and-pickle-spiked potato salad, cheeseless cheesecake: gleaming golden and red-brown richnesses that flesh-eaters and even old-school vegetarians like us would say had no business being this far from bacon and Crisco.

That her creations were voted Best Soul Food in this year's Express Best of the East Bay readers' poll is "a blessing," Dyson says. "Not 'Best Vegan Soul Food' but 'Best Soul Food' — that's like ... crazy."

But crazy-good. Merging two until-now-disparate cuisines was a brainstorm born of a childhood spent eating one while intently watching another being made.

Fervently health-conscious, "my mom didn't feed us any meat," says Dyson, who grew up in Oakland. "Our desserts were apples and granola. I think it's great that she made that decision. I'm very grateful to her." But Dyson's mother also cooked breakfast daily "for my grandpa, who was Louisiana Creole and from Shreveport. Him? Vegetarian? Forget about it," Dyson laughs. "He was eatin' sausage and bacon and corn and potatoes and grits and biscuits with gravy. She made his breakfast every morning at his house, which was just a couple doors down from ours, and I would go and watch."

But never the twain met — yet. Dyson and a few friends decided at sixteen to go vegan. "For me, it wasn't such a huge leap. But we couldn't eat out in restaurants, because hardly any places understood the concept of vegetarianism, much less veganism. So I started cooking for fun. Then after I had my son at nineteen, I had to cook." Striving to raise a satisfied vegan child, Dyson remembered the vividness of her grandfather's breakfasts and started experimenting. The results were so successful that she started a vegan-soul-food catering service a year and a half ago, then set up shop at Oakland's Grand Lake and Montclair farmers' markets. Many of her patrons were "carnivores who just laughed" when they first saw her fare. "They assumed it couldn't possibly taste like soul food." So many were proven so wrong that she decided to take the next step and open a restaurant. Only a month old, the setting itself — vintage storefront, near dive-bars and the Tribune building — has a minimalist, embryonic, almost-there air: family photos on the walls, dried flowers in tentative-looking vases. (A Billie Holiday mural is in the works.) Posted on the wall behind the cashier — and nowhere else, so you must order at the counter — the menu's print is too small.

Buy hey, if you order either of the most clearly visible items from the top of the list — the Soul Food Plate or Barbecued Tofu Plate — it's a double win. No eyestrain, plus an instant immersion into velvety-soft collard greens and melty corn-on-the-cob, snappy semolina-flour macaroni and noncheese, sweet-as-middle-school-kisses candied yams, and more, all cooked without white sugar, flesh, butter, or milk: in other words, the realm of the how-is-this-possible?

Well, not necessarily instant. While we were served promptly — we were the only diners in the place, just before 6 p.m. — waits grew longer as tables filled up. The mostly twentysomething crowd sat patiently, but one woman chided the counterman: "It's been twenty minutes, and I've got to be somewhere soon." When her plate appeared seconds later, she tucked into it with a toothier smile than one typically lets slip when alone in public. But she was eating the barbecued tofu, so who could resist?

Almost as chewy-firm as jerky outside but spongy inside, the cubes suck up a thick and plentiful burnt-umber sauce that, through a stop-everything jangle in your head, whispers capsicum and raw cane sugar. Dyson "definitely can't tell you" which actual spices she uses, she says solemnly — because these are her original recipes, she wants no imitators, and she's currently marketing a mass-produced line to stores. The fact that this is tofu, and Southern sauces could pretty much kick tofu's butt anytime, makes her artistry all the more remarkable.

She puts bean curd to another test in her crispy tofu, served as a side dish, as we had it, or in buns as burgers: Dyson's personal favorite. Inside a wrinkly, peppery cornmeal-batter blanket half an inch thick, fried in olive oil — the only type of oil Dyson uses — the tofu doesn't taste greasy. Nor does it taste like tofu. With that stunned surprise-nostalgia gawp you get when realizing, flashbang, what you have lost, Tuffy and I wailed, "This tastes exactly like fried fish." And for that hour, that restaurant brought fried fish back. Without the fish.

Daubed with homemade tofu-based tartar sauce, the tofu proves once and for all what a doctor recently told a friend of ours whom he is helping to turn vegan — It isn't the meat you'll miss, it's the contexts: the sauces, the spices, the sense of place. Remember those funky oh-so-local holes-in-the-wall where, when you were a carnivore, you walked right in (no scouring the menu for the single dish your diet might allow) and just chowed down?

Well, this is one of those. It even feels a bit like time-travel: the sharp raw honesty of eating in the era before processed food. That said, you don't expect to pay quite so much in a place that looks like this. One always pays extra for purity, but as this usually takes place amid self-congratulatorily artsy decor, one usually notices those extra dollars less. But here, they twinge — which makes you notice tics such as the tad-too-small portion size and slight carbohydrate deficit. A few extra spoonfuls of macaroni or potatoes or of rice in the red beans and rice would go a long way. But wanting more of something is one of the best compliments around.

 

Peter vv

 

Maggie Vining <Maggie.Vining Sent: Monday, 21 July, 2008 10:37:36 PMRe: Discarded cow eyes could replace live animals in toxicity tests

 

Scientists can now also do toxicity studies on donated skin from humancadavers because the skin lives for a while after the person has died.When I learned that I thought that was pretty cool.Maggie

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[Guest guest]

someone has to like it

Peter VV Jul 23, 2008 10:40 AM Re: Two great American cuisines meet at Souley Vegan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sorry Fraggle............

 

By Anneli Rufus

 

Printer-friendly version | Send a letter | E-mail story

July 23, 2008

 

 

When even the tartar sauce tastes terrific — heck, when you even notice the tartar sauce, much less wish you had a whole jar — then a restaurant must be doing something right.

 

 

Chris Duffey

 

The barbecued tofu plate is a revelation, but don't ask what's in the sauce.

 

Souley Vegan431 13th St., Oakland 510-393-9186 Payment: Cash, major credit cards Hours: Tues.-Sun., 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Sample MenuSoul Food Plate: $10Barbecued Tofu Plate: $10Crispy Tofu: $5Red Beans and Rice: $5Strawberry-Ginger Lemonade: $3

And Souley Vegan is doing a lot right. Despite a noisy floor fan and a name that arguably should be spelled Soully or Solely Vegan, it's an animal-free-ingredients oasis in the gritty heart of downtown Oakland. If BART-escalator lurkers, skyscrapers, and fast-food wrappers eddying in an exhaust-scented back draft give you that looming-mortality anxiety — that inchoate aching for an antidote — then Tamearra Dyson's barbecued tofu and gingery fresh-fruit drinks might just be it. Or her garlic-and-pickle-spiked potato salad, cheeseless cheesecake: gleaming golden and red-brown richnesses that flesh-eaters and even old-school vegetarians like us would say had no business being this far from bacon and Crisco.

That her creations were voted Best Soul Food in this year's Express Best of the East Bay readers' poll is "a blessing," Dyson says. "Not 'Best Vegan Soul Food' but 'Best Soul Food' — that's like ... crazy."

But crazy-good. Merging two until-now-disparate cuisines was a brainstorm born of a childhood spent eating one while intently watching another being made.

Fervently health-conscious, "my mom didn't feed us any meat," says Dyson, who grew up in Oakland. "Our desserts were apples and granola. I think it's great that she made that decision. I'm very grateful to her." But Dyson's mother also cooked breakfast daily "for my grandpa, who was Louisiana Creole and from Shreveport. Him? Vegetarian? Forget about it," Dyson laughs. "He was eatin' sausage and bacon and corn and potatoes and grits and biscuits with gravy. She made his breakfast every morning at his house, which was just a couple doors down from ours, and I would go and watch."

But never the twain met — yet. Dyson and a few friends decided at sixteen to go vegan. "For me, it wasn't such a huge leap. But we couldn't eat out in restaurants, because hardly any places understood the concept of vegetarianism, much less veganism. So I started cooking for fun. Then after I had my son at nineteen, I had to cook." Striving to raise a satisfied vegan child, Dyson remembered the vividness of her grandfather's breakfasts and started experimenting. The results were so successful that she started a vegan-soul-food catering service a year and a half ago, then set up shop at Oakland's Grand Lake and Montclair farmers' markets. Many of her patrons were "carnivores who just laughed" when they first saw her fare. "They assumed it couldn't possibly taste like soul food." So many were proven so wrong that she decided to take the next step and open a restaurant. Only a month old, the setting itself — vintage storefront, near dive-bars and the Tribune building — has a minimalist, embryonic, almost-there air: family photos on the walls, dried flowers in tentative-looking vases. (A Billie Holiday mural is in the works.) Posted on the wall behind the cashier — and nowhere else, so you must order at the counter — the menu's print is too small.

Buy hey, if you order either of the most clearly visible items from the top of the list — the Soul Food Plate or Barbecued Tofu Plate — it's a double win. No eyestrain, plus an instant immersion into velvety-soft collard greens and melty corn-on-the-cob, snappy semolina-flour macaroni and noncheese, sweet-as-middle-school-kisses candied yams, and more, all cooked without white sugar, flesh, butter, or milk: in other words, the realm of the how-is-this-possible?

Well, not necessarily instant. While we were served promptly — we were the only diners in the place, just before 6 p.m. — waits grew longer as tables filled up. The mostly twentysomething crowd sat patiently, but one woman chided the counterman: "It's been twenty minutes, and I've got to be somewhere soon." When her plate appeared seconds later, she tucked into it with a toothier smile than one typically lets slip when alone in public. But she was eating the barbecued tofu, so who could resist?

Almost as chewy-firm as jerky outside but spongy inside, the cubes suck up a thick and plentiful burnt-umber sauce that, through a stop-everything jangle in your head, whispers capsicum and raw cane sugar. Dyson "definitely can't tell you" which actual spices she uses, she says solemnly — because these are her original recipes, she wants no imitators, and she's currently marketing a mass-produced line to stores. The fact that this is tofu, and Southern sauces could pretty much kick tofu's butt anytime, makes her artistry all the more remarkable.

She puts bean curd to another test in her crispy tofu, served as a side dish, as we had it, or in buns as burgers: Dyson's personal favorite. Inside a wrinkly, peppery cornmeal-batter blanket half an inch thick, fried in olive oil — the only type of oil Dyson uses — the tofu doesn't taste greasy. Nor does it taste like tofu. With that stunned surprise-nostalgia gawp you get when realizing, flashbang, what you have lost, Tuffy and I wailed, "This tastes exactly like fried fish." And for that hour, that restaurant brought fried fish back. Without the fish.

Daubed with homemade tofu-based tartar sauce, the tofu proves once and for all what a doctor recently told a friend of ours whom he is helping to turn vegan — It isn't the meat you'll miss, it's the contexts: the sauces, the spices, the sense of place. Remember those funky oh-so-local holes-in-the-wall where, when you were a carnivore, you walked right in (no scouring the menu for the single dish your diet might allow) and just chowed down?

Well, this is one of those. It even feels a bit like time-travel: the sharp raw honesty of eating in the era before processed food. That said, you don't expect to pay quite so much in a place that looks like this. One always pays extra for purity, but as this usually takes place amid self-congratulatorily artsy decor, one usually notices those extra dollars less. But here, they twinge — which makes you notice tics such as the tad-too-small portion size and slight carbohydrate deficit. A few extra spoonfuls of macaroni or potatoes or of rice in the red beans and rice would go a long way. But wanting more of something is one of the best compliments around.

 

Peter vv

 

Maggie Vining <Maggie.Vining > Sent: Monday, 21 July, 2008 10:37:36 PMRe: Discarded cow eyes could replace live animals in toxicity tests

 

Scientists can now also do toxicity studies on donated skin from humancadavers because the skin lives for a while after the person has died.When I learned that I thought that was pretty cool.Maggie

 

Not happy with your email address? Get the one you really want - millions of new email addresses available now at

 

 

 

 

 

With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably.

[Guest guest]

C,mon thats two good reviews, maybe its changed since you went there?

 

 

 

Peter vv

 

fraggle <EBbrewpunx Sent: Wednesday, 23 July, 2008 8:09:27 PMRe: Two great American cuisines meet at Souley Vegan.

 

someone has to like it

Peter VV Jul 23, 2008 10:40 AM @gro ups.com Re: Two great American cuisines meet at Souley Vegan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sorry Fraggle..... .......

 

By Anneli Rufus

 

Printer-friendly version | Send a letter | E-mail story

July 23, 2008

 

 

When even the tartar sauce tastes terrific — heck, when you even notice the tartar sauce, much less wish you had a whole jar — then a restaurant must be doing something right.

 

 

Chris Duffey

 

The barbecued tofu plate is a revelation, but don't ask what's in the sauce.

 

Souley Vegan431 13th St., Oakland 510-393-9186 Payment: Cash, major credit cards Hours: Tues.-Sun., 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Sample MenuSoul Food Plate: $10Barbecued Tofu Plate: $10Crispy Tofu: $5Red Beans and Rice: $5Strawberry-Ginger Lemonade: $3

And Souley Vegan is doing a lot right. Despite a noisy floor fan and a name that arguably should be spelled Soully or Solely Vegan, it's an animal-free- ingredients oasis in the gritty heart of downtown Oakland. If BART-escalator lurkers, skyscrapers, and fast-food wrappers eddying in an exhaust-scented back draft give you that looming-mortality anxiety — that inchoate aching for an antidote — then Tamearra Dyson's barbecued tofu and gingery fresh-fruit drinks might just be it. Or her garlic-and-pickle- spiked potato salad, cheeseless cheesecake: gleaming golden and red-brown richnesses that flesh-eaters and even old-school vegetarians like us would say had no business being this far from bacon and Crisco.

That her creations were voted Best Soul Food in this year's Express Best of the East Bay readers' poll is "a blessing," Dyson says. "Not 'Best Vegan Soul Food' but 'Best Soul Food' — that's like ... crazy."

But crazy-good. Merging two until-now-disparate cuisines was a brainstorm born of a childhood spent eating one while intently watching another being made.

Fervently health-conscious, "my mom didn't feed us any meat," says Dyson, who grew up in Oakland. "Our desserts were apples and granola. I think it's great that she made that decision. I'm very grateful to her." But Dyson's mother also cooked breakfast daily "for my grandpa, who was Louisiana Creole and from Shreveport. Him? Vegetarian? Forget about it," Dyson laughs. "He was eatin' sausage and bacon and corn and potatoes and grits and biscuits with gravy. She made his breakfast every morning at his house, which was just a couple doors down from ours, and I would go and watch."

But never the twain met — yet. Dyson and a few friends decided at sixteen to go vegan. "For me, it wasn't such a huge leap. But we couldn't eat out in restaurants, because hardly any places understood the concept of vegetarianism, much less veganism. So I started cooking for fun. Then after I had my son at nineteen, I had to cook." Striving to raise a satisfied vegan child, Dyson remembered the vividness of her grandfather' s breakfasts and started experimenting. The results were so successful that she started a vegan-soul-food catering service a year and a half ago, then set up shop at Oakland's Grand Lake and Montclair farmers' markets. Many of her patrons were "carnivores who just laughed" when they first saw her fare. "They assumed it couldn't possibly taste like soul food." So many were proven so wrong that she decided to take the next step and open a restaurant. Only a month old, the setting itself — vintage storefront, near dive-bars and the Tribune building — has a minimalist, embryonic, almost-there air: family photos on the walls, dried flowers in tentative-looking vases. (A Billie Holiday mural is in the works.) Posted on the wall behind the cashier — and nowhere else, so you must order at the counter — the menu's print is too small.

Buy hey, if you order either of the most clearly visible items from the top of the list — the Soul Food Plate or Barbecued Tofu Plate — it's a double win. No eyestrain, plus an instant immersion into velvety-soft collard greens and melty corn-on-the- cob, snappy semolina-flour macaroni and noncheese, sweet-as-middle- school-kisses candied yams, and more, all cooked without white sugar, flesh, butter, or milk: in other words, the realm of the how-is-this- possible?

Well, not necessarily instant. While we were served promptly — we were the only diners in the place, just before 6 p.m. — waits grew longer as tables filled up. The mostly twentysomething crowd sat patiently, but one woman chided the counterman: "It's been twenty minutes, and I've got to be somewhere soon." When her plate appeared seconds later, she tucked into it with a toothier smile than one typically lets slip when alone in public. But she was eating the barbecued tofu, so who could resist?

Almost as chewy-firm as jerky outside but spongy inside, the cubes suck up a thick and plentiful burnt-umber sauce that, through a stop-everything jangle in your head, whispers capsicum and raw cane sugar. Dyson "definitely can't tell you" which actual spices she uses, she says solemnly — because these are her original recipes, she wants no imitators, and she's currently marketing a mass-produced line to stores. The fact that this is tofu, and Southern sauces could pretty much kick tofu's butt anytime, makes her artistry all the more remarkable.

She puts bean curd to another test in her crispy tofu, served as a side dish, as we had it, or in buns as burgers: Dyson's personal favorite. Inside a wrinkly, peppery cornmeal-batter blanket half an inch thick, fried in olive oil — the only type of oil Dyson uses — the tofu doesn't taste greasy. Nor does it taste like tofu. With that stunned surprise-nostalgia gawp you get when realizing, flashbang, what you have lost, Tuffy and I wailed, "This tastes exactly like fried fish." And for that hour, that restaurant brought fried fish back. Without the fish.

Daubed with homemade tofu-based tartar sauce, the tofu proves once and for all what a doctor recently told a friend of ours whom he is helping to turn vegan — It isn't the meat you'll miss, it's the contexts: the sauces, the spices, the sense of place. Remember those funky oh-so-local holes-in-the- wall where, when you were a carnivore, you walked right in (no scouring the menu for the single dish your diet might allow) and just chowed down?

Well, this is one of those. It even feels a bit like time-travel: the sharp raw honesty of eating in the era before processed food. That said, you don't expect to pay quite so much in a place that looks like this. One always pays extra for purity, but as this usually takes place amid self-congratulatori ly artsy decor, one usually notices those extra dollars less. But here, they twinge — which makes you notice tics such as the tad-too-small portion size and slight carbohydrate deficit. A few extra spoonfuls of macaroni or potatoes or of rice in the red beans and rice would go a long way. But wanting more of something is one of the best compliments around.

 

Peter vv

 

Maggie Vining <Maggie.Vining@ gmail.com>@gro ups.comMonday, 21 July, 2008 10:37:36 PMRe: Discarded cow eyes could replace live animals in toxicity tests

 

Scientists can now also do toxicity studies on donated skin from humancadavers because the skin lives for a while after the person has died.When I learned that I thought that was pretty cool.Maggie

 

Not happy with your email address? Get the one you really want - millions of new email addresses available now at

With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably.

 

Not happy with your email address?

Get the one you really want - millions of new email addresses available now at

[Guest guest]

or maybe others just have no taste

hahahhahahahahahahaha

nah, it wasn't to our liking...just not our thing...

not worth going back for us...tons of other yummy places to eat, and i can make much much better collareds then those bitter ones they served....

Peter VV Jul 23, 2008 11:17 AM Re: Two great American cuisines meet at Souley Vegan.

 

 

 

 

C,mon thats two good reviews, maybe its changed since you went there?

 

 

Peter vv

 

fraggle <EBbrewpunx (AT) earthlink (DOT) net> Sent: Wednesday, 23 July, 2008 8:09:27 PMRe: Two great American cuisines meet at Souley Vegan.

 

someone has to like it

Peter VV Jul 23, 2008 10:40 AM @gro ups.com Re: Two great American cuisines meet at Souley Vegan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sorry Fraggle..... .......

 

By Anneli Rufus

 

Printer-friendly version | Send a letter | E-mail story

July 23, 2008

 

 

When even the tartar sauce tastes terrific — heck, when you even notice the tartar sauce, much less wish you had a whole jar — then a restaurant must be doing something right.

 

 

Chris Duffey

 

The barbecued tofu plate is a revelation, but don't ask what's in the sauce.

 

Souley Vegan431 13th St., Oakland 510-393-9186 Payment: Cash, major credit cards Hours: Tues.-Sun., 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Sample MenuSoul Food Plate: $10Barbecued Tofu Plate: $10Crispy Tofu: $5Red Beans and Rice: $5Strawberry-Ginger Lemonade: $3

And Souley Vegan is doing a lot right. Despite a noisy floor fan and a name that arguably should be spelled Soully or Solely Vegan, it's an animal-free- ingredients oasis in the gritty heart of downtown Oakland. If BART-escalator lurkers, skyscrapers, and fast-food wrappers eddying in an exhaust-scented back draft give you that looming-mortality anxiety — that inchoate aching for an antidote — then Tamearra Dyson's barbecued tofu and gingery fresh-fruit drinks might just be it. Or her garlic-and-pickle- spiked potato salad, cheeseless cheesecake: gleaming golden and red-brown richnesses that flesh-eaters and even old-school vegetarians like us would say had no business being this far from bacon and Crisco.

That her creations were voted Best Soul Food in this year's Express Best of the East Bay readers' poll is "a blessing," Dyson says. "Not 'Best Vegan Soul Food' but 'Best Soul Food' — that's like ... crazy."

But crazy-good. Merging two until-now-disparate cuisines was a brainstorm born of a childhood spent eating one while intently watching another being made.

Fervently health-conscious, "my mom didn't feed us any meat," says Dyson, who grew up in Oakland. "Our desserts were apples and granola. I think it's great that she made that decision. I'm very grateful to her." But Dyson's mother also cooked breakfast daily "for my grandpa, who was Louisiana Creole and from Shreveport. Him? Vegetarian? Forget about it," Dyson laughs. "He was eatin' sausage and bacon and corn and potatoes and grits and biscuits with gravy. She made his breakfast every morning at his house, which was just a couple doors down from ours, and I would go and watch."

But never the twain met — yet. Dyson and a few friends decided at sixteen to go vegan. "For me, it wasn't such a huge leap. But we couldn't eat out in restaurants, because hardly any places understood the concept of vegetarianism, much less veganism. So I started cooking for fun. Then after I had my son at nineteen, I had to cook." Striving to raise a satisfied vegan child, Dyson remembered the vividness of her grandfather' s breakfasts and started experimenting. The results were so successful that she started a vegan-soul-food catering service a year and a half ago, then set up shop at Oakland's Grand Lake and Montclair farmers' markets. Many of her patrons were "carnivores who just laughed" when they first saw her fare. "They assumed it couldn't possibly taste like soul food." So many were proven so wrong that she decided to take the next step and open a restaurant. Only a month old, the setting itself — vintage storefront, near dive-bars and the Tribune building — has a minimalist, embryonic, almost-there air: family photos on the walls, dried flowers in tentative-looking vases. (A Billie Holiday mural is in the works.) Posted on the wall behind the cashier — and nowhere else, so you must order at the counter — the menu's print is too small.

Buy hey, if you order either of the most clearly visible items from the top of the list — the Soul Food Plate or Barbecued Tofu Plate — it's a double win. No eyestrain, plus an instant immersion into velvety-soft collard greens and melty corn-on-the- cob, snappy semolina-flour macaroni and noncheese, sweet-as-middle- school-kisses candied yams, and more, all cooked without white sugar, flesh, butter, or milk: in other words, the realm of the how-is-this- possible?

Well, not necessarily instant. While we were served promptly — we were the only diners in the place, just before 6 p.m. — waits grew longer as tables filled up. The mostly twentysomething crowd sat patiently, but one woman chided the counterman: "It's been twenty minutes, and I've got to be somewhere soon." When her plate appeared seconds later, she tucked into it with a toothier smile than one typically lets slip when alone in public. But she was eating the barbecued tofu, so who could resist?

Almost as chewy-firm as jerky outside but spongy inside, the cubes suck up a thick and plentiful burnt-umber sauce that, through a stop-everything jangle in your head, whispers capsicum and raw cane sugar. Dyson "definitely can't tell you" which actual spices she uses, she says solemnly — because these are her original recipes, she wants no imitators, and she's currently marketing a mass-produced line to stores. The fact that this is tofu, and Southern sauces could pretty much kick tofu's butt anytime, makes her artistry all the more remarkable.

She puts bean curd to another test in her crispy tofu, served as a side dish, as we had it, or in buns as burgers: Dyson's personal favorite. Inside a wrinkly, peppery cornmeal-batter blanket half an inch thick, fried in olive oil — the only type of oil Dyson uses — the tofu doesn't taste greasy. Nor does it taste like tofu. With that stunned surprise-nostalgia gawp you get when realizing, flashbang, what you have lost, Tuffy and I wailed, "This tastes exactly like fried fish." And for that hour, that restaurant brought fried fish back. Without the fish.

Daubed with homemade tofu-based tartar sauce, the tofu proves once and for all what a doctor recently told a friend of ours whom he is helping to turn vegan — It isn't the meat you'll miss, it's the contexts: the sauces, the spices, the sense of place. Remember those funky oh-so-local holes-in-the- wall where, when you were a carnivore, you walked right in (no scouring the menu for the single dish your diet might allow) and just chowed down?

Well, this is one of those. It even feels a bit like time-travel: the sharp raw honesty of eating in the era before processed food. That said, you don't expect to pay quite so much in a place that looks like this. One always pays extra for purity, but as this usually takes place amid self-congratulatori ly artsy decor, one usually notices those extra dollars less. But here, they twinge — which makes you notice tics such as the tad-too-small portion size and slight carbohydrate deficit. A few extra spoonfuls of macaroni or potatoes or of rice in the red beans and rice would go a long way. But wanting more of something is one of the best compliments around.

 

Peter vv

 

Maggie Vining <Maggie.Vining@ gmail.com>@gro ups.comMonday, 21 July, 2008 10:37:36 PMRe: Discarded cow eyes could replace live animals in toxicity tests

 

Scientists can now also do toxicity studies on donated skin from humancadavers because the skin lives for a while after the person has died.When I learned that I thought that was pretty cool.Maggie

 

Not happy with your email address? Get the one you really want - millions of new email addresses available now at With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably.

 

 

Not happy with your email address? Get the one you really want - millions of new email addresses available now at

 

 

 

 

 

With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably.

[Guest guest]

Dont tell me, you use 74 cloves of garlic!!!!

 

 

 

Peter vv

 

fraggle <EBbrewpunx Sent: Wednesday, 23 July, 2008 8:19:28 PMRe: Two great American cuisines meet at Souley Vegan.

 

 

or maybe others just have no taste

hahahhahahahahahaha ha

nah, it wasn't to our liking...just not our thing...

not worth going back for us...tons of other yummy places to eat, and i can make much much better collareds then those bitter ones they served....

Peter VV Jul 23, 2008 11:17 AM @gro ups.com Re: Two great American cuisines meet at Souley Vegan.

 

 

 

 

C,mon thats two good reviews, maybe its changed since you went there?

 

 

Peter vv

 

fraggle <EBbrewpunx@earthlin k.net>@gro ups.comWednesday, 23 July, 2008 8:09:27 PMRe: Two great American cuisines meet at Souley Vegan.

 

someone has to like it

Peter VV Jul 23, 2008 10:40 AM @gro ups.com Re: Two great American cuisines meet at Souley Vegan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sorry Fraggle..... .......

 

By Anneli Rufus

 

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July 23, 2008

 

 

When even the tartar sauce tastes terrific — heck, when you even notice the tartar sauce, much less wish you had a whole jar — then a restaurant must be doing something right.

 

 

Chris Duffey

 

The barbecued tofu plate is a revelation, but don't ask what's in the sauce.

 

Souley Vegan431 13th St., Oakland 510-393-9186 Payment: Cash, major credit cards Hours: Tues.-Sun., 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Sample MenuSoul Food Plate: $10Barbecued Tofu Plate: $10Crispy Tofu: $5Red Beans and Rice: $5Strawberry-Ginger Lemonade: $3

And Souley Vegan is doing a lot right. Despite a noisy floor fan and a name that arguably should be spelled Soully or Solely Vegan, it's an animal-free- ingredients oasis in the gritty heart of downtown Oakland. If BART-escalator lurkers, skyscrapers, and fast-food wrappers eddying in an exhaust-scented back draft give you that looming-mortality anxiety — that inchoate aching for an antidote — then Tamearra Dyson's barbecued tofu and gingery fresh-fruit drinks might just be it. Or her garlic-and-pickle- spiked potato salad, cheeseless cheesecake: gleaming golden and red-brown richnesses that flesh-eaters and even old-school vegetarians like us would say had no business being this far from bacon and Crisco.

That her creations were voted Best Soul Food in this year's Express Best of the East Bay readers' poll is "a blessing," Dyson says. "Not 'Best Vegan Soul Food' but 'Best Soul Food' — that's like ... crazy."

But crazy-good. Merging two until-now-disparate cuisines was a brainstorm born of a childhood spent eating one while intently watching another being made.

Fervently health-conscious, "my mom didn't feed us any meat," says Dyson, who grew up in Oakland. "Our desserts were apples and granola. I think it's great that she made that decision. I'm very grateful to her." But Dyson's mother also cooked breakfast daily "for my grandpa, who was Louisiana Creole and from Shreveport. Him? Vegetarian? Forget about it," Dyson laughs. "He was eatin' sausage and bacon and corn and potatoes and grits and biscuits with gravy. She made his breakfast every morning at his house, which was just a couple doors down from ours, and I would go and watch."

But never the twain met — yet. Dyson and a few friends decided at sixteen to go vegan. "For me, it wasn't such a huge leap. But we couldn't eat out in restaurants, because hardly any places understood the concept of vegetarianism, much less veganism. So I started cooking for fun. Then after I had my son at nineteen, I had to cook." Striving to raise a satisfied vegan child, Dyson remembered the vividness of her grandfather' s breakfasts and started experimenting. The results were so successful that she started a vegan-soul-food catering service a year and a half ago, then set up shop at Oakland's Grand Lake and Montclair farmers' markets. Many of her patrons were "carnivores who just laughed" when they first saw her fare. "They assumed it couldn't possibly taste like soul food." So many were proven so wrong that she decided to take the next step and open a restaurant. Only a month old, the setting itself — vintage storefront, near dive-bars and the Tribune building — has a minimalist, embryonic, almost-there air: family photos on the walls, dried flowers in tentative-looking vases. (A Billie Holiday mural is in the works.) Posted on the wall behind the cashier — and nowhere else, so you must order at the counter — the menu's print is too small.

Buy hey, if you order either of the most clearly visible items from the top of the list — the Soul Food Plate or Barbecued Tofu Plate — it's a double win. No eyestrain, plus an instant immersion into velvety-soft collard greens and melty corn-on-the- cob, snappy semolina-flour macaroni and noncheese, sweet-as-middle- school-kisses candied yams, and more, all cooked without white sugar, flesh, butter, or milk: in other words, the realm of the how-is-this- possible?

Well, not necessarily instant. While we were served promptly — we were the only diners in the place, just before 6 p.m. — waits grew longer as tables filled up. The mostly twentysomething crowd sat patiently, but one woman chided the counterman: "It's been twenty minutes, and I've got to be somewhere soon." When her plate appeared seconds later, she tucked into it with a toothier smile than one typically lets slip when alone in public. But she was eating the barbecued tofu, so who could resist?

Almost as chewy-firm as jerky outside but spongy inside, the cubes suck up a thick and plentiful burnt-umber sauce that, through a stop-everything jangle in your head, whispers capsicum and raw cane sugar. Dyson "definitely can't tell you" which actual spices she uses, she says solemnly — because these are her original recipes, she wants no imitators, and she's currently marketing a mass-produced line to stores. The fact that this is tofu, and Southern sauces could pretty much kick tofu's butt anytime, makes her artistry all the more remarkable.

She puts bean curd to another test in her crispy tofu, served as a side dish, as we had it, or in buns as burgers: Dyson's personal favorite. Inside a wrinkly, peppery cornmeal-batter blanket half an inch thick, fried in olive oil — the only type of oil Dyson uses — the tofu doesn't taste greasy. Nor does it taste like tofu. With that stunned surprise-nostalgia gawp you get when realizing, flashbang, what you have lost, Tuffy and I wailed, "This tastes exactly like fried fish." And for that hour, that restaurant brought fried fish back. Without the fish.

Daubed with homemade tofu-based tartar sauce, the tofu proves once and for all what a doctor recently told a friend of ours whom he is helping to turn vegan — It isn't the meat you'll miss, it's the contexts: the sauces, the spices, the sense of place. Remember those funky oh-so-local holes-in-the- wall where, when you were a carnivore, you walked right in (no scouring the menu for the single dish your diet might allow) and just chowed down?

Well, this is one of those. It even feels a bit like time-travel: the sharp raw honesty of eating in the era before processed food. That said, you don't expect to pay quite so much in a place that looks like this. One always pays extra for purity, but as this usually takes place amid self-congratulatori ly artsy decor, one usually notices those extra dollars less. But here, they twinge — which makes you notice tics such as the tad-too-small portion size and slight carbohydrate deficit. A few extra spoonfuls of macaroni or potatoes or of rice in the red beans and rice would go a long way. But wanting more of something is one of the best compliments around.

 

Peter vv

 

Maggie Vining <Maggie.Vining@ gmail.com>@gro ups.comMonday, 21 July, 2008 10:37:36 PMRe: Discarded cow eyes could replace live animals in toxicity tests

 

Scientists can now also do toxicity studies on donated skin from humancadavers because the skin lives for a while after the person has died.When I learned that I thought that was pretty cool.Maggie

 

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