SweetArt

SweetArt
http://www.sweetartstl.com/
2203 S 39th Street , St. Louis, MO 63110
QISA (4, 4, 3, 4), Vegetarian

The artist-in-residence at the SweetArt family-owned bakeshop/café/art studio, changed his name from Clifford Miskell to Cbabi Bayoc. This new and completely made up name is an acronym that represents his personal philosophy on family, creativity, and community. Cbabi Bayoc stands for “Creative Black Artist Battling Ignorance – Blessed African Youth of Creativity”.

Some may see this as an affectation of pretentiousness, others as an affirmation of personal identity. Either way, I personally feel that the message is less important than the content itself. I like his art, plain and simple. He uses bright strokes and a slightly caricaturish style to convey positivity, personality, and real emotion. I want the man to draw a comic strip, only because I want to see what happens next with his characters.

SweetArt, the bakeshop and café run by his wife Reine, is a little like Cbabi’s art. Sure, there is an underlying philosophy and agenda driving the restaurant, but the food itself is what stands out. The treats are decadent (or at least taste that way), and the savory foods are creative and delicious. Not every dish hit the mark with me, but I had to admire the attempt.

The café’s SweetBurger is their top-selling item, a thick vegan patty of grains and lentils. The consistency of the burger is smooth and even, much more so than veggie patties at other restaurants which tend to be on the chunky side. I personally found the burger too sweet for my taste; I think it would have been improved by a saltier/spicier profile, but again, I admired the attempt.

I ordered the Make It Funky burger, which was the SweetBurger patty covered in house-made BBQ sauce, caramelized onions, organic mixed greens, vegan magic spread, vegan bacon, and vegan cheddar cheese. I could have ordered it with dairy cheddar cheese, but I figured "in for a penny, in for a pound." I wanted the full vegan experience. The Make It Funky was tasty but messy. The burger fell over before I took my first bite, and I found myself using a knife and fork to tackle its contents. Luckily, the sandwich came with a stack of napkins.

The side of dressed kale salad, however, was a pleasant surprise. The mix of kale, carrot, and cabbage in the peanut sauce was surprisingly good. The salad maintained a cole slaw-like crunch, but the tang of the sauce covered the bitter taste of the kale without overpowering the other vegetables. I could eat this stuff on a daily basis.

The café menu was definitely creative, and I would love to come back to try some of their other dishes, such as the vegan palak paneer pie in a phyllo crust. No, I don’t know what is in it, but I love palak paneer and I love spanakopita. The marriage of the two sounds brilliant. Or it could be a failure. But I give them points for trying.

The real focus of SweetArt is the bakery. They make a point of using the best ingredients (e.g. Plugra butter, Valrhona cocoa, and Callebaut chocolate) to create delicious treats. Note, I did not say healthy treats, I said delicious treats. I ordered a salted chocolate caramel cupcake which was just as decadent as it sounds. The buttercream frosting was light and not overdone or overstacked, the cake was moist and much better than most high-end cupcakes, and the pairing of the cake and icing was done artfully with a caramel drizzle. This was a cupcake made to be eaten, not made to be displayed.

I had difficulty deciding on the final QISA score. I debated internally whether to rate the Quality of the restaurant as a 3.5 or a 4. The sweetness of the SweetBurger unbalanced the culinary experience, leaving a slightly off taste in my mouth. I needed an outside, unbiased judge to help me decide. So I brought some vegan rice krispie treats home with me.

“You have got to go back to St. Louis!” my youngest son informed me after devouring his. “We need to get more of these. You have to find out how they made them!”

Four it is.

Harmonie Garden

Harmonie Garden
http://www.harmoniegarden.com
4704 Third St., Detroit, MI
QISA (4.5, 4, 3, 3.5), $4-8, Vegetarian-Friendly

So, there we were, lost in the middle of the Detroit urban jungle, huddling for safety and warmth. My traveling companion and I slept in shifts, hiding under the torn sheet of stained cardboard, trying desperately to ignore the gunshots and screams punctuating the night. For the most part, the locals left us alone, save for the two large, mangy vagrants who accosted us at knifepoint. We distracted one with our last tapioca pudding, the other with a swift kick to the groin.

In the morning, we emerged from our hiding place, blinking into the sunlight. Looking for respite and safety, we stumbled into the first restaurant we could find. I’ll be damned if they didn’t have the best falafel I’ve eaten in years.

Okay, so maybe my discovery of Harmonie Garden was not nearly so frought with excitement and adventure, but our decision to eat there was in fact borne out by happenstance and impulse, not careful planning. I was traveling with my coworker “B,” and we chose the restaurant somewhat randomly. Since I was organizing our meetings in Detroit that day, my reputation was on the line. I was selecting a restaurant with no advanced access to online reviews, Michelin ratings, or menus.

Luckily, the risk matched the reward. Harmonie Garden, a converted bar on the Wayne State campus, is a wonderfully inventive Middle Eastern restaurant. The menu is filled with vegetarian choices, but it is the breadth of falafel dishes that stand out. These include falafel in pita, arabi falafel, fala burger (falafel on a burger bun), fala San Fran, Falamankoush (za’atar pie stuffed with veggies and falafel), Flobby Joe (falaburger with veggie chili and tahini), falafel stir fry, falamelt, and BBQ falafel. Other vegetarian dishes include Mujadara (lentils and bulgher served with crispy onions), Za’atar Pie (savory pastry coated with za’atar spice, and filled with veggies and Syrian cheese), vegetarian grape leaves, and Mujadara spinach melt (onions, lentils, spinach, melted cheese, hummus, and tahini).

B was as big a fan of Middle Eastern food as I was, so we settled in for a major lunch feast. I started with a cup of crushed lentil soup. The soup was not overly salty or spicy, but it sported an appropriate level of umami flavor and hearty mouth feel.

B ordered a plate of hummus and pita, which she thankfully shared with me so I didn’t have to make whimpering puppy dog eyes at her. The pita bread came wrapped in plastic, and was thin but very soft. The plate of hummus was decorated with olive oil, spices, tomatoes, and pickles. I am not engaging in hyperbole when I say it was possibly the best hummus I’ve ever eaten, and this from a man who makes his own hummus at home.

We shared an order of veggie and cheese samosas. I enjoyed the veggie samosas; they tasted like a slightly blander version of traditional Indian samosas. The cheese samosas tasted like mini calzones. Although they were good, very good in fact, the Italian and Indian flavors seemed incongruous with the rest of the meal.

I ordered the arabi falafel, which was a grilled falafel sandwich on pita bread, stuffed with lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, and hummus. The plate included four sandwiches, each about three to five inches across. The falafel were spiced, fried, and shaped perfectly, with the absolute right consistency inside and out. Needless to say, I was in my happy place.

The prices at Harmonie Garden are incredibly reasonable, with most sandwich plates ranging from $4 to $8. One can eat very cheaply there and still take home plenty for lunch the next day. Or for breakfast. I don’t judge.

Most importantly, B was impressed with my choice of restaurant. After two days of me setting up meetings with doctors, organizing travel, and waxing poetic on the finer points of clinical trial design, my high risk, high reward lunch spot was simply the pièce de resistance.

I suppose fending off a vagrant with a swift kick and a tapioca cup didn’t hurt either.

Original Soul Vegetarian

Original Soul Vegetarian
http://www.originalsoulvegetarian.com/
203 E. 75th Street, Chicago, IL 60619
QISA (4, 3.5, 3.5, 3.5), $6-14, Vegan

I love new, exotic, ethnic cuisine. The academic in me cherishes the aspect of learning and challenging my innate assumptions about the nature of food and flavor. The tourist in me digs the aspect of discovery and adventure, stepping outside my comfort zone (assuming the zone is still regulated by the Board of Health). And the cosmopolitan elitist in me can’t help but feel intellectually greater than I was before, having absorbed a new culture into my provincial worldview.

Original Soul Vegetarian may or may not represent ethnic food, but from the moment I parked in the neighborhood near East 75th Street and Martin Luther King Drive, I couldn’t help but feel like a tourist. I seemed to be the only Anglo-looking person within a square mile, and as I walked into Original Soul Vegetarian, I could almost hear all of my African-American friends smirking and saying, “OK, flip this around, and welcome to our world.”

But once situated in the restaurant, all was right and normal with the world. I was back amongst my own people. You know, vegetarians. The goal of Original Soul is not to be a novelty act, nor to advocate vegetarianism to a non-vegetarian populace. Rather, as their Website states, their goal is to “serve food as medicine” in the best way possible. And they apparently have been doing this for over 30 years.

Although the grounding of the restaurant is Soul food, the offerings extend way beyond traditional African-American cuisine, to include stir fry and falafel. Naturally, I didn’t get either one of these options because they were not suitably exotic to me. I mean, falafel is my standard comfort food. It’s not exotic at all.

Instead, I chose the dinner combo of the day that included Buffalo tofu “wings”, mac and cheese, kale, and green beans. To this, I added a cup of split pea soup with a piece of cornbread. The soup was a warming, chunky mix of split peas, carrots, and celery with just the right amount of saltiness. The accompanying corn bread was bland by itself but when dropped piecemeal into the soup, it made a wonderful, hearty stew. The mac and cheese, which I am assuming was vegan, was of the baked variety, making it good, solid comfort food. The tofu was breaded, fried, and smothered in plenty of Buffalo sauce. When I was first taking notes on the restaurant, I marked down that the sauce was only moderately spicy. Then I noticed the capsaicin was starting to build. And build.

I took a piece of sweet potato pie to go and attempted not to eat the entire thing all at once in the car. Although the vegan crust was slightly soggy and frankly rather uninteresting, the thick layer of sweet potato pie itself was a decadent mix of smoothness, sweetness, and spice. Totally, totally worth it. I regret nothing.

The food was definitely more about the content than the presentation, but I admired the subtle touches. For example, the kale was cooked just until barely soft, with just enough salt to enhance its natural flavor. The tofu was frozen and thawed before breading to give it the spongier texture that works best in a fried format.

The restaurant itself exuded warm comfort rather than overt style. The paintings on the wall by African-American artists, the decorative plastic chandelier, the moderately worn tables and chairs complemented the relaxed atmosphere without creating any rustic folksiness.

I would definitely recommend the restaurant, whether you are looking to reclaim the Soul food of your youth, looking to find a new and exotic dining experience, or simply looking for a good lunch spot. Don't worry if you are not a vegetarian or vegan. You will still be accepted. And I promise we won’t stare. Too much.

Oasis: The Falafel Joint

Oasis: The Falafel Joint
http://www.oasisfalafel.com/
206 N. Linn Street, Iowa City, IA
QISA (3.5, 3, 3, 3), $4-8, Vegetarian-Friendly

I love falafel. I love everything about them: the warming spices, the pita bread encasing them, the myriad of sauces, and the nearly infinite possibility of toppings. I especially love the look on peoples' faces when I drizzle hot sauce over an already spicy blend of fried chickpeas, cumin, pepper, and magic.

Needless to say, I take my falafel very seriously. I have very, very little tolerance for falafel poorly done.

Iowa City, early January, on one of the coldest days of the year provided me a great day to eat falafel. It was also a good day to test out Iowa City’s newest falafel restaurant Oasis. If the falafel balls didn’t satisfy on a blistery, blustery cold day like this, they would never, ever satisfy.

Oasis was started in 2004 by two Israeli ex pats, friends Naftaly Stramer and Ofer Sivan, who lamented at the time, “falafel was nowhere to be found and vowed to right this wrong.” The fact that one had just left the tech industry and the other had just completed a degree in engineering certainly makes for an unlikely culinary origin story, but I fully understand their passion and drive. If I had any entrepreneurial spirit and risk tolerance, I would take over Indiana with an army of falafel stands and push for nationwide domination of the fast casual restaurant segment. But I digress.

The falafel sandwich and fries called to me; correction, they demanded my attention. I ordered the platter with no consideration for my feeble attempt at dieting. The falafel was served in standard pita with hummus and cucumber salad. The condiments bar included green cabbage salad with caraway and carrots, red cabbage salad, pepperoncinis, tahini, and green hot sauce. I selected most of the available options to decorate my sandwich. The falafel were good, solid, and serviceable. They were crisp on the outside, soft on the inside, and flavorful without too much heat or salt. I would definitely order them again. I would also tell my diet to take a flying leap and order the fries again, which were fresh, crispy, and cut to a medium thickness.

The owners of Oasis understand that even in a college town, they must educate an unenlightened public. Their Website contains a Cuisine Guide with pictures and descriptions of falafel, hummus, baba ganoush, madjadra, cous cous, tabouli, kebabs, baklava, and the other delicacies possibly foreign to the Iowa plains.

The restaurant is not perfect. For example, their regular coffee was bad to mediocre at best, and did nothing for my interest in the Wake Up Iowa City brand. It is possible that their Turkish coffee is a different animal altogether, but unfortunately I can’t speak to that.

However, the small restaurant has a personal feel, from its small size, to the cartoony mural on the kitchen blackboard, to the Credence Clearwater Revival music on the loudspeaker. If you are in downtown Iowa City, definitely pay them a visit. But you might suggest they clean out their coffee pot while you are there.

ONE LAST THING:

This is probably as good a time as any to stand on my soapbox and tell America that they are mispronouncing “hummus”. According to both Dictionary.com and the Merriam-Webster dictionary, not to mention every Middle-Easterner I have ever met, the word is pronounced ‘hə-məs’ or ‘hu̇-məs’, but definitely not ‘huh-məs’. This is important. Get it right. It galls me that a major hummus brand in the U.S. (yes, Sabra, you know who you are) mispronounces their own product in their own television commercials. Imagine if you will, Dorito’s pronouncing the ‘l’ in tortilla chips. Go on, imagine it. Imagine a commercial with a hot male twenty-something with blond wavy hair telling you in his hip lingo about how cool you could be if only you would try their chip, how chicks would dig you, how the flavor would blow you away, how your credit rating would improve. And then he pronounces the ‘l’.

Like nails on a chalkboard. Welcome to my world.

Seva Detroit

Seva Detroit
http://www.sevarestaurant.com/
66 E. Forest, Detroit MI 48201
QISA (4, 4, 3.5, 3.5), $9-14, Vegetarian

Seva Detroit is not so much trying to figure out what it wants to be when it grows up. Rather it has already grown up and it is trying to figure out what it has become. The restaurant should not be called eclectic because eclectic is a style unto itself. Seva is a patchwork of eclectic, family style, elegance, and counterculture, all fighting for a seat at the table.

Seva Detroit is an elegant setting in a not so elegant neighborhood. The restaurant parking is down an alley in the back, and the parking lot is a morass of gravel, dirt, and potholes. But then you enter the restaurant sporting lovely wooden furniture in black and brown, candles on each table, modern art on the wall, a young wait staff in jeans, t-shirts, and knit caps, Motown music over the loudspeaker, and family after family of every ethnic group imaginable. Is the restaurant college-town counter culture? Inner city fine dining? Family-friendly comfort food? As I said, eclectic doesn’t begin to cover it.

The restaurant’s motto is, “fresh, imaginative vegetarian cuisine”, and they do their best to meet that expectation. The menu is a mix of comfort food (baked mac & cheese, omelets, burritos), pan-Asian (cilantro-peanut stir fry, General Tso’s cauliflower, tempeh banh mi), Mexican/South American (enchiladas calabaza, black bean & sweet potato quesadilla), and modern vegetarian (tofu California, graticola sandwich).

Whatever they are, I can’t argue with the results. The food is delicious. I ordered the black bean & sweet potato quesadilla which came with thick tortilla chips, a chunky guacamole, and a mild red salsa. The quesadilla was a good blend of flavor and texture, mixing sweet and savory, North and South American staples into a dish that left me asking myself, “Why haven’t I done this before at home?” The guacamole contained red onion and tomato to create a color mix that was as fun to look at as it was to eat.

To drink, I ordered the Eden’s Paradise Juice, a fresh mixture of orange, lime, ginger, and cranberry juices on ice, served with a wedge of lime. The juice had a powerful ginger bite, but the tang of the citrus juices balanced the piquancy with astringency.

I couldn’t pass up dessert. Mind you, I should have passed up dessert, but I didn’t. However, in order to maintain some semblance of sanity, I bypassed the more decadent tiramisu, black top pie, and chocolate hazelnut cake in favor of the pear almond torte. Of course, even the light-sounding torte was a warm, heavenly dish of cooked pear on thick torte cookie, topped with a dollop of cinnamon mascarpone cream. You know, diet food.

I have to give props to the waitress, who was very friendly and engaging, and, most importantly, very apologetic when they were out of my first and second choice on the menu. She helped me make a substitution decision without any snootiness or pretentiousness often endemic to trendy restaurants. I tipped her well.

Seva also has an Ann Arbor restaurant, and it is quite possible that Seva Ann Arbor is not nearly the anomaly of Seva Detroit. However, it is BECAUSE Seva Detroit stands out the way it does that I highly recommend you patronize them.

And while you are there, try the tiramisu. And let me know if it’s any good.

Hut-K Chaats

Hut-K Chaats
http://www.hut-k.com
3022 Packard Road, Ann Arbor, MI, 48018
QISA(4, 4, 3.5, 3), $5-7, Vegetarian (Vegan-friendly)

When a restaurant appeals to my inner food science geek, my inner nutritionist, my adventurer, my India-phile, my gourmet, and my underdog all at once, it has no choice but to become an instant favorite. Hut-K Chaats is clearly a labor of love, and you desperately want to see it succeed.

Hut-K Chaats was started in 2011 by Mahaveer Swaroop Bhojani, a PhD and former research investigator in the department of radiation oncology, dentistry, and anesthesiology at the University of Michigan Medical School. Bhojani believes strongly in the link between food quality, nutrition, and disease, and he put his money where his mouth is (so to speak) by starting a restaurant that marries flavor and pleasure with nutrition and health. Hut-K means “different” or “not mainstream” and Chaats are Indian street foods known for blending multiple flavors in a single bite.

Although much of Dr. Bhojani’s philosophy can be found on the restaurant Website, the proprietor is more than happy to talk your ear off about the nutritional impact of sprouted grains, the fresh ingredients in his creations, and the flavors of Indian street food that are foreign to most Western palates.

In fact, what appealed to me the most was the explosion of new, exotic, and sometimes incongruous flavors. I know my way around mainstream Indian cuisine better than most Midwesterners, but I found myself in uncharted territory. My standard curries, masalas, panirs, and dosas were replaced by chaats, puris, whole grain rotis, and flatbread wraps. I was off the map and loving it.

I ordered the Shanu Chaat after Dr. Bhojani explained to me how the dish beat out five other signature food cart dishes at a cooking contest sponsored by French cookware manufacturer Le Creuset. I mean, how could I not try the dish that triumphed over the vegan stew from The Lunch Room and the truffled macaroni and cheese from Humble Hogs? This generously portioned meal contained spiced crushed chickpeas rolled in colocasia leaves, baked multigrain papdi, potatoes, peas, chickpeas, and a Hut-K special sauce that was a mix of sweet, sour, and savory. The dish itself was beautifully rendered in colorful concentric circles on the plate, creating a feast for all five senses.

The Shanu Chaat wiped me out, but I was so curious about the Back 2 Roots flatbread, that I ordered a portion to go. Later that night, holed up by myself in my hotel room, I discovered a new blend of flavor and texture. The Back 2 Roots is less a traditional Indian flatbread and more a bland chewy grain patty. However, complemented with red chutney sauce (almonds, walnuts, red pepper, carrots) and green chutney sauce (peanuts, coconut, mint, and cilantro), the mix of nine ancient whole grains and seeds plus four “newer” grains becomes a very satisfying meal.

To be sure, like any restaurant that publishes its philosophy on its Website, Hut-K Chaats suffers from a certain amount of pretention. The restaurant is not about the food, it's about YOUR health, OUR environment, MY culture (emphasis mine). Bhojani even coins the word nutrilicious, which sounds like the pet project of a Madison Avenue intern. However, you forgive all that because the food is great and the proprietors are committed to your wellbeing. If my mother ever made Aanokhi Pani Puri, I'm sure it would have tasted just like this.

Frida's

Frida’s
http://www.fridasdeli.com/
622 North and South Road, University City, MO 63130
QISA (4, 4, 4, 4), $5-13, Vegetarian (Vegan-Friendly)

“Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself.“
- Henry David Thoreau

Thoreau would have approved of Frida’s, a vegan-friendly vegetarian restaurant in the University City suburb of St. Louis. Frida’s certainly has its modern feel with its clean lines, white walls, and black furniture, but it also has an elegantly friendly atmosphere that extends from it bright artwork on the walls to the flowers in salt shaker vases adorning each table. Somehow, the restaurant embodies simplicity without feeling desolately spartan or artificially arboreal.

How’s that for some fancy whole wheat words? I can’t help it. I’ve only been to Frida’s once, and already I’m a better person physically, ethically, and spiritually. Some of that moral high ground is bound to seep through into my writing.

I started my meal at Frida's with a lemon ginger soda that they make on site. This beverage is a powerful combination of fresh lemon and ginger juices, agave syrup, and soda water. If you like ginger, and granted ONLY if you like ginger, this is a wonderfully refreshing drink. The very attractive and slim waitress claimed that she drank one every day, which was enough to convince me to go home and buy myself a juicer. I haven’t actually bought it yet, but for that short moment, I had images of me drinking fresh lemon ginger soda every day and looking like a Mediterranean god.

My meal was the Frida burger, a half veggie, half soy burger that was just crumbly enough to remind you it was homemade yet not so crumbly that you ended up wearing it. The burger was served on a grilled bun with tomato, cucumber, lettuce slaw with tahini dressing, and a side of hummus. The sandwich was a savory mix of flavor and texture, and it made me feel at once sated and superior for having eaten it.

There is a lot to appreciate about Frida’s. The owners know that they want to create better food and a better world, but they are sensible about it. The FAQ on the Website explains that the restaurant is not vegan (although they have many vegan options), not organic (although they purchase a lot of organic foods), not certified Kosher (although they bring in a lot of Kosher foods), and not allergen-free. But the fact that they address these concerns tells me that they understand the needs of their customers, and they are willing to work with us as best as they can. Sometimes it is not necessary to have all the answers as long as you appreciate the questions.

I highly recommend Frida’s, and I definitely recommend you try them out as well. Come on in, grab a menu on a clipboard, seat yourself, and walk your way through the many, many options. But first, order the lemon ginger soda. If nothing else, it’s a great conversation starter with the cute waitress.