Blackbird Pizzeria

March 25th, 2011

Vegan Margherita Pizza

Last weekend, I had my first experience at the mother of all pizza shops, Blackbird Pizzeria. They are an all-vegan establishment that opened within the past year, replacing the struggling Gianna’s Grille. The pizza: generous slices sizzling with gooey Daiya vegan cheese atop a perfect crust. The crust is just how pizza crust should be: thick and chewy, crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. The selection of toppings is impressive, from broccoli rabe to vegan Italian sausage.

They offer a selection of daily pizzas that you can buy by the slice or you can order a whole pizza with whatever toppings you want if those don’t appeal to you. I tried the Fungi, an assortment of mushrooms with a buttery-tasting base sauce, and the Pepperoni, which was satisfyingly greasy and meat-like. I also sampled a couple of the sandwiches.

Vegan Philly Cheesesteak

While the pizza was very good and I would definitely return for it, the sandwiches were probably one of the best things I’ve eaten since I’ve been vegetarian. The Marinated Tofu Cubano sandwich was absolutely delicious, with the Seitan Cheesesteak a close second. Both come pressed on crispy panini bread, hot from the oven, dripping with caramelized onion juice. All I can say is that you have to try that Cubano!

(Visit them at their Facebook page too!)

 

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Sweet Freedom Bakery

March 16th, 2011

Location: 1424 South Street; between 15th and Broad on South Street

(*scroll down to check out pictures of their food*)

If you’re looking for the coziest place in Philadelphia to grab a quick bite to satisfy that sweet tooth, then look no further than Sweet Freedom Bakery (also check them out here on their Facebook page).

For those of us who decide to start transitioning away from animal products (including egg and dairy products), getting some good desserts to take care of those pesky cravings seems like a challenge at first. However, the two culinary stars Heather Esposito and Allison Lubert (who have recently been featured on the Food Network’s Cupcake Wars) have found a way to help us in our quest!

Their entire line of offerings at Sweet Freedom are: gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free, soy-free, corn-free, peanut-free, refined-sugar-free, kosher, and vegan. Wow. But what is left to eat??? What could they be putting into it??? Actually, they use an ingenious combination of unique flours (like garbanzo bean flour or sorghum flour) and fat sources like coconut butter. While their treats don’t offer the taste that you might expect from your regular baked treat out of a package from Wal-Mart, they have a different, yet gourmet-like taste. I would suggest trying their treats while looking for good flavor – not familiar flavor. Not only do their goods give you all the great unexpected taste, but they do so without using the unhealthy ingredients that so many of our desserts have in them now. Which segues me into my next point quite nicely:

What is especially important to point out (as Heather has mentioned to me in our numerous conversations) is that not only are their items vegan (which is great, of course) but their items are vegan without having to resort to the typical kinds of ingredients that some vegan desserts will use: wheat, sugar, vegan ‘butter’, etc. While it is wonderful for those considering it to switch away from non-vegan desserts to those offered by Vegan Treats (which you can find scattered through the city at Govinda’s Vegetarian, Blackbird Pizzeria, Green Line Cafe, and Satellite Cafe), eventually try to consider switching to even healthier options.

So if you want to take it to the next step as a vegan and try some healthier vegan goodies, or even if you have Celiac’s disease and are considering veganism, then head to Sweet Freedom as soon as possible. Feel free to post below in the comments section with positive experiences!

Below are some pictures of their amazing goodies:

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Mi Lah Vegetarian Restaurant

January 28th, 2011

Location: 218 S. 16th Street; in Center City on 16th Street between Walnut and Locust

Upstairs Dining

Right in the heart of Center City is nestled one of the best vegan restaurants you could ever have the pleasure of visiting. Sitting between Walnut and Locust on 16th Street, Mi Lah Vegetarian (which serves a 100% vegan menu) has been quietly observing as you whiz past in a taxi on Walnut, returning to campus after a night out on the town at some big-name restaurant Penn students seem to think is “amazing” (when the only real difference in experience is that the plates look cool and probably have a garnish).

Yes, Mi Lah wasn’t offended that you didn’t notice it on your way back after that exec board BYO. It is after all, not that well heard of on campus… yet. Frankly, Mi Lah has been patiently waiting for the day when you would get a chance to stumble onto a raving review on a Penn group’s blog… So commences the rave:

A Seitan "Cheeseburger" with Sweet Potato Fries

Mi Lah serves an Asian-American-Fusion cuisine with an emphasis on freshness and gourmet quality while providing the food as cheaply as possible. There is no place else in the city where you can get such an extraordinary combination of freshness, flavor, creativity, presentation, and of course plant-based cuisine for such a cheap price. Mi Lah is open on the weekdays for lunch and for dinner, but if you go for lunch you can get all of the amazing things they normally have for dinner for much much cheaper (yay for cheap vegan cuisine for the poor college student!). Though even at dinnertime, when the prices are a little heftier, you are being served generous portions of gourmet quality food that is mind-blowingly amazing. If you are new to vegan food or even if you are interested in what it can taste like, Mi Lah is one of the first places I would send someone to try it out.

Make sure to visit their website to have a look at a sample menu. They don’t have a fixed menu because they constantly change their offerings to reflect the ingredients that are most readily available to them which allows them to constantly maintain their quality. This also makes each visit to the restaurant a new experience with dishes that you had not seen before now popping up on the menu.

Mi lah is a no-brainer when trying to find that right place to go eat out with your parents or even to meet that potential romantic interest for a date. I hope you all grow to love it as much as I have.

 

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Ed’s Pizza and Blackbird Pizzeria

January 17th, 2011

The year of 2010 was a successful year for Vegan Pizza in Philadelphia.

Daiya's Mozzarella Variety

At the beginning of the year 2010, the revolutionary Daiya Vegan Cheese hit the supermarket shelves. Here’s the short version of the story: before 2010, all vegan “cheeses” were really gross. Even vegans didn’t eat them. They didn’t taste good (cooked or uncooked), they didn’t melt, and they couldn’t be put into recipes in the same ways that dairy cheese could. Vegans weren’t horribly upset about this, but they just weren’t able to make dishes that closely resembled things they were accustomed to eating before they took dairy products out of their diet.

However, in around early 2010, vegans started finding Daiya Vegan Cheese in their local co-ops and on the shelves of Whole Foods. It melted, it stretched, it looked like cheese, and it even tasted (of what I can remember) like cheese! It started to revolutionize how vegan dishes were being prepared in vegan kitchens across the country.

In March 2010, Penn Vegetarian Society was successful in getting Ed’s Buffalo Wings and Pizza to start using the Daiya Cheese (which comes in the two varieties of mozzarella and cheddar) to make pizzas. PVS also was able to get Ed’s to take all of the eggs out of their dough to make the dough vegan as well. To this day, Ed’s is still the largest pizza supplier for University City: they sell 10,000 pizzas every 40 days. Aside from the fact that Ed’s is able to scale pizza production really well, they also provide delivery right to the student dorms which makes satisfying that late-night pizza craving while staying vegan really easy!

The Haymaker Pizza at Blackbird

Finally, in September 2010, Blackbird Pizzeria opened at 6th and South Street, the location of a previous pizzeria called Gianna’s Grille. Blackbird is an entirely vegan pizzeria that not only uses Daiya on all of its pizzas, but they also have a number of amazing sandwiches and desserts which they get from a place in Bethlehem, PA called Vegan Treats. This is by far some of the best vegan food you will ever have in your life. If you have ever thought that being vegan was “too hard,” then go to Blackbird because your ideas about veganism will dramatically change.

So all in all, 2010 was the year of vegan pizza. So celebrate the year past and the start of the new year by finding a vegan pizza near you.

[Interesting Note: Apparently January 29th is Vegan Pizza Day... yeah... we didn't know about it either... But we'll sure take the excuse to eat some more of it!]

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