First off, let’s talk about me.
I love food; it’s a bit of a borderline-unhealthy obsession, really. All my life, I’ve drawn immense enjoyment from eating it, whether prepared by my culinary genius of a mum, or by the chefs of my favorite restaurants in the wonderful places I’ve lived (over the past few years, I’ve spent significant time in Orlando, Florida – St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands – Malibu, California and – London, United Kingdom). This past year, I unearthed my own passion for cooking and baking, and now spend more time in the kitchen than any other room in the house. More than once in the past two weeks have I woken up, dazed, at 4am with a cookbook on my lap. Every summer become emotionally invested in (and usually infuriated over the results of) The Next Food Network Star. I’ve been packing my things to move back out to school in California, and all of the books I’m bringing, save Dharma Bums and The Alchemist, are either cookbooks or the biographies of various celebrity chefs (Heat was fantastic!). Sick? Yes, maybe a little bit, but my mom is just as food-obsessed as I am. It must be genetic.
The internet is teeming with foodie blogs- and yay for that! But, what makes my day-to-day culinary experience unique is that I have been a vegetarian for the past 10 and a half years. I’m not a vegan; yes, it makes perfect sense to me, especially from an animal rights standpoint, but the rest of my family is fairly carnivorous (my parents are both from Eufaula, Alabama…) so I was raised to go with the flow. However, because like many young adults, my body no longer likes lactose very much (ew), much of what I cook and order is vegan, if unintentionally. Because I have been vegetarian for so long, a decision which stemmed from a longtime love of animals, this choice of mine is simply a part of my lifestyle and doesn’t feel like any sort of deprivation; it’s second-nature, really. On this little webpage, I hope to showcase some of my favorite (usually not purely vegetarian) restaurants, and share my experiences with their vegetarian options, as well as some of the creations from my own kitchen, so that you might someday try and enjoy them yourself. Even if you aren’t a vegetarian, there are so many health (and financial! hello, bad economy!) benefits to limiting one’s meat munching.
and of course the Brontosaurus, whose scientific name means "Thunder Lizard," was both the second-largest animal to live on earth... and a vegetarian!
For this blog’s maiden voyage, I’d like to present the restaurant here in my hometown of Orlando, Florida where I had dinner tonight… Pho Hoa! I developed a slight addiction to Pho while in London this past year, as there was a little outdoor restaurant in Chelsea walking distance from my house in nearby South Kensington, which served big delicious steaming bowls of the stuff; perfect for lunch on a cool, sunny London day. If you’ve never had it before, Pho is a super-tasty Vietnamese noodle soup, which traditionally consists of rice noodles, mushrooms, and other veggies (as well as beef or chicken, if we’re talking legit-traditionally; nearly everywhere I’ve been has had a vegetarian version, though). It’s generally served with a big plate of mint, coriander, bean sprouts, and sometimes chiles to mix in. Pho is so tasty and feels so comforting and cleansing going down, that one of my best friends swears that it must have healing properties.
Anyway, although this portion of the menu isn’t accessible online (shame), Pho Hoa had a good-sized vegetarian section of the menu with several yummy-sounding options, including a few noodle dishes and curried tofu. However, considering that the prospect of slurping down a big bowl of noodles was my motivation behind going to a Pho restaurant in the first place, I went for the Pho Chay. And oh man, it was so good! My bucket-sized bowl of veggie broth was chock full of perfectly fried tofu (I’m fairly picky when it comes to tofu, and Pho Hoa’s passed the test), broccoli, shitaake mushrooms, carrots and baby corn; I jazzed it up with a sizeable pile of mint and coriander, along with some chili sauce and soy. Sipping a glass of ice-cold coconut juice (with nom-worthy chunks of coconut flesh at the bottom) as I devoured, I spent a night in Pho heaven. I didn’t inquire as to what the tofu was fried in, but as far as I can tell, Pho Hoa is a delicious option for vegetarians and vegans alike. I definitely recommend it, and if you poke around the website, you’ll see that it’s a chain with locations all over the US! So, if you aren’t from Orlando, hakuna matata!
Before I hit the “Publish” button, I’d like to let you know who’s been in my bed all week:
…and that lucky bedfellow would be Madhur Jeffrey! I haven’t actually tried any of the recipes in this intensely rich encyclopedia of Indian and Asian cooking, but have been absolutely sucked in by Ms. Jeffrey’s fierce detail and authenticity. This book is completely organic, not in that it’s pesticide free, but in its dismissal of mixes and premade elements; there is popping of mustard seeds, removal of skin from Dal, and a number of other intensely hands-on instructions. This, World of the East Vegetarian Cooking, is the real deal. I’m absolutely enchanted. Here in Orlando, I’d have to travel out of my usual hemisphere to find the proper ingredients, but once I’m back in L.A. and have easy access to things like seitan and quail eggs, I’m going to dive in… and divulge it all here, of course =)
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