Mad Momo's

I realize this is the first post in a few months -- I'll pretend we have a valid excuse, planning a wedding reception takes energy! And a reception weekend where we plan on cooking for everything but the main event requires devoted recipe searching/testing energy, thus a diversion from posting. But - it will pay off next month, we will post about the reception for Vegan Mofo in September!

In the meantime -- I felt compelled to sing the praises of a great restaurant near our place, Mad Momo's. (It has a beer deck too - we haven't gone specifically for the beer deck, but how awesome does that sound right now, what with the mild weather this August?)

Dan and I have gone here four times by now - and every time I order the same thing, the vegan thukpa noodle bowl. We also have had the vegan momos, which I don't have a photo of, but they're amazing - not to be missed. 

Vegan tofu thukpa noodle bowl

There's a reason I order the thukpa bowl every time - it's really good. It has tofu, kale, carrots, lettuce, and some herby stuff that dissolves into the broth (sorry for my lack of adequate descriptors.) The tofu is crispy - I'm not sure how they fry it, but I want to learn! The broth has kind of changed each time I've been, from more on the green side to more dark brown colored, but it's always good.

Last time we went, Dan had the vegan naan-mi (there's a cultural mash-up for you...), which has tofu with a bit of slaw inside of a naan bread. With... tater tots? (It works...)

It's not as good as my thukpa bowl, but if I was going to cheat on the thukpa, it would be with this. And hey, the tots are pretty good...

Mad Momo's also has some good cocktails (I like the Get On the Floor) and beer/wine selections. They do half-price bottles of wine on Saturday, which is a great deal.

The restaurant is located on 14th street & Perry Place, about a 7-10 minute walk north of the Columbia Heights metro station. I recommend heading over to Lyman's Tavern afterwards & enjoying another round of drinks with some pinball. Enjoy it while the weather is nice!

Vegan party!

About a month ago, Dan and I hosted a party in DC for our JASC friends to come and eat/drink/be merry & "celebrate togetherness", i.e. our engagement. We had planned for a picnic outside and ordered food and cake in advance, so when it rained that weekend, we had to go to plan B -- which happened to be our favorite sports bar, Rocket Bar. Rocket Bar doesn't have its own food, so it allows you to bring in outside food. This was perfect for us, since we'd already arranged our vegan catering for pick-up!

We had five people staying over at our apartment that weekend, so I tried to start the morning off nice with some vegan cinnamon rolls - a nearly disastrous endeavor, since our oven started smoking, and not in a glamorous 60s kind of way (OK, smoking was never that glamorous.) There was some crud at the bottom of the oven making a terrible smoke, which miraculously didn't leave its mark on the cinnamon rolls. They came out fine - more undercooked than usual, because we were so eager to stop the smoke!

Luckily, the food only got better from that point on. Woodland's Vegan Bistro supplied us with fried "chicken" and macaroni & cheese to feed 15 (and then some), along with barbecue sauce and hot sauce. Dan made some pasta salad, and a friend brought chips and hummus. I LOVE Woodland's vegan chicken, and though it's always better fresh out of the frier, the leftovers kept Dan and I happy for days. And, the macaroni and "cheese" is one of the best dishes in DC, and I'm not the only one who says so.

Our friend Diane got a photo of the plated food -- I was too busy running around ordering champagne and trying to get the jukebox to play good music to remember to take a photo!

We also ordered a cake for the occasion, from Sweet Themez Bakery. They made us a "Cherry Blossom" cake, which was cherry-flavored cake and cherry jam in the middle - we loved it! Again, borrowing a photo from another friend, Yuri.

Sometimes it's not that exciting to have a lot of food and cake left over after a party, but we were grateful for it - with guests staying over the next day, it helped feed us all for lunch and sustained my lunches for a few days afterward. And I could eat that cake for days if I had to!

So, lesson learned - vegan parties in DC are a piece of cake, even when it rains. I won't pretend I wasn't nervous about the logistics of getting us all together & well fed, but it all came out perfectly, and we had a great time hanging out with our close friends.

Birthday food!

Last Saturday was my birthday, and I got to have some spectacular food...

Tiramisu cake

Vegan ramen in DC (part two, kind of)

We previously posted a comparison of a vegan ramen shop in Tokyo (T's Tan Tan) compared to vegan ramen from Daikaya, which is in Chinatown, DC. We've also visited Sakuramen in Adam's Morgan, which has a vegan ramen. Both Daikaya and Sakuramen have pretty good vegan ramens, which are tasty in large part because of the awesome mushrooms included in the soup (if you like that kind of thing.) But today we tried out the vegan ramen from Taan Noodles, also in Adam's Morgan, and it's definitely my favorite of the three DC options we've tried.　本当においしいよ！

I'll lay out my reasons for giving Taan Noodles top place in vegan ramen below:

Recreating perfection?

During the past few trips to Busboys and Poets, I've branched out from the usual selection of $9 dollar sandwiches and appetizers (seriously though, those appetizers are filling) and tried some entrees for a few extra bucks. That's kind of a lie, the first time I tried an entree was because Dan's mom ordered their orzo dish a few weeks ago, and she let me have a bite. But, with that bite, it instantly became my new favorite dish.

And, since I now have a job to go to instead of blogging every day (sorry!) I can afford to buy my own $14 entrees sometimes. So, last weekend when we went there with a friend, I ordered the pan-seared basil tofu. My new new favorite dish!

Sorry, trendy restaurants --> crappy photos, but yum!

This was pretty much perfect (if you like tofu, but even if you don't love it) and I ate it in like 5 minutes. It's really not enough food for a dinner, so if you're already spending the $14 on the entree, go ahead and get an appetizer or a side. I was lucky & had Dan's calzone (also amazing, but not quite as mind-blowing as this) to share.

I didn't really have conscious plans to try and cook something like this at home, but then Dan started talking about tofu and quinoa the other night... we pretty much made this same thing, but subbed the tomato cream sauce with chipotle remoulade.

Pan-seared tofu over quinoa and chipotle remoulade

It came out really well. We didn't have the same quality of herbs to really get the tofu right, but the pan-sear turned out pretty well (OK, not as beautiful as theirs, I'll just have to keep trying!) The broccolini, which Dan sauteed with some lemon juice, margarine, and salt & pepper, was a really nice touch. We added raisins and sun-dried tomatoes to the quinoa -- I could do without the tomatoes, actually, but quinoa went great with tofu and broccoli.

There's not really a secret recipe here, but we based the quinoa & chipotle remoulade off my mom's stuffed peppers dish here. Pan-searing the tofu (or is this pan-frying?) just meant rubbing the tofu with some herbs and cornstarch, heating up a pan with a thin coating of oil, and letting the tofu sit there for a few minutes on each side. This is the same way I cook up marinated tofu to put in soups and stuff (see blog header!) so it wasn't really anything new, but putting the meal together was pretty novel for us -- and delicious.

I'll try to blog some more this weekend, I have such a backlog of photos to put up! Enjoy November, everyone.

District of Pi Pizzeria

Last week, a friend from Japan arrived in town, and we planned a JASC get-together for Friday the 13th...which happened to be his birthday (as I discovered after planning it!) Since we were all coming from different metro lines, we picked Metro Center as a location, and District of Pi (where Dan and I have been once before) seemed like a good group option for omnivores and vegans alike.

We shared a vegan and a non-vegan pie, since everyone there would happily try vegan pizza (though thankfully they left us ample servings of the vegan pie!) District of Pi makes deep dish pizzas, but sadly the deep dish dough is not vegan. Anyway, the thin crust is still delightful!

Vegan pie from District of Pie

We ordered the above pizza, and the first time they brought it out, they actually forgot the vegan cheese and put real cheese--I recognized that it wasn't anything Daiya-like (the vegan cheese most pizza places, including this one, use), and asked the waiter. They recognized it as well and took it back, bringing a newly vegan pizza within ten minutes. Our friends were amazed that I'd recognized the cheese issue, but then they saw the Daiya-covered one and noticed it's slightly different -- not that Daiya isn't totally convincing & delicious, it just comes in the pre-grated shreds that leave a different impression once melted. Anyway, I've heard the District of Pi has the best vegan pizza, and at this point, I'd say it's definitely up there. I actually like Rustik Tavern a lot, which uses a different vegan cheese, but it always smells like sausage in there... We've tried almost all the vegan pizza options in DC at this point, and it's really nice to know that there's a pizza restaurant that will cater to us in almost every area, especially for group situations. We all had a good time, and took our friend to Red Velvet cupcakery later on for him to have a birthday cupcake (they have vegan cupcakes there, which are AWESOME.) A good night overall -- sorry I didn't get a cupcake photo :(

Sorry again for less posting lately for MoFo -- starting work has meant less time to kill during the day, and I prefer to spend my evenings away from a laptop! But, we've been cooking up some stuff lately that I'll share next week, so stay tuned.

Dining out DC: Meridian Pint

A few weekends ago, we went to Meridian Pint for brunch with a friend. They have two or three vegan options for breakfast (more if you include the rest of the menu, which I think is available at brunch time.) I went here about a year ago with some coworkers and ordered the french toast, which was great then. Still great!

Vegan french toast

Vegan in DC just gets easier and easier...

A new Protein Bar location opened up near Dan's work in DC. I'd wanted to visit the one near Chinatown for a while but never got around to it, so it was my first choice lunch-food when I went to eat lunch with Dan last week. They have plenty of vegan options--many things can be veganized as they serve tofu and Daiya cheese.

Vegan Original Bar-rito

Harmony Cafe, Georgetown

We've mentioned this place in our DC Eating Out Guide, but Harmony Cafe in Georgetown lately re-captured our interest when we were in the area. There's a lot to love about Harmony Cafe: you can get a vegetarian/vegan version of almost everything, it's nearby a ton of shops, a movie theatre, and gorgeous waterfront, and--especially for Georgetown--it's pretty cheap. The one drawback is that on weekend evenings it becomes full of Georgetown students during the school year, and service slows down because they have a small staff. However, if you go for an early dinner, you practically have the restaurant to yourself.

Crispy tofu tomato sauce from Harmony Cafe 

Almond Alfredo sauce

Sorry for another week of absence -- it's not that I've been that busy, it's that I haven't undertaken many interesting endeavors in the culinary or gastronomical spheres. I did make something good last night, though, even though I was the only one who got to enjoy it! I used this recipe to make an almond-tofu Alfredo sauce, which we've made once before, and it turned out really well.

Marinara, Alfredo, pasta, and some broccoli...

Randy Radish at Truckeroo

Every month throughout the summer, food trucks of DC gather for the Truckeroo Food Truck Festival outside of Nationals Ballpark. We've avoided this food-and-drinks festival in the past due to rumors of long lines and lackluster vegan options. However, we heard that new all-vegan food truck The Randy Radish would be there this month, so we decided to brave the crowd and the heat and try what they had to offer. We were not disappointed!

Veggie corn dog, jackfruit bbq sandwich, and spring rolls with chipotle ranch sauce

We ordered three of their menu items, which are on the small side but priced fairly low ($5-7 each, so $18 for all three). The corn dog is a Field Roast dog with a delicious corn batter. The spring rolls have a Southwestern twist with corn and black beans, with the chipotle ranch sauce as a nice kick. The jackfruit barbecue was perfect! Way better than the last jackfruit bbq we tried at another restaurant. The cole slaw and bun were wonderful compliments. The sandwich was the star of the show, but all three options were great. I'm not crazy about Field Roast hot dogs, but the corn dog batter was excellent. Glad we got to check out this vegan food truck, and we hope The Randy Radish makes its way to DC again soon!

Vegan news in the District

First, if you haven't been to Sticky Fingers lately, you need to go there and try a shake (orange creamsicle and cookies and cream are our favorite so far.) Better yet, go on a Tuesday or Thursday and have a donut as well (while supplies last). This Thursday they had a creme-filled chocolate glazed donut that was impossible to resist, and a blueberry glaze we saved for later. I was never the biggest fan of non-vegan donuts, but I've had so many awesome vegan donuts. These were no exception; they could compete with vegan offerings of the famous Voodoo Doughnut of Portland--though they're not quite as flashy, yet!

Creme-filled, or is it cream filled? Second only to jelly-filled.

In other news, two vegan food trucks have popped up this summer, but not in downtown DC. Everlasting Life of Maryland has two food trucks in Montgomery County, it looks like they're primarily located in downtown Silver Spring. The menu looks just as awesome as that of the restaurant, I would love to try it! Also, Northern Virginia now has The Randy Radish food truck, offering lots of vegan sandwiches, small dishes, and desserts! I know food trucks downtown have a lot of vegan options, but I wish trucks like these would start appearing--vegan mac and cheese and tofu reubens? Yes please.

Also, according to Twitter users, District of Pi in Penn Quarter has the best vegan pizza. Now we're obligated to go there, since we haven't yet... 

Have a great weekend, everyone.