vegilicio.us

Restaurant Review: Blue Nile Ethiopian Cuisine (Harrisonburg, VA)

Last Fall I had the chance to attend the Charlottesville Vegetarian Festival, sponsored by Voices for Animals. One of the food vendors was Blue Nile Ethiopian Cuisine, and the memory of it had stayed with me ever since! Living in Washington, DC, which has the largest Ethiopian population outside of Ethiopia, I get the opportunity to have a fair amount of Ethiopian food from a range of places. (My old neighborhood was up for official designation as "Little Addis Ababa," with more than 2 dozen Ethiopian restaurants within just a few square blocks.) Thus, it seemed noteworthy that Blue Nile stood out.

So a few weekends ago my friend and I launched out on a roadtrip to Charlottesville, VA, to see if it was just as good as we remembered. I should first point out that Blue Nile is actually in Harrisonburg, and not Charlottesville. As we approached Charlottesville, we couldn't figure out why our navigation system was unable to locate the intersection where it was located. A phone call later, we found out the restaurant was really in a town about 62 miles further West. (Oops.) This wouldn't have been nearly as distressing if it were not already coming up on 1pm, and we were not already starving. We briefly eyed the Indian restaurant on the corner, but we were committed. So on we went, periodically grumbling to ourselves, "This place had better be good," each time our stomachs made a noise.

Thankfully, the trip was worth it: worth the time, the hassle, the hunger pangs.

We arrived at 2pm on a Saturday afternoon, and were thrilled to see that there was a buffet, which lasted until 3pm. While the restaurant is not exclusively vegetarian, the buffet offered many vegan options (thoughtfully labeled), ranging from tofu cooked in tomato sauce, to split peas and lentils, to collard greens, to spicy potatoes, to purple cabbage, to peanut soup, all available to be scooped up with fluffy injera (the traditional Ethiopian bread made from teff flour), which sits in a mound at the end of the buffet, rolled up like tiny scrolls.

Everything was absolutely delicious. And, the servers were friendly, the prices were reasonable, the atmosphere was relaxing, and the coffee was good. Unless you're already heading in the direction of Harrisonburg (and that seems unlikely), Blue Nile will require some special effort. But boy is it worth it.

Charlottesville Vegetarian Festival, September 2008

I had the good fortune to celebrate my 30th birthday (eek!) at the Charlottesville Vegetarian Festival last weekend, sponsored by Voices for Animals. What a unique and satisfying opportunity to connect with other vegetarians, learn about the important work of animal-friendly organizations, and eat yummy, yummy food without having to first ask about ingredients or scrutinize the labels. A few photos are below.

Woes of Vegan Travel

Trying to find a decent meal in an airport is tough for anyone, but if you're a vegan, you know it's even tougher. In a recent New York Times piece, frequent traveler and head of the Humane Society of the U.S., Wayne Pacelle, describes the regular ordeals he faces, including having his peanut butter labeled  a "cream" and thus confiscated by TSA.

To help smooth this bumpy road for vegans, Sarah Kramer has a brand new book, Vegan A Go-Go!: A Cookbook and Survival Manual for Vegans on the Road. She tackles everything from decyphering a restaurant menu, to leaning how to say "I am vegan" in multiple languages, to that all important question, "What can I take in my carryon?" 

Restaurant Review: Liquid Earth

Since I had plans to be in Baltimore for an event, it seemed like the perfect time to check out Liquid Earth, a long-time vegetarian restaurant in the city's Fells Point neighborhood. The place itself had a pretty cool vibe, very relaxed with exposed interior brick and just a handful of small tables scattered through the long and narrow dining room. The extensive menu is fully vegetarian, with a pretty wide selection of vegan and raw fare as well. The beverage menu is pretty impressive as well, with homemade juices, smoothies, and coffee drinks abounding.

Having checked out the Yelp reviews beforehand, I was pretty sure I would go with the Philly Cheese Phake, thinly sliced marinated tofu with carmelized onion piled high on bread. I must say, it did not disappoint. The tofu (which you'd be hard pressed to identify as tofu) was so thin that it had crisped and browned around the edges on the grill. I also had an apple lemonade, which was refreshing, but probably not worth the $4.50 price tag. My dining partner and I shared a side of macaroni and cheese (the idea of it being more enjoyable than the actual taste of it), as well as a slice of chocolate cake and oatmeal cookie to finish things off. Both were passable, but not impressive. All in all, the fact that this place has such a groovy atmosphere and that what they do well they do very well, makes it easy to overlook where they falter. So if you're in Baltimore (or even kinda sorta near Baltimore), it's worth the trip.

Who decides which animals are pets, and which are dinner?

The BBC reports that, in a gesture of cultural sensitivity, China has asked restaurants to remove dog meat from the menus of its 112 official Olympics restaurants.

Hmm.

Let me go ahead and make it clear that I, of course, absolutely am in favor of not serving dog meat, now or in the future. But I'm in favor of not serving any meat, and using "cultural sensitivity" as the justification behind the ban is unfortunate. Jojo from Manchester (a commenter on the article), said "get real and be educated that a dog is a pet and not for eating," a sentiment I have heard over and over whenever this issue arises. Sure, they are pets in most parts of the West. But in other parts of the world, a cow is sacred and therefore is "not for eating," just as a pig might be unclean and also "not for eating." Yet, countless restaurants serve them up every minute of the day.

This example illustrates the culturally based, arbitrariness by which we have decided which animals are "appropriate" to be confined, slaughtered, and eaten without a second thought and which privileged species instead get cute names and pats on the head and food and attention and squeaky toys.

Why decorate a restaurant with flowers and candles when you can instead just roast a baby animal over an open flame?

Last night, my friend and I went to Zatinya, a wonderful mezze place here in DC. Their menu features a wide variety of yummy small plates, including a hefty vegetarian section. Which perhaps is why I was so caught off guard when we were seated by a lamb carcass roasting over a flame, front and center in the restaurant's open kitchen. Was this carcass of a slaughtered baby animal somehow meant to inspire diners with some charming sense of the restaurant's "authenticity," or to whet our appetites? Neither happened. The only thing I was inspired to do was to request a table change. It is disturbing to me that the restaurant's management rightly understood that having a mutilated animal spinning in the center of the room would not hurt business. The place was packed.

Minneapolis Farmer's Market

I was up in Minneapolis visiting family this past weekend (more to come on that adventure), and we went to the farmer's market. It was amazing -- fried mini donuts, just-picked strawberries, balloon animals, and cinnamon rolls the size of a toddler head all under one roof? Count me in! See my photo gallery.

Seventh Heaven

Last night a friend and I dined at Farrah Olivia in Alexandria, Virginia. The restaurant, under the leadership of pseudo-celebrity chef Morou Ouattara, offers a rarity in fine dining--a vegetarian tasting menu. Chef Morou, who uses his home of West Africa as well as flavors of France and the Middle East as inspiration, gives the same thoughtful attention to grains and vegetables as he does to meat, poultry, and fish. (It was a treat to see Chef Morou himself having a drink at the bar as the evening wound down.)

I will do my best to recount the evening here, for my own interest in recording the event as much as any other. However, not having any written documentation, I no doubt will misrepresent or miss entirely a thing or two. (We accompanied the seven course tasting menu with wine, but there's no way I can remember all of those. Even had I been sober by the end they would still escape me.)

Normally the bread would not be worth mentioning, but at Farrah Olivia it comes with a quartet of delicious spreads, so describing them seems worthwhile. The crusty slices of artisanal cranberry-walnut  and classic white breads were served with a hibiscus butter with a fresh, tangy sweetness; a bok choy pesto; a horseradish-spiked cottage cheese; and a sundried tomato and herbed spread. All were delicious. I returned to the butter most often, my partner to the tomato.

A delicious amuse-bouche arrived: a ginger carrot fritter atop a swirl of some yellowish, savory cream. We washed it down with a sparkling wine.

Course 1: Field greens topped with crispy shallots, dramatically served in a crispy springroll skin, atop balsamic vinegar and goat cheese with a carrot puree.  It was paired with a crisp white wine, the specifics of which escape me now.

Course 2: A pair of gazpacho-style soups, swirled side-by-side like yin and yang. The spiced tomato soup was garnished with a contrasting cucumber gelee, and the cool eggplant soup featured a red pepper gelee. A pinot grigio accompanied.

Course 3: A crispy white corn cake topped with a corn powder and having a black corn (I think that's what he said anyway) center, sat atop a bed of candied cabbage, onions, and apricots, all nestled in a pool of smoky, spicy pepper sauce. The dish had a delicious Southwestern flavor. It was paired with a chardonnay.

Course 4: A light and delicate little parmesan cheese flan was accompanied by crispy couscous and grilled asparagus (which was delicious when swirled through the mango mustard.) A wasabi pea sauce and edible flowers garnished the plate. No clue on the wine.

Course 5: A creamy black-eye pea risotto. The peas still had some bite and the sauce was rich and smooth. A pinot noir was the wine pairing.

Course 6: I was in the restroom when this one arrived (I had enjoyed 6 glasses of wine at this point, they were small but numerous), so I am reliant on my friend's recounting of the server's description, which I would dare to guess omitted a few things. Nonetheless, there were three chewy, squishy dumpling-type things (similar to large gnocci), some asparagus, onions, fava beans, and sundry other vegetables in a creamy, cheesy squash emulsion and topped with a parmesan foam. The doughy dumpling and rich sauce made this one feel like a true comfort food. A glass of cabernet sauvignon came along.

Course 7: And for the big finish--a coconut creme with tapioca pearls, fresh pineapple, and some kind of cilantro something-or-other (7 wines by this point.) It was subtle and light and fresh yet extremely  decadent. It came with a French dessert wine with notes of sweet-tart apples. We also enjoyed French press coffee.

As if we weren't ready to pop as it was, the waiter brought out a pair of white grape jelly on spoons topped with peanut butter powder, and a pair of tiny cookies.

It was truly an indulgent evening--worth every cent, every calorie, every minute (all 180 of them.) How wonderful for a high-end restaurant to let the vegetarian ingredients get to be the stars of the show, treated  with the same level of care and attention and creativity normally reserved for the shellfish or filets. It's not the kind of thing my waistline (or wallet) can endure too often, but I certainly hope my first seven-course feast at Farrah Olivia won't be my last. I definitely recommend it to anyone ever passing through that way--it's an experience you won't soon forget. And, if seven courses seems a bit daunting, they have a five-course option as well.

Or, for the truly bold, there is a fourteen-course menu. The waiter, after whisking off cleaned plate after cleaned plate, repeatedly told my companion and I that he thought we were definitely "up to the challenge" of the fourteen-courser. Um, it's flattering when people have confidence in your abilities, right?