"Meh" Cafe: fool me once, shame on you...

I was never too successful trying to get our little art department to go to M Cafe for lunch--not only does the macrobiotic cafe offer very few meat options (and only seafood at that) but the place is a tad outside of our usual budget and the portions are smallish. During our last week, our crew members slowly started dropping off until the last two working members in the art department were me and my coordinator. We took the opportunity to eat at the places that everyone else always scoffed at. So we found ourselves ordering one last time from M Cafe.

I ordered the Gado Gado salad which is described as "organic mixed greens, napa cabbage, crisp vegetables, golden tempeh triangles marinated with ginger, lemongrass & lime, frizzled onions & spicy peanut dressing." While that is basically an accurate description of the salad I got, I was still disappointed. The lamest thing about M Cafe is that over fifty percent of the items on the menu are prepackaged and sit in their display cases for who knows how long. This salad is no exception and it is just plain outrageous that M Cafe gets away with charging $12 for a teeny tiny salad that has been sitting out. If work hadn't been picking up the tab, I would have felt like a total sucker. I just kinda overlooked this lameness before, but I can't get over the fact that I would have been much better off grabbing a sesame tofu salad from Trader Joe's for three bucks.

We also ordered a couple chocolate truffles which were good but, again, were they worth $1.50 a pop? Not really.

I think the idea of M Cafe has been fooling me into thinking it's pretty good all this time. Maybe it's because I'm on hiatus now and I have to --gasp!!!--pay for my own food, but I won't be going back there anytime soon unless I have a hankering for being ripped off.


M Cafe de Chaya
9343 Culver Blvd.
Culver City, CA 90232
310.838.4300

The key to a poor doctoral student's heart is chocolate chip cookies

Jason is the first person I met at college. He was the roommate of my friend from high school. Six years later, he is still one of my best friends in the world. Whenever I'm super upset about something, I call my mom first and then Jase. His birthday is at the end of August which was perfect because we got to have a party every year right when we went back to school. Sadly, we haven't been together for his past couple birthdays and this year he is all the way in State College, PA where he is starting his six year PHD program, eek! I wanted to send him a little something for the big 25th b-day, so I found the recipe for Chocolate Chip Cookies in VWAV and got to work.

I did my homework and saw that a lot of bloggers had problems with the dough being too crumbly. So I added the flour 1/2 cup at a time and in the end I obtained the perfect texture with about 1/4 cup less flour than is called for in the recipe. The recipe says that it will prove to any non-vegan that you can make vegan chocolate chip cookies that taste just as good as regular ones and when I tasted them I was shocked at how they tasted exactly like the normal kind! Before I mailed these out I had a couple coworkers try them and they both said that while the look and texture were spot on, the taste bore no resemblance to real chocolate chip cookies, adding that they just tasted like molasses cookies. Siiiigh. Next time I am going to get them to try them without knowing they are vegan first.

I was slightly worried about how the cookies would fare in the mail, as the last time I sent cookies they arrived at my friend's house in Argentina a month later, melted into one giant cookie blob. These suckers arrived in three days however and Jase assured me they hadn't blobified. As for Jason's review, he said "these are really good considering they contain none of the ingredients needed to make chocolate chip cookies." Hmmm, not sure what that means, but he ate them all soooo whatever! Actually, Jase may not be the best judge of any food. In college he would routinely bake up a dozen Jiffy blueberry muffins and eat six of them for dinner and then have the other six for breakfast the next day. So he's not exactly a foodie.

If we aren't dating someone when we're 45, Jase and I are going to get married, so I've got a few years to perfect the recipe. But in the meantime, I still say that these suckers are delish.

Happy 25th Jayyyyseeee!!!!!

P.S. The recipe says it will yield 36 cookies, but unless you like your cookies to be no bigger than quarters, that is definitely not the case. This made about 20 average sized cookies.

The Better Dodger Dog

Last night the art department went to see the Dodgers defeat the Padres in a good old fashioned baseball showdown. George (pictured above) and I managed to kill off an entire bag of whole peanuts in the first four innings, but insanely, I was still hungry. So I went in search of the one stand in the whole stadium that sells veggie dogs which happened to be quite close to our seats. Truth be told, I wasn't exactly in the mood for a veggie dog--I was eyeing those giant super pretzels--but I wanted to cast my vote, so to say, with my hard earned $6.25 for the veggie community. The thinking being that if items like the veggie dog sell well enough, they will become more prevalent throughout the stadium and maybe there will even be more vegan items added to the usual stadium fare.

The hot dog itself was nothing out of the ordinary by any means--just your average vegan dog on a white bread bun. But it was nice and hot and if you slather anything in enough ketchup and mustard, you are bound to have a delicious treat. The price is outrageous of course, but it also costs 5 bucks for a pop or a regular hot dog, so basically everything is super expensive. It was also blanket night though so we all got some free hideous fleece blankets that I will probably only bring out of the closet when Leif gets drunk and passes out on my couch (which is often).

The moral of this story is that I love the Dodgers, my friends, peanuts in the shell, and I love that I live in a town where vegan options are offered in even the most carnivorous of places.

Look forward to a deluge of posts, as I am finally finding time to catch up on my life in food from the past week!

Hey there!

I have been M.I.A. because the Yo Soy life has been super crazy as of late. But fear not--I am now on hiatus and so starting this week I'll have all the time in the world to eat and post. Woo! And I have had some good vegan adventures this past week to gab about. See ya soooooooooooon!!!

Liz

Get Wael Soon Mujadarrah

I always take any chance I get to eat with my friend Wael's family. Even their regular weekday dinners are massive feasts. There's usually smoky baba ghanoush, hummus, tabbouleh, fattoush, lentil dishes, and lots of pita to scoop it all up--all made from scratch of course. Wael makes fun of me for still talking about this dinner we had at his sister's house in New Jersey a few summers ago. It was one of the best meals of my life but for them it was just another Sunday night. Thanksgiving at the Abifaker house is a whole other story--the amount of American and Arabic dishes covering the table is rivaled only by my Oma's Christmas smorgasbord.

Last October, Wael got in a terrible car accident and I quickly learned that the Lebanese answer a crisis with lots and lots of food and chocolate. The hospital room was like a little cafeteria--everyday we visitors were treated to a new middle eastern delicacy. And that was when I became obsessed with Mujadarrah.

Mujadarrah is the best kind of dish: simple and reeeediculously good-tasting. I managed to completely mess it up when I made it today by using precooked lentils. The texture of mujadarrah is supposed to be kind of like guacamole, but today mine came out more like just beans and rice. Because I used precooked lentils instead of boiling dry ones, there was no lentil slime to mix with the rice and onions which creates a delightfully mushy consistency. Today I added some guacamole I had laying around to try to fudge the texture.

So go! Make it! Eat it! Luvvvv it! Here is the recipe, straight from Mrs. Abifaker herself. (There is also a recipe for it in Veganomicon but c'mon now, would you rather have this middle eastern dish from two chicas from Queens or from a true Lebanese cook?)


Get Wael Soon Mujadarrah
1 cup lentils
1 onion
1/2 cup rice
3-4 tbs of oil (your choice)
3 cups water

Heat the lentils in water until they boil. Once they have boiled add the rice and allow to boil. While the other stuff is boiling, chop up the onion and sauté it in a pan with the oil until they brown. Add the onions to the rice and lentils and set the heat to low and simmer. Stir occasionally (the more you stir the creamier it will be). Add more water if you feel the rice and lentils are not soft enough. Once it's at your desired texture,salt to your liking and serve.


And in case you are wondering, Wael is doing much better now. Here he is looking super cute back in the fall when he was still in his wheelchair. I can't wait for that bugger to get his little tush back to California!!!

La Vida Dolce

Tuesday was our last day of principle shooting! We had Chipotle for lunch, which everyone seemed to agree was bad. You can absolutely tell that the place is owned by McDonalds. Everyone's food was tiny, gross, or both. I ordered a fajita salad which was slimy black beans with a truckload of guacamole and two slices of bell pepper. It was totally unappetizing and I am totally dumbfounded that when this Culver City location of the franchise opened recently people waited in line for over an hour to get lunch there.

After our disappointing lunch, Canada and George went to walk down the street to get some cupcakes from Bluebird. They took forever though and when they returned I found out why--they had actually gone to Dolce Isola and brought back sorbet!!! Literally every time we went to lunch at Dolce Isola over the season, I would ask for a taste of their peach sorbet and come back and tell everyone how mind blowing it is. So those two tricksters brought back peach and coconut. The coconut turned out to be even better than the peach! It wasn't really sweetened which was awesome. You would never guess that either one didn't have dairy. See George and Canada digging in above. What a sweet way to end season five!


Dolce Isola
2869 S. Robertson Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA
310.776.7070

Karaoke Coconut Pancakes

Saturday night we had a crazy karaoke showdown in Koreatown for Kirby Von Scrumptious' 25th bday. We drank lots of Hite, danced on tables, and belted out Ace of Base like it was our job. So needless to say, it was necessary to fuel myself with a good meal beforehand so I could last into the wee hours of the night.

My new favorite recipe is VWAV's Coconut Pancakes. These pancakes are so coconut-y that they are almost chewy--in a good way. Next time I will omit the salt though. Top them with some Grade B maple syrup and you've got yourself enough sugar and deliciousness to power you through at least four to six eighties power ballads. These suckers would DEFINITELY be on my list of Dishes With Which to Seduce Michael Phelps Should He Ever Stop By My House For Breakfast. Speaking of which--holy crap! Michael Phelps! Did you guys see that 1/100th of a second win on Friday??? Oh my godddd.

Just when I was getting to think Michael Phelps is just too good to be true, my friend sent me this link, which argues, quite convincingly, that The World's Fastest Swimmer might also be a bit of a tool. See Exhibit A here:

Oh well--I still wouldn't turn him away if he came knocking on my door!