| rev:text
| - To preface: I'm a carnivore.
To retort preface: I'm a fan of vegetables, they're my staple food item at home, so I'm a meat-reductionist. I love my greens and other colors.
In short, all of my pet peeves against vegan places were met here. Over-hyped by desperate veggie people, under-flavored for god knows what reasons, and uninspired menu descriptions, per usual. Fake this and fake that.
Don't call it chicken if it's not chicken.
Why do veggie places do that in the U.S.? Indian/ME/Medi veggie cuisine has been around for hundreds/thousands of years, and they don't call anything fake. I think vegan joints do this in hopes of attracting carnivores away from the dark side, as if we're too stupid or timid to try anything that isn't pretending to be a meat, but I've only found these descriptions repulsive, and I know I'm not alone in the sentiment. Are vegans attracted to meat-named dishes that aren't meat? That seems weird. Like if you have a moral objection to murder, would you be drawn to self-defense instruction that was called, "Murder Class?" I don't think so. I hope not.
Anyway, rating the Nation was difficult, torn between a 2 and a 3 star. If I were vegan, I'd give it a 3. People love the dickens out of this place! They rave. It's a sanctuary for them. I understand! Veggie Safe Space.
And the chef's plating is attractive, so I've had them bookmarked for awhile as there was clearly pride taken in the presentation of this unstoppable culinary trend in America that continues to suffer growing pains and engrained stigma. Visually, they're doing what they can to lure folks in to try this "food."
But on my first and last visit last night (for the ThugKitchen popup), the experience was Vegan-Average. Meaning: blasé flavors and some pretty amateur execution. Take for example the mac&cheese ordered and photoed. Looks nice! But the noodles were cooked beyond al dente, an inexcusable faux pas for any restaurant claiming niche fame and enjoying an average 4.5star rating. Boil water, take out on time. The "cheese" had little to no flavor and was masked with a spicy kick. Meh. If you can't produce a simple home comfort food, well...
Our table shared an order of buffalo cauliflower. This simple item was the best of the evening. When I asked our server about how it was prepared, she didn't know. We're talking maybe 3 ingredients. The chef had to be conferred with to confirm. Oy. Another service note, our desserts were brought out before the main course. We were asked if this was ok. What if it wasn't, were we supposed to say "NO! Take it BACK!?" Felt like we were in Crazy Town for a moment. Dessert before main dish, because they couldn't handle timing in the kitchen.
About those desserts. I had the banana cream pie. The live banana on the side was about the only thing that tasted of its namesake. No memorable flavor otherwise, with the large dry pastry shell dominating the pasty-textured filling. A friend ordered the carrot cake, which tasted like someone puréed some carrots and said, "voilà!" That ain't cake. It looked like an upturned can of cat food that dried out in the sun. Most unappealing, unpalatable dessert ever.
That about wraps it up. Sad, I won't be back. But if you're a dyed in the wool vegan, you'll love this joint.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)