I had the pleasure of eating at Om Restaurant in Harvard Square this week. The chef was willing to veganize or try to veganize almost anything on the menu, but I opted for their vegan menu option, the hand-rolled trofie pasta with wild and semi-wild mushrooms. It really was amazing, tons of umami and slightly spicy.

I took a trip to visit friends in Philadelphia’s Old City this past weekend, and had a wonderful time. It was my first trip to the city, and it turned out to be a wonderful and vibrant place. I went all over the city and saw many historical sites. I ran up the steps of the Art Museum just like Rocky. I also attended some incredibly entertaining pirate burlesque cabaret put on by Cabaret Red Light.

While no vegan cheese steaks were consumed, I ended up eating some seriously good food. We brunched at FARMiCiA, where I indulged in their lone vegan brunch item, scrambled tofu and vegan chorizo with a sopapilla, refried black beans and avocado salsa. The tofu could stand some major improvement, but the meal itself was well balanced and left me feeling refreshed – high praise for a mexican brunch item.

Dinners we took at nearby Han Dynasty, a traditional Sichuan restaurant. My hosts eat there frequently and are friends with the owner, Han. The menu doesn’t explicitly cater to vegans, but after talking with Han he provided us with a feast the likes I’ve never seen before. It was so much goodness we had to go back a second night for a different selection. Here’s some of what I ate:

Cucumbers in chili oil. This was one of the best dishes I’ve had this year. Incredibly hot, but with the coolness and crunch of the lightly salted cucumber.

Homestyle tofu. I’ve had a dish like this many times, but never as good as here. A mild heat, mostly from ginger, and none of the gloopyness that comes with chinese-style sauces.

Pressed tofu and long peppers. Seriously, that’s all that was in this dish, and it was incredible. A powerful heat that subsides quickly.

Tofu in a chili broth with toasted pine nuts. This was by far the hottest thing I’ve eaten in recent memory. The chilis where accompanied by Sichuan peppercorns which numbed the mouth and provided a fierce peppery aroma to the dish. The tofu was of the soft and wiggly variety which soaked up the broth.

A quick question: does anyone know where one can get a nice pair of men’s vegan cowboy boots?

Also, I was quick to catch this little boo-boo by the New York Times on a recipe for Vegan Vietnamese Noodle Salad (which looks delicious, as a note). It’s been since corrected, but look at the first ingredient. Not vegan!

I do love me some Food Network. Even with all the meat (and sometimes there is a lot of meat!), there’s a lot to be inspired by. This weekend we saw an episode of Throwdown with Bobby Flay involving green chile cheeseburgers, and I felt that I had to give it a go.

I started with a veggie burger based on a recipe from Bittman’s How To Cook Everything Vegetarian, made with yams, black beans, broccoli rabe, and panko. I made the burgers right before cooking them, so they were soft and juicy. This was topped with some roasted hatch (or big jim) chiles, skinned, chopped and fried again, and some red pickled onions (courtesy of Terry Romero’s amazing Viva Vegan). I spread just a little Tofutti cream cheese on the top of my toasted bun to add another creamy element to the dish.

I’m in Houston right now, enjoying the sweltering heat and humidity for a few days. I had the pleasure of visiting Aladdin today, and was absolutely blown away by their vegan sampler. There were no fewer than 12 different dishes on my plate, and every one of them was delicious. With fresh mango juice spiked with a little strawberry to drink, and some fresh baked bread on the side, it was absolutely amazing.

Doubles are street food from Trinidad. A double is two puffy, spongy, deep-fried breads, filled with a savory chickpea curry and condiments (red pepper sauce and mango chutney). A double is not particularly healthy, but oh so very delicious.

Doubles were last night’s dinner, thanks to the old standby Madhur Jaffrey’s World Vegetarian. I had two, which might mean quadruples.

Summer heat is here to stay! At least for a few more months. Boston has definitely been warm as of late, and a trip to the beach this morning to enjoy the weather inspired tonight’s dinner. Idlewild whipped up a cool-yet-spicy mango cucumber salad, and I baked a loaf of traditional Moroccan bread flavored with anise as a side. Combined with a fruity rum drink, it was just the meal to cap off a hot weekend.

It was Dr. Apricot’s birthday yesterday and I celebrated by making samosas from scratch, using the recipe from 660 curries. The recipe has a number of parts, include a yellow pea stew and a cold tamarind sauce, to which I added some mint-cilantro chutney. The overall effect was amazing, worth the hours of work. Perhaps not on a weeknight, though.

The yellow peas required some pressure cooking as well, and I’m proud of myself for finally using it. I’ve been irrationally afraid of pressure cooking, but no longer!

The Pulse Cafe, Somerville MA

This is a relatively new restaurant, and the successor to Vej Naturals in Malden. It’s all vegan, and the chefs know their stuff. I had the rancheros, which was a cold red quinoa and lentil salad and some fantastic grilled tofu topped with a thick ranchero sauce.

Dr. Apricot had a full BBQ platter with seitan, cornbread, collards, and coleslaw.

Not pictured were the vegan nachos which didn’t last long enough to get photographed. I was impressed by The Pulse, and am very happy to have a place that really caters to vegans in the area. I look froward to going back and sinking my teeth into the deserts.

Tastiness rating: 4.5 stars (out of 5)
Vegan-friendly rating: 5 stars

Not Your Average Joe’s, Watertown MA

Speaking of places that don’t cater to vegans: I heard that Not Your Average Joe’s had reformulated their menu and since I enjoyed eating there when I was a vegetarian back in the day decided to see what they had on offer. The answer, unfortunately, was the “salad without cheese & fries” option, which is the bare minimum effort. There were a ton of vegetarian options (good for them!) but most of them featured cheese or pesto so prominently that when they were removed the dish was supremely unbalanced. And their not vegan veggie burgers were served on brioche! Come on, NYAJ, step up your game. Your offerings were embarrassing. A little tweaking and many of your vegetarian options would knock my socks off.

Tastiness rating: inconclusive (out of 5)
Vegan-friendly rating: 0.5 stars

Trivia time! It’s a little known fact about Vegan Man, but I am a classically-trained musician – it’s what I went to school for the first time around. I still make music with frequency and every now and then write up a piece of electronic music or two.

I recently put some of these together and using the powers of Mixing and Mastering produced my new album, Ten Directions. Some kind person said that it “sits at the intersection of dreamily intuitive and intellectually engaging.” If you might want to hang out at that intersection (there’s definitely a good coffee shop there, and probably tapas), you can get check it out on iTunes, Amazon.com, or CD Baby.