A week ago, Sarah brought Sook and me with her to watch Chef Tal Ronnen do a vegan cooking demo at Le Cordon Bleu in Pasadena.
He not only wrote an amazing vegan cookbook with a picture for every recipe, The Conscious Cook, but he also prepared all meals for Oprah’s vegan cleanse, did the food for Ellen DeGeneres’ vegan wedding and believes in vegan food as filling, satisfying and rich as a plate of meat and potatoes.
Would you ever think these dishes didn’t have chicken or cream?
Inspired by the demo, we went to Pure Luck for a vegan lunch. Also Sarah and Sook are nice friends and always make sure I can eat more than bibb lettuce wherever we go.
To drink we each had some sort of fizzy pomegranate soju thing. Wait, was it pomegranate? It looks like ginger. I don’t know.
Sarah, in my opinion made the wisest choice, and ordered the Quinoa Paloma salad, which is probably the main reason I would come back here.
I made the worst choice out of confusion and hunger and got the Cesar Salad with Tofu. It was ok.
Sook came in at a strong second by ordering the Fresh Noodle Salad with tofu, bean sprouts, cilantro, basil, and lime. She skipped the peanuts cause that’s not her style, yo.
Out of curiosity we split a side of order of jackfruit. Jackfruit is sometimes used as a vegetarian substitute for chicken and here’s why:
looks like shredded meat, right?
Afterward I peer pressured Sook into getting ice cream from Scoops since it was right across the street and, fuck it, if you’re gonna drink in the middle of the day you might as well have dessert, too.
By this point, I have no idea what we ordered. Let’s guess, shall we?
I think she had coconut oreo (vegan) and chocolate hazelnut (not vegan and possibly not hazelnut). I think I had pistachio rosewater (vegan and delicious in that old worldly harem sort of way) and almond cognac (vegan and possibly not cognac).
Clearly I need to either take notes, post sooner, or be a better liar.
Also, while it’s very exciting to finally have a camera, can I please, for the love of God, learn how to take a decent picture?? Shadow: heed this warning: you are not welcome here.
P.S. we noticed something about the cooking students at Le Cordon Bleu. Since when do you have to look like this to be a chef in training?
