More Delicious Vegan Food! This Time, a Little More Special

As I stated in my last post, my cousin Emma is a vegan chef.  One thing I did not mention is that on Thursday nights at a bar in Brooklyn, Halyard's,  she prepares and serves vegan bar food to the patrons of this fine establishment as they enjoy participating in trivia contests put on by her roommate David.  Of course, since we were in New York, we had to try her amazing food, since we had only ever eaten her food once, and we wanted to see a day in the life of Emma-nemma.

So we went.  And we ate.  And, much to our surprise, she actually named everything on the menu after me and my siblings (including our precious puppy Pepe, who I of course consider as another little brother of mine).  Take a look for yourself:

Yep, that's right.  I'm a burger. No big deal or anything.

So yeah.  We ordered an Allyson (a black bean and broccoli burger with sweet mustard sauce on a sesame seed bun), a Hannah (a bean and cilantro taco with popcorn and other nuts on top on a corn tortilla), and a Pepe (a chocolate cookie with pretzels in it), and they were all delicious.

Don't I look delicious?

I will proceed from now on to address the food by its name, starting with myself.  I must say, I never thought I'd be eating myself, but I was delightful.  I had no problem substituting beef with black beans, because, hey, what Cuban doesn't love black beans?  But outside of that, the sweet mustard sauce really brought the bean and broccoli mixture together quite nicely.  It had a bit of an aftertaste, but nothing unpleasant.

This is what I call good.

Now it's on to the Hannah.  I typically am not a fan of soft corn tortillas, but this has to be my exception.   I usually find the smell of the soft corn tortilla to be kind of overpowering, but in this case, it went nicely with the flavors of everything else.  The innards of the taco, which included beans, tomatoes, spinach, walnut basil pesto, and pop corn, really complemented each other well, bringing out this rich, bean-ey flavor that was really delicious.  I never would have thought that pesto went in a taco, nor popcorn, but the crunchiness of the popcorn, which was slightly seasoned with garlic, really went well with the rest of the taco, and the pesto wasn't overpowering, but let everything else come out and say hello.  This is one of the best tacos I've had, and my sister, Hannah, who is a taco lover, thinks so too.

Just about one of the best cookies ever.  This is now up there with chocolate chip for me.

To top off the meal, we were able to indulge in a rare treat... the Pepe!  Despite the fact that it brought about the horrible imagery of eating my beloved pet, these cookies are the bomb, because they combine my two favorite snacks in the world:  pretzels and chocolate.  As a child, whenever we would have to have a snack or go anyplace, I would always bring a bag of pretzels with me, without fail.  As for chocolate, it is the only candy I will eat besides gummy bears.  The fact that Emma brought these two things together was just incredible.  The pretzel was crunchy, but not too crunchy, and the salt really complemented the sweetness of the chocolate. The cookie itself was soft and chewy, and overall quite delicious.  If I could, I could probably eat a whole pan of these things, but I won't because that is bad for you and I would probably feel terrible about myself afterwards.

Well, now that I've had my cousin's food, I can honestly say that she is an excellent chef.  I recommend her food to anyone who happens to be or live in the NYC area, and I'm not just saying that because she's my cousin, although that helps.  Her food is really delightful.