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Welcome to my blog, PocaJama! My name is Allyson, and I hope you will join me as I experience the world through food. On this blog, I will be writing reviews of different dishes from cultures around the world. If you would like, make a suggestion of a dish or a restaurant you'd like me to try, and maybe it will show up in a future post!

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Vegan Fast Food? WHAAAAT?

So a couple of weeks ago, I was in New York with my sister and my dad, on the occasion of a business trip of his.  Since he would be working, my sister and I were going to have to spend some time alone, so we called up my super cool cousin Emma, who lives in Brooklyn, so that we could hang out for an afternoon.  After an afternoon full of thrift shopping and Brooklyn-ey awesomeness, Emma, who happens to be vegan, took us to dinner.  She had named several places that we could eat, all vegan of course, but the one that stuck us as the most interesting was what she called "this little vegan fast food place."  When she said this, we honestly had no idea what to expect.

First of all, if vegans gave up meat and all animal products, why would they want to imitate the greasy, fatty, grossness of the typical American road trip meal?  Second, what the heck would they make this stuff out of?  Of course, being the adventurous people that we are, we decided that this place, Foodswings, was the best place in Brooklyn to eat.  And we couldn't have been more right.

Just a side note, I thought that the name of this place was kind of hilarious.  Foodswings.  Does that not imply that it will make you want to waver back to the omnivorous lifestyle of most people, or that people eating there have cravings for meat and that it ain't easy being vegan or whatever?  No matter what they're trying to imply, the name Foodswings is kind of funny.  Feel free to make your own judgement.

I knew I could trust Emma, being a vegan chef herself (check out her page at http://emmaeatsplants.com/! She's kind of incredible), to know what was good and what wasn't.  She said that the (fake) chicken was really good, although you really couldn't go wrong with anything.  So, of course, I took her word for it and ordered a Chicken Caesar Club sandwich.  And it was really good.

Can someone please tell me what this stuff is made out of?

Okay.  So I'll be honest.  I have no idea what this stuff is made of.  And I know that this certainly not a club sandwich (where is the slice, or club, in the middle of the sandwich?).  But it was delicious nonetheless.  The "chicken" was perfectly grilled, and it (to my surprise) actually tasted like chicken.  They must have a wizard or some sort in their kitchen, because it was scary how it magically tasted exactly like chicken.  The bread was good, not extremely different from any french loaf, and the condiments were all fresh.  They put tomatoes, black olives, cucumbers, lettuce, and of course, their Caesar dressing concoction, which all did their part in making the sandwich.  The lettuce and the cucumber worked together to make the sandwich crisp, and the black olives mixed with the tomato well to balance each others flavors so that the caesar dressing could come out and make its appearance.  Might I add that it tasted like Caesar dressing, too.  It was weird.

I have no idea how this stuff was made, or how healthy it is for that matter, but it was good.  And that's all that matters, right?

Picture time!  I have to embarrass my sister and my cousin, who both ate some form of "chicken" as well.

Emma acting as ferocious as possible without actually turning into a carnivore

Hannah acting as glamorous as you can when eating fake chicken drumsticks

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