Burger.org

The bright orange and green walls with mirrors and lights make me feel like I'm tripping. Ordering at the bar while staring at a poorly designed menu on the wall is awkward. The long wooden bar says alcohol, but there's none to be had. I'm just not sure what to make of Burger.org, the kosher and in-your-face eco-concious burger joint right in the heart of South St.'s drunken mile.
Here's what I do know though: Burger.org makes one of the best veggie burgers in town! Didn't see that coming did you? Neither did I. The standard burger (veggie, beef, fish, chicken or turkey patty) comes with lettuce, tomatoes, grilled onions, housemade pickle, and special sauce. Other sauces like chipotle mayo and bbq are also available. Sauces in squeeze bottles are also scattered throughout the room on table tops, if you need more.

If you like the obvious-vegetables-in-patty burger like the one at National Mechanics, you're going to love Burger.org's housemade veggie patty full of corn, peas, carrots, and spinach. This veggie fritter is soft, yet crispy on the outside, with loads of flavor. The sesame seed bun is very soft, reminiscent of a backyard burger bun, but larger. If you don't do buns, Burger.org will gladly wrap your burger in lettuce.

And, with that soft bun (and great patty), Burger.org just bested National Mechanic's veggie burger. But, Burger.org does not serve alcohol, so depending on your mission, National Mechanics may still be number one for veggie-filled veggie burgers.For a little more dough, the El Mariachi burger adds guacamole, pico de gallo, and chipotle mayo to the mix.

The Very Veggie burger adds grilled zucchini, mushrooms and eggplant.
Sweet potato fries, spicy fries, truffle fries, and regular fries are on the menu, but our order of barely spiced spicy fries were inedible. Burger.org couldn't seem to get the oil high enough to properly fry the spuds. These greasy, limp potato sticks should have never left the kitchen.

Despite the fry mishaps and an atmosphere that perplexes, Burger.org's veggie burger is so good it now competes with Maoz's falafel, Hot Diggity's hot dogs, and Blackbird's pizza for quick and tasty South St. eats.

Burger.org
326 South St., Philadelphia, PA 19147
267-639-3425

Xochitl: Veggie Burger

This one really came out of the left field, but I've found my new favorite veggie burger!

Xochitl's La Azteca veggie burger — a torta, really — is a dreaded, mushy, black bean burger and doesn't even come on a hamburger bun, but it's flavors are so darn good, with peppery spice and a little intrigue from huitlacoche and corn in the patty, that the mush is forgiven (it helps to make a thin patty like Xochitl did, if you're going the bean route), and I was left begging for more. Chihuahua cheese, avocado, crispy onion, and chipotle mayo round out the torta. Vegetarian entree specials are mostly unheard of, so I rarely pay attention to servers as they spout off their memorized lists. Xochitl realized that the best of the summer season is not meat, but vegetables, and offered an heirloom tomato torta as one of their specials. Meaty, sweet, and so juicy, there was no way the bun was escaping the flood of tomato essence. Pure summer joy.

I'm kinda digging Xochitl's more casual menu redo and interior remodeling from the last time I reviewed Xochitl. The taco and torta-heavy menu is still quality, and not having the table linens crumbed after each course puts me much more at ease.

Xochitl
408 S. 2nd St, Philadelphia 19147
215-238-7280

Village Whiskey

If there's a blockbuster movie, you can bet that I'll wait the 9-12 months for it to come out on DVD, and then wait another year or two before I watch it...if even at all. Similarly, with great patience and disinterest is about how I approach much-talked-about restaurant openings. I'm in no hurry to be seen, or be in the know.

And so, I waited for a good while to visit Jose Garces' whiskey emporium, Village Whiskey. In fact, I never even planned on visiting Village Whiskey until I saw that the neighboring restaurant I intended to dine at did not have outdoor seating, and, well, it was such a lovely evening, so decided to take up residence at one of Village Whiskey's outdoor tables.
Village Whiskey showcases over 100 bourbon, rye, Irish, blended, and Scotch whiskeys, but don't miss the wines, beers, and delicious sounding cocktails also on the menu. With most drinks costing more than the food, we went the economical route and ordered a bottle of Village Sangaree for $28. One of the better sangrias I've tasted recently, this mix of whiskey (of course!), orange curacao, red wine, Fees Barrel Aged, Fees Orange, sugar, and lemon juice poured out 6-7 healthy wine glass servings, making the Village Sangaree one of the wisest drink choices.

Vegetarians will find most of their choices on the small menu under the bar snacks column: tater tots, deviled eggs, soft pretzels, and cheese puffs. If there is a deviled egg on a menu I will order it. Village Whiskey's deviled eggs are filled with a creamy, salty (but not too salty), pickle-studded filling. Perfect and familiar. Nothing avant garde, just classic.Also, be sure to check out the assortment of pickled vegetables, each individually served in a hinged canning jar accompanied by black olive tapenade, whipped ricotta, and toasted sourdough. A steal at $4, the cherry tomato pickles were both sweet and tart without being overwhelmingly so. Perfection, really. Thanks to Meal Ticket and the recipe for Village Whiskey's pickled tomatoes they posted, you can recreate them at home this summer. I've heard many complaints about Village Whiskey's duck fat fries being limp, but our fries fried in vegetable oil (not on the menu; you have to ask) were perfectly crispy. Maybe skip the duck fat indulgence next time, guys. I'd also skip the Sly Fox Cheddar cheese sauce; it was so mild and flavorless that the flavor of the potatoes outshined the sauce. The cheese sauce was ignored in favor of plain ol' ketchup.
Garces' 8-ounce beef Village Burger tops most Philly burger connoisseurs' list of best burger in Philly, but how does Garces' veggie burger stack up? Well, the crunch and tang of the bright pink pickled cabbage was not enough contrast to the mushy black bean burger, creamy guacamole and soft sesame seeded bun. The veggie burger was tasty enough and a pretty bean patty, but it does not live up the the Garces legend. Stick to the starters, my veg friends.

With the exception of the $26 famed foie gras-topped Whiskey King burger and the $28 Lobster roll, the food prices at Village Whiskey are quite reasonable. What is not reasonable are the drink prices, especially the straight whiskey drinks, which will put you back anywhere from $6-$70, with most parked somewhere right in the middle.

If I had to do it again, I'd do it all much the same — cheap and delicious bar snacks with an economical bottle of cool sangria.

Village Whiskey
118 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, PA 19103
215-665-1088
Mon-Thurs: 11:30am-12am
Mon-Thurs: 11:30am-1am
Sun: 5pm-12am

Devil's Alley

I never considered stepping foot into Devil's Alley until Burger Club Philly held a meeting there. Don't know why, but it just looked like a college douche bar. I still can't tell you who frequents Devil's Alley, as I haven't been back since Burger Club and we were sequestered in the back part of the upstairs, but I will say that the two-story restaurant and bar in Center City didn't seem nearly as douchey as my imagination made it out to be. The downstairs dining area looked kinda classy, actually.

Before Burger Club, I sidled up to the upstairs bar alongside a handful of downtown suits for a happy hour sangria that was sweet with a low class maraschino cherry as the fruit and not nearly as alcoholic as I'd like.

I switched things up and went with one of their many interesting sounding specialty cocktails. Above is the Zypher with Hendricks gin, muddled cucumber and jalapeno. The drink had just enough spice to be interesting, but I played bartender by dumping two sugar packets in the drink to take the bitter edge off. Better!
A side of grilled sweet potatoes are just that. Piping hot would have been nice, instead lukewarm going on cold.
Everyone knows that I'm not the kindest to restaurant-style mac and cheese, especially with weird toppings like the sweet tomato jam (tastes like really sweet ketchup) that Devil's Alley uses to top their mac and cheese, but I somehow didn't mind the small portion of bland and creamy noodles. Order the large portion, and I might complain a little louder about wanting sharper, more pungent cheese and no weird toppings.
Devil's Alley makes their own veggie patty with a blend of grilled vegetables held together with Goldfish Cracker crumbs. Spicy with lots of flavor, the not overly-mushy nor too-thick patty with crispy edges is definitely on par with, if not better than most in-house made veggie burger patties. What won me was the sweet and savory red onion marmalade — more like a confit — on top of the burger. Big flavor! The lettuce leaf and pale tomato (it was February, so they get a pass on the tomato) were skipped. The bun was mysteriously crunchy at the edges, like it was left to toast a little too long, although other diners did not have such bun issues.

In eating my way through more than a few veggie burgers in Philly, I'm finding that locking down a good veggie burger, much less one that trumps all, is difficult. Unlike meat burgers, there are a wide range of ingredients used in veggie patties, varying textures, and flavors that cover the entire spice rack. Ultimately, veggie burgers are highly subjective. I subjectively liked Devil Alley's burger. Who'd a thunk it?

Devil's Alley
1907 Chestnut St., Philadelphia, PA 19103
215-751-0707
Mon-Fri: 11am-close
Sat & Sun: 4pm-close
Sat & Sun Brunch: 10am-3pm

Elevation Burger

A boy probing his tonsils with the pointed ketchup bottle cap is the first thing that caught my eye after putting in my order at the counter of Elevation Burger. The chances of him having Hep C is probably slim, so I shrug it off.

Than, almost instantly, the seemingly calm fast-food-with-a-conscience strip mall joint in Wynnewood, a western suburb of Philly, filled with 3 kids per 1 adult, and I might as well have been eating at Chuck E Cheese.

"Hey, Dad! Hey, Dad! Hey, Dad! Hey, Dad!"

Am I the only one that hears this desperate little girl shouting across the room? Dad sure doesn't.

"Cody, you cannot punch Jason is the back," said a frustrated mom pulling her child off the boy's friend.

"But he called me stupid," he pathetically whined.

A boy with brains eaten by a zombie trips over my foot on his sixth visit to the trash can.

Apparently, the hormone-free, grass-raised, and free-range beef; fried-in-olive-oil fries; and organic and transfat-free ingredients at the environmentally and sustainably built Elevation Burger is the new guilt-free McDonalds for Main Line suburban parents.

My suggestion to those without children or the ability to tune out chaos is to eat at Elevation Burger on Tuesday at 2:16 pm.
Your order is brought to the table in a rectangular metal tray by a smiling employee. Olive oil-fried shoestring fries are light and crispy. With a ratio of more short and nubbin-length fries to long fries, the fry grabbing looks desperate and labored before you hit the end.With a choice of chocolate, vanilla, or coffee ice cream and Oreo cookies, chocolate syrup and a handful of fruit add-ins, and no pre-conceived specialty shakes to order, you're the milkshake master at Elevation Burger. Above is chocolate ice cream with real strawberries blended in. Thick and creamy, the spoon is more helpful than the fat straw.
There are two veggie burgers on Elevation Burger's menu. One is vegan (#2) and one is not (#1). This is clearly marked on the large wall-hanging menu behind the counter. There is also a laminated paper in front of the register listing all the ingredients in the two veggie burgers for those who need the full info. Unfortunately, these ingredients are not listed on their website.

All veggie burgers are cooked on a different grill than the meat burgers. My astute and friendly (they really are friendly) order-taker noted when I ordered caramelized onions on my veggie burger that the caramelized onions are cooked on the same grill as the meat burgers, but in a separate section, in case I cared.

Above is the vegan Veggie #2 with lettuce, tomatoes, Elevation sauce (a faintly tangy mayo and ketchup-based sauce that's not vegan), pickles, and caramelized onions on a soft bun.

Unlike burgers from McDonalds or Burger King that seem to be run over by a steam roller between construction and landing in your hands, the buns on an Elevation Burger are still fluffy upon arrival.

The #2 Veggie patty is the preformed and frozen kind. Chock full of whole grains and vegetables, the touted "tastes like veggies" #2...tastes like veggies. A little longer on the grill to crisp the edges would have been a nice touch.
The non-vegan Veggie #1 has a mix of cheeses in the frozen and preformed "fire roasted" grain and vegetable patty. The cheese and roasted flavor of the patty tasted less "clean" than the Veggie #2, but did not taste better or worse, in my opinion. They're both frozen veggie burgers slapped on a grill, nothing more or less. I do appreciate the whole grains and vegetables in both patties far more than a ground brown mash of soy protein.

Good on Elevation Burger for offering more health and environmentally conscious fast food burgers (and veggie burgers) to burb-bound families on the go, but unless I were running an errand in the same strip mall Elevation Burger is located in (I was), I'm not sure it's worth a trip to the burbs for vegetarians. Check your freezer for a veggie patty first.

Elevation Burger
50 East Wynnewood Rd., Philadelphia, PA 19096
610-645-7704
Mon-Sat, 11am-9pm
Sun, 12pm-8pm

Midatlantic

Rarely making an effort to cross the Schuylkill into West Philadelphia, it was not Daniel Stern's (R2L, and previously Gayle and Rae) recently opened restaurant featuring cuisine from the Mid-Atlantic states that persuaded me to make that river leap, but it was a Burger Club Philly meating held at Midatlantic that did the sweet talkin'. And there's not even a veggie burger at Midatlantic!

Behind the long glass facade of Midatlantic is an open and modern restaurant with a rustic reclaimed wood wall behind a shiny steel bar and open kitchen. Sliding steel wall panels at one end of the room create a small private dining area, or can be pushed back to make the room even larger.

An outside patio area is equipped with a long, eye-catching caged box of flames which would be pleasant on cool spring and autumn nights, but no one dared dream of stepping outside this evening with temps in the 20's.
Feeling I should stick with Pennsylvania specialties, I started with the pretzel and Welsch rarebit fondue (PA Dutch meets British, I guess). Expecting the iconic pretzel twist, I was surprised by the long, dense, pretzel with hints of rye. Pretzels come in all shapes, I know, but I'll offer that turd-shaped is not the best presentation. The beer-infused cheddar cheese fondue was thick and pasty with a hard broiled cheese skin. Tasty enough and certainly a generous portion, the pretzel and fondue could use a little refinement to suit the casual fine dining atmosphere.
A veggie version of scrapple is offered on Midatlantic's menu along with pig, crab, and chicken versions of scrapple. All scrapple types come as a sandwich with a side of fries or salad.

Midatlantic's veggie scrapple is a mixture of vegetables, kasha, buckwheat, and oatmeal formed into a patty. Even with a crispy fried outside, the thick patty was mostly mush with a texture, thanks to the substitution of other grains for scrapple's traditional cornmeal, no where close to scrapple. Flavor was also far away from the traditional sage-heavy scrapple. Midatlantic's veggie scrapple is nothing but a grain and veggie burger with zero resemblance to srapple.

So...it turns out Midatlantic does have a veggie burger!

Now, before you comment, I know what you're thinking: I have no room to comment on scrapple since I'm vegetarian. I will counter that I have eaten livermush (the South's equivalent of scrapple), and I have eaten Vrapple, the outstanding vegan scrapple that out-competed all but one pork scrapple in 2009's Scrapplefest.

To end on a bright note, the accompanying Farmhouse salad (minus the summer sausage) was excellent. A wedge of butterhead lettuce with an inspired mix of fresh and pickled carrots, green beans, wax beans, and pearl onion dressed in a light buttermilk dressing was a much better choice that the overly fried, dark brown potato cubes that accompanied the burgers of my fellow diners.

With mostly salads, pickles, and sides left for this vegetarian to sample, if in the rare event I find myself on the other side of the river and at Midatlantic it will probably be for drinks and a nibble, not dinner.

Midatlantic
3711 Market St., Philadelphia, PA 19104
215-386-3711
Lunch: Mon-Fri, 11:30am-2pm
Dinner: Mon-Sat, 5-11pm
Snacks: until midnight

National Mechanics' Veggie Burger

National Mechanics claiming to have the best veggie burger in the world leads to high expectations, but fortunately the veggie burger at the bar residing in the beautiful Greek Revival Mechanics National Bank building in Old City does not disappoint.

Best in the world? I don't know about that, but National Mechanics certainly wins in the category of actually being a true veggie burger and not pretending to be meat. There are all sorts of visibly identifiable julienned vegetables in this burger — carrots, zucchini, broccoli. It almost feels healthy to eat National Mechanics' slightly crunchy, chock-full-o-veggies burger, and tastes nothing but yum. Just remember to dine with a good friend who'll check your teeth for lodged veggies!

Your choice of cheese, and simple toppings of lettuce, tomato and raw onions come with the burger. I've never seen the fried egg topper in the evening, but it made (an unwanted, for me) appearance at brunch. And depending on my sobriety level, the chewy bun sometimes annoys (sober) or satisfies (drunk). I always like fat fries, though.

To judge for yourself if National Mechanics makes a slammin' burger, why not hit up next week's Burger Club Philly meet-up hosted by the Burger Baroness December 15, 6pm, at National Mechanics.

National Mechanics
22 S. 3rd St., Philadelphia, PA 19106
Tues-Sun, 11am-2am
Mon, 5pm-2am
Sat and Sun brunch, 11am-3:30pm

PYT

Has everyone been to PYT, the burger bar in the Piazza at Schmitd's, yet? It seems like it. And everyone has an opinion about PYT's West Coast-style burgers, and those opinions seem to swing far to the left and far to the right, due to what I have gathered to be an inconsistent kitchen and waitstaff. One night your burger is awesome, the next night not so much. Service is only OK when it's not busy, and, when it is busy, gets worse.

During a September Philly Burger Club "meating," I had the chance to sample the two veggie burgers on PYT's menu, which might be a little more stable from visit to visit than meat burgers. There are no degree-of-doneness or seasoning-of-meat quibbles when you go veggie!
Everyone can agree that the alcohol-spiked adult shakes are great, with flavors like Jack Rabbit Slim, a vanilla or chocolate milkshake spiked with Makers Mark; and The Jon Valdez, an espresso ice cream milkshake spiked with Kahlua and Patron. Virgins are also available.

I do like getting tipsy, and I do like milkshakes, but one adult milkshake doesn't quite get me to that happy place, and there's no way I could down more than one milkshake and still have room for food. Asking for a double shot of liquor might be the way to go.
Or you could just throw back PYT's signature shot of whiskey followed by a shot of pickle juice. It's an ingenious way to get rid of all the pickle juice at the bottom of the pickle containers (a pickle comes with every burger, so they're burning through the pickles). Sounds gross, but it works, although I don't know if I would make this my regular drink; it's more of a "why the hell not" drink.
The onion rings are covered in a thick and sweet beer batter that's crispy and not greasy. These puppies are great, but, with about five rings in a tray, are not enough to share.
Beef, chicken, and veggie burgers are on the menu, and all burgers come with lettuce, tomato, and choice of cheese and condiments. For $1 or $2 each, depending on the item, toppings like mushrooms, sauteed onions, jalapenos, bacon, avocado, or a fried egg can be added to any burger. Kettle chips are strewn across the burger and plate, and a long dill pickle accompanies.

Being the tail end of Summer and tomatoes still in season when I dined, the tomato slices were fresh and tasted like a tomato should. And, be sure to get hooked up with the oniony mayo-based special sauce if you're into special sauces.
The Shroom Burger has two beer battered and fried portabello mushrooms sandwiching shredded Cheddar cheese. The heft from the mushrooms satisfies, and the crunch from the batter pleases. The squishy Martin's Potato Roll gives no fight and lets the portabellos shine. There's a backyard comfort from the potato roll, but the battered and fried portabellos are an extra step not seen at most backyards parties.
The Calibunga Burger is a thick seared white bean, garlic, basil, and breadcrumb patty. Even with crisp edges, the mushiness of the patty was too much — like eating a mound of heavy mashed potatoes. The pungent basil taste was also unpleasant, mostly because I don't expect basil in a burger. I ended up eating the Calibunga burger without the white bean patty.

I do appreciate the veggie love of putting not one, but two kinds of veggie burgers on the menu, but the Calibunga's pasty bean patty needs to be sent back to the drawing board. Maybe some other texture should be thrown in there?

And, wouldn't you know it! My visit swung far to the left and far to the right, but more so in the direction of delicious.

PYT
In the Piazza at Schmidt's
1050 N. Hancock St., Philadelphia, PA 19123
215-268-7825
Mon-Fri, 5pm-2am
Sat and Sun, noon-2am
Kitchen open until 1am

SqaureBurger

There's a bit of a burger craze going on in Philly right now, what with people lining up to try Garces' $24 foie gras-topped Whiskey King burger at Village Whiskey, Stephen Starr slashing lunchtime burger prices at Butcher and Singer, and PYT's Tommy Up declaring burger war via social media and email. Of course, this craze is all about the meat burgers, so where does that leave me? Out sampling the veggie burgers, of course!

Veggie burgers are normally not my meal of choice, so I'm a little embarrassed when people ask me, a vegetarian and food blogger, what my favorite veggie burger around town is, and I have no answer. I hope to one day have a good answer to that question, and attending Burger Club Philly "meatings" organized by the Burgerbaroness of fries with that shake has helped me on the quest.

Let's start with Stephen Starr's veggie burger from SquareBurger, the fast food burger shack located in the newly renovated and kid-friendly Franklin Square across the way from the park's carousel and Philadelphia themed mini-golf course.

Only open seasonally, with changing hours depending on the time of the year (hey, a website would be helpful Stephen!), you better pony up before the end of October November 15 end of the day, November 1 (dude, keeps changing dates!), if you want a taste of Stephen Starr's West Coast style burger (read: small patty, potato bun, minimal toppings), and be willing to wait in long lines at lunch when the weather is nice.

(Sorry for the blur; these are camera phone pictures.)
A lover of lemonade, the menu suckered me with "homemade" lemonade, but I was disappointing to receive pink lemonade that tasted like it was from a mix. I guess I mistook the term homemade for fresh squeezed. Homemade means nothing nowadays, apparently.

Fries are skin-on shoestring, and adequately nice. A Gardenburger was pulled out of the sack to be grilled up for my veggie burger, which, for some reason, is more expensive than the meat burgers!!! A Gardenburger from a finer dining establishment, or even a grub pub, would get the snub from me, but SquareBurger is a tiny shack in a park, and is about what is expected, although, really, I expect there not to be a veggie burger at such places.Melted American cheese, ketchup, yellow mustard, diced onion, and pickle relish are all the toppings available, but, if you're a mayo freak like me, please see the condiment packets along the counter railing. The smell of all these classic fast food burger condiments along with the grilled squishy potato bun remind me of the off-the-menu Burger King Veggie Whopper (that's a Whopper without the meat) that is many road traveling vegetarians' savior and dirty little secret.
On an earlier occasion I tried the Cake Shake blended with vanilla ice cream, half and half, butterscotch sauce, and crumbled TastyKake Butterscotch Krimpet, and I do not like! You either love sucking wet cake through a straw, or you don't. Most do. I don't.

This time I went with the Butterscotch Sundae made with Jack and Jill vanilla ice cream, butterscotch sauce, whipped cream, TasteyKake Butterscotch Krimpet, crushed Heath bar, and maraschino cherry. Kids will love this unsophisticated sundae, but I need something more interesting. Really, I got this sundae to try the TastyKake, a local, Philly, preservative-loaded cake maker that is near and dear to those who grew up on it. I respect local pride and nostalgia, but I missed the love boat by 30 plus years to be endeared to anything TastyKake.

Best veggie burger in town? No, but it'll do in a pinch when hunger pains strike while playing mini-golf with your nieces and nephews.

SquareBurger
Franklin Square
200 N. 6th St., Philadelphia, PA 19106
cash only

Sketch

It took a little less than a year after the grand opening of Sketch, Fishtown's beloved vegan friendly burger joint, for me to get there, but I finally did. The limited hours of operation initially kept me away, but now open seven days a week for lunch through dinner, it's much easier to stop by.

The brightly colored Girard St. store front holds an equally colorful and funky interior with a long bar and stools along the wall and front window, and three large booths with church pew seats to dine at. Bored? Scrawl on the chalkboards on the wall with chalk or the construction paper on the tables with crayons. Cute, but I was not moved to artistry.

Up the ramp from the main dining room, you'll pass a chalkboard of menu items, and a chalkboard of daily special like antelope burgers, birch beer pulled pork sandwiches, and sesame noodles.

Sketch's mainstay are their sirloin beef, Kobe, turkey, vegan, chicken, and smashed onion beef burgers, but you can also grab a salad, burrito, or fries (yeah, they got rid of the cheese puffs after so many people bitched about the absence of fries). Oh, regular and vegan milkshakes are also a specialty of Sketch, and I hear they are the bomb, but I had to skip. Just don't know how anyone has room for a burger and a shake!

Mosy a few more steps, and place your order at the register, take a seat, and your order will be brought out to you. Do you tip for this service? With signs at the register and on every table suggesting you tip your server (a bit much, but I guess they've had misunderstandings), you best tip, you ingrate.I went with the vegan burger with the included toppings of tomato, lettuce, and choice of sauce -- cheese and fancier toppings cost $1 each. The falafel-like vegan burger was fine, but had an overriding Mediterranean spice (neither of us could name it, and I forgot to ask) that put me off. I was fond of the soft, toasted, challah-like onion roll and generous vegan harissa aioli (love sauce, and Sketch is the first place in a long time that did not skimp on sauce), but not the pale, out of season tomato slice. Overall, the vegan burger was just meh. I'd eat it again, but I'm not in love.My partner tried out one of the specials, a grilled seitan and vegetable sandwich with an Asian-influenced sesame sauce. This thing was massive! And not bad, even though the grilled seitan, onion, red pepper and cabbage sandwich seemed a little homey, like, "Oh, I had some leftover stir fry, lets put it on a bun." The seitan sandwich was odd, but the better of the two sandwiches.

I really, really wanted to love Sketch, since so many people do, and especially since the owner was incredibly friendly, and you could tell she poured her heart and soul into the place, but I just didn't. The food is decent, and the vibes are casual and fun, but I'm just not that into it. Philly has spoiled me.

Sketch
413 E. Girard Ave., Philadelphia, PA 19125
215-634-3466
open 7 days, 11:30am-9pm

Cheap Eats: 27 Hours in NYC

We went to NYC for the weekend to hook up with the boy's old high school friend. It was also the weekend before my birthday, so I figured I could throw that in as an excuse to possibly eat out at a nice place. Oh, and it was Easter, too – my favorite holiday.

Things don’t always go as planned – or as you imagine, really. I had no real plans. And that’s fine. I usually take things as they come. Make plans, and they're sure to be ruined.

Our first stop was Rai Rai Ken, a cheap and delicious ramen noodle bar with friendly servers a few blocks from our hostel in the East Village. The miso ramen soup with slices of fried garlic, sprouts, and cabbage was perfect on a chilly day!

Before we took off, I emailed the ever gracious Linda at The Village Vegetable for her suggestions of restaurants in the city, and Rai Rai Ken was one of them. This is the only spot we hit up from her long list (not that I didn't want to hit them all, but things happen...).

The big wrench in our day was the fact that the Kansas basketball game (March Madness, folks!) was moved from early afternoon to early evening, and considering the fact that there were four KU alums in our group, a trip to the KU alumni sports bar to watch the tournament game was a given. Eight hour of drinking and one hummus appetizer that tasted like canned refried beans later, this is what I felt like eating…

For fun, we chose the most disgusting looking slice of pizza – ziti topped – and, you know what? It wasn’t that bad! Perhaps because it was more pasta than pizza? Perhaps because we were wasted? Don’t know where we picked this up from.

The next day was Easter, and, it never fails, every year I delude myself into think I’m gonna wake up to 70 degree days, so I can have a picnic in the park for my birthday (and Easter, this year), but it’s cold as hell in the Northeast in March. Boo. Hiss. No picnic. No Easter. You came too early to fit you in!

We hit up 'sNice Café, a cozy vegetarian and vegan coffee and sandwich shop in the West Village. I wanted one of their many veggie sandwiches, but s'Nice Café is bucking the brunch trend, and doesn’t serve lunch until noon. I had a tofu scramble wrap by default. Not bad, but nothing exciting. The yummy looking platters of veggie and grain salads for lunch that whizzed past me looked good, though.

I finally got to eat a veggie hot dog in NYC – but it wasn’t off a cart like in my original dream. This soy dog comes from Better Burger in Midtown West, one of three Better Burger stores in NYC that offers organic burgers and dogs on whole wheat buns. You know, better for you!

I got a NYC soy dog – kraut and bbq onions. The bbq onions are more like tomato paste onions, and the whole wheat bun is a bit of a chewy clunker. Dog Almighty in Austin, with their buttered and grilled buns, wins hands down. Junk food doesn’t need to be too healthy.

The veggie burger at Better Burger was a little tasteless, but a good effort. The fries are baked, not fried, and they were very good – thick, meaty, and you never would have guessed they were baked. The best part was the curry ketchup and Cajun ketchup for dipping.

Then we hopped on the Chinatown bus for Philly. Zzzz.