Vegan Barbecue Sandwich at Khyber Pass Pub

When I visited Khyber Pass Pub for a tasting of their preview menu prior to opening (Khyber Pass Pub has now been open in it's new, Southern food inspired reincarnation since November 2010), I lamented that there wasn't a vegetarian/vegan barbecue sandwich on the veg-friendly menu.

The owners and chef of Khyber Pass Pub rectified that situation very quickly — I believe I saw a tweeted picture of the vegan barbecue sandwich a few weeks or so after their opening — but it took me a little while longer to pay a return visit for some 'cue.

The vegan barbecue sandwich comes with a heapin' mound of soft seitan stands drenched with vinegar-tomato sauce, topped with sweet coleslaw, all on a soft, but substantial roll. This sandwich is a dripper, but, oh, so good. The barbecue sauce is extremely tangy, and a bit spicy, so it's hard to taste the coleslaw, especially since the neutral-flavored seitan doesn't counteract the vinegar in the sauce like pork would.

CSA Pickup at Grindcore House

I just signed up for my first CSA!

I'm preaching to the choir, but in case you don't know, CSA is an acronym for Community Supported Agriculture.

What it means is that you pay a farm up front for a share of the growing season's vegetables. Once the vegetables start producing, the farm delivers their goods (usually once a week) to a venue for you to pick up your share.

Why am I late to the CSA party?

I lived alone before, and even a half share (a smaller amount of vegetables weekly) would have been too much produce for me to consume. Now I share a house with another mouth.

I was also hesitant to join a CSA because none of the pickup spots were convenient for me. But now there is a convenient pickup spot — Grindcore House in Pennsport!

Grindcore House, the vegan coffee shop in Pennsport at 4th and Greenwich St., is partnering with Lancaster Farm Fresh CSA to be one of many pickup spots.

This year, the Lancaster Farm Fresh CSA lasts 25 weeks. A full share (7-12 portions of produce) is $700. A half share (4-9 portions of produce) is $425. That works out to $28 per week for a full share, and $17 per week for a half share of fresh, local, organic veggies.

The blog Goodbye Texas, Hello PA did a wonderful job photographing their weekly hauls from the Lancaster Farm Fresh CSA last year, if you're curious about what to expect.

I just filled out my application for the CSA, but there needs to be 20 people signed up for a pickup location in order for it to be a go. (Update: Grindcore House reports that at least 20 people have already signed up!)

So, if you're in the neighborhood, I encourage you to sign up for a Lancaster Farm Fresh CSA pickup at Grindcore House (their pickup location on the online CSA application drop-down menu is "Pennsport") so I — and you! — can finally get on the bandwagon.

Not in my neighborhood? Lancaster Farm Fresh has 53 pickup locations in Pennsylvania, Delaware, New York, Maryland, and Virginia.

Rosemary Roasted Cashews

We have about 10 pounds of cashews in the house right now. The boy looooves nuts! (I'll wait while you crack a clever joke.) And in the ranking of nuts, cashews are his favorite.

Me? Nuts are nice, but I don't mainline them like he does. In fact, I can win a staring contest with a bowl of nuts, that is, until you coat those suckers with butter, herbs, spices, and sugar, and then my eyelashes go all aflutter.

I've played around with a few spiced nut recipes, but never found one that I was in love with. The spices are always a bit off, or too overwhelming. And if it's a recipe that calls for brown sugar, maple syrup, or some other sweetener, the nuts are too sweet or sticky.

Enter the recipe for rosemary roasted cashews from Ina Garten, a woman who apparently can do no wrong — and is blessed with fabulous gay friends that are always making table centerpieces for her.I like to search out the cashews with extra globs of sugar.

Monsú

The beauty of living in the heart of a city like Philadelphia is that you can walk to almost any destination, and I take full advantage of this by walking to almost all of the restaurants and bars I visit. Unfortunately, restaurants that fall outside of the 2.5-mile radius from my house (what I consider walkable for dining) will probably never be visited, even if they are at the top of my "to-do" list.

Modo Mio, the raved-about Italian restaurant by chef and owner Peter McAndrews is just such a restaurant that has been on my "to-do" list for years, but the Girard Ave. restaurant is a bit of a hike, and getting in a car to go out to dinner in the city is against my constitution (plus someone has to abstain from drinking if driving, and that's no fun).

That's why I was very excited when McAndrews opened Monsú, a Sicilian restaurant located in the Italian Market at the location of what was his former sandwich shop, Paesano's (Paesano's got scooted down the block to 1017 S. 9th St.).

I guess McAndrews had such great success in having a second location of Paeasano's (original is on Girard Ave.), he decided to bring Italian fine dining in the line of what he's doing at Modo Mio to South Philly.

Whatever the reasoning for opening up Monsú, I certainly appreciate not having to walk from South Philly to Girard Ave. for McAndrew's Italian cuisine.

Not much changed to the bones on the corner building at 9th and Christian, but the interior got a little spiffier with plush, burgundy banquettes lining the walls, and linen-topped tables set with large chargers. I'd like to see the chargers removed, as they barely fit on the small tables, stealing valuable table-top real estate. Incongruous with the formal table setting, there are paper napkins.

Seating is tight in the small room, so be sure to make a reservation, as McAndrews and his restaurant ventures already have a good reputation. And bring a bottle of wine and cash, because Monsú is byob and cash only.Nothing on the menu is over $20, but if you don't eat meat, your entree will be considerably less. Monsú is not a vegetarian haven, but there is at least one, if not more, vegetarian selections in each menu section.

Dinner is started with a basket of bread and a tasty, if not oily, classic Sicilian eggplant caponata. Not normally a pre-dinner bread eater, I had a slice just to try the caponata, then just ate the sweet and savory caponata straight out of the dish with a fork, oil be damned.

El Rey Happy Hour

We intended to hit up Steven Starr's Ranstead Room, the speakeasy-esque cocktail bar, immediately after work for pre-dinner drinks, but it turns out that Ranstead Room doesn't open until 7 p.m. Ranstead Room, apparently, is best for post-dinner drinks if you take your dinner early like I do.

That's cool, because we saved, like, a gazillion dollars by skipping Ranstead Room's pricey drinks when we settled for the happy hour at El Rey.

El Rey is Ranstead Room's adjoining Mexican restaurant that's been all Stephen Starr-bedazzled with colorful, kitchy paintings and posters. Yeah, Starr really lucked into the retro bones of the Midtown Diner that formerly occupied the space at 2013 Chestunut St. for this roadhouse Mexican-themed restaurant. The serpentine Formica-topped bar, and arched alcoves behind the bar could not have been improved on, and thank goodness Starr kept them.El Rey's "uno, dos, tres, quatro happy hour" runs Monday through Friday from 5 p.m to 6:30 p.m. Steak, chicken, fish, cheese, and veggie tacos are $1. Tecates are $2. Coronas are $3. House margaritas are $4.House margaritas are on par with most bars and restaurants. The salt crystals on the salted rim were unpleasantly boulder-sized.