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Gracias Madre

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Will and I had our first experience with Gracias Madre in San Francisco.  At peak dining time, the restaurant was packed and we had to wait fifteen minutes for a table in the chilly outside patio.  When he read that the restaurant opened a location in Los Angeles a few months after, we decided to make the trek out of suburbia to West Hollywood and give it a try.

A pomelo margarita and a pineapple and guava agua fresca. Both were good.

The decor of the West Hollywood location is straight out of a Pinterest design board. Large windows let in plenty of light while white tiled tables give the place a vaguely ethnic flair.  Hanging air plants, rustic light fixtures, and a large outdoor seating area to enjoy the sunshine make the restaurant a welcoming place, despite the line of beautiful, fashionable people in designer sunglasses waiting for seating.

Gracias Madre is a completely vegan restaurant serving Mexican food.  There’s not a lot of these in LA, so it there was a novelty factor in our coming here.

We shared a very good cauliflower appetizer.  Florets of cauliflower were seasoned with cumin and other spices and then deep fried, not to golden perfection, but close enough.  Dipped in their table-side red salsa, it was a promising start to the meal.

I ordered the entree tamal, which had some sort of squash stuffing and came with a side of black beans. The tamal was decent and the squash wasn’t overly sweet like I was fearing.  The accompanying pickled vegetables were in a bad place between unrefined and rustic.  The sad spoonful of pico de gallo looked and tasted out of place. The beans were quite good smeared on a bite of tamal.  This dish was okay, but for $13, I wanted more than ‘okay.’ I know that the price of the dish reflects the localness of the ingredients, paying the servers, rent, etc. but I do wish it were more exciting than “one tamale and a side of beans.”

Will had the chilaquiles, which weren’t bad.  They weren’t the best chilaquiles I’ve had, and not even the best vegan version I’ve had.  They also came with a side of those tasty black beans.

For dessert, I had a rich, custardy house-made flan. Impressive for a vegan dessert. It tasted more of vanilla than caramel and best of all, didn’t taste vegan.  Will had an apple cobbler with house-made vanilla ice-cream that was large enough to share.  I’m usually not that excited by apple desserts, but even I have to admit this one was good. Just the right amount of spice, tartness, and restrained sweetness.

When Will went outside after the meal, some passerby’s asked him if the food was good. He said something along the lines of  “The food is good if you’re vegan and you want Mexican-type food and you don’t mind paying a lot for it.”

Gracias Madre
8905 Melrose Ave
West Hollywood, CA 90069
(323) 978-2170

Vegan/Vegetarian Version of Lemonade’s Chicken Basque

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vegan_basque_stew
I had Lemonade’s chicken basque for the first time a few weeks ago and thought it was tasty.  My fears of dry chunks of chicken were blown away by how tender and flavorful the stew was.  Putting olives in a stew? Brilliant!  Of course, as soon as I downed the bowl, I thought, “Hey, I bet I can make a pretty decent vegan rendition of this.”

I went online and looked up the recipe for the original dish and knocked out all of the non-vegetarian ingredients. I wanted something to take the place of the chunks of chicken. Cauliflower was out because while I love the brassica, I was afraid the stew would taste like sulfur. Faux meat was out because I don’t really like using it if I can avoid it. Tofu was out because I couldn’t picture it in the stew. Jackfruit? Maybe.

My ingredient list ended up being (in case you can’t read my handwriting):

  • green olives
  • purple olives
  • chickpeas (for protein)
  • fresh thyme
  • 4 roma tomatoes
  • flat leaf parsley
  • artichoke hearts (I used canned)
  • green jackfruit (Optional! comes in cans from the Asian market)
  • onion
  • smoked paprika
  • red bell pepper
  • a quarter of a preserved lemon
  • a dab of tomato paste
  • fancy olive oil to finish
  • vegetable stock
  • 2 cloves garlic

Dice the onion and bell pepper and sautee it in the pan for a few minutes. When they’re soft, add in a dab of tomato paste, a healthy sprinkle of smoked paprika and stir. You want the paste to take on some color.  Add in a large sprig of thyme. I leave the leaves on the sprig so it’s easy to fish out whole later.  Seed and chop the tomatoes and put them in the pot. Generously salt and give it a stir. While all that is cooking, pit and roughly chop the olives. You don’t want to chop the olives up too much. I’d leave it so that the olives are only quartered.  Add those and them pour in 1 part stock and 1 part water.

While the stock is coming to a boil, rinse the artichoke and jackfruit pieces. Halve the hearts and hand shred the jackfruit pieces. Add them to the pot.  Rinse the canned chickpeas and add that into the stock too.  At this point, cover the pot and let it simmer on low for an hour. Conversely, you can do I what I did and cook it all in the pressure cooker under low pressure for 10 minutes.

In the meantime, chop up a bunch of parsley and the quarter of the preserved lemon.  I didn’t add the lemon into the stock because I wanted it to still taste fresh and I find that cooking preserved lemon makes it a little bitter.  When the soup is done, turn off the heat. Stir in the in the parsley and lemon and a good glug of the olive oil. Salt and pepper to taste.

I served this over plain cooked bulgur wheat, but I imagine it’d be good over any type of nutty starch — farro, brown rice, quinoa even.

In hindsight, I could have left the jackfruit out. I wanted something that had the texture of shredded chicken, but the jackfruit ended up having the same texture as the artichoke hearts.  I could have just left it out and used chickpeas for protein, but I didn’t want the soup to be too ‘beany’ in texture.

Savory Vegetable Tart

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Vegetable pastry with cauliflower, tomatoes, onions, and olives.

Inspired by a delicious vegetable tart I had at Proof a few weeks ago, I made my own version.  I’m not too good in the pastry department, other than baking bread, so I used frozen puff pastry from the store, which turned out great.

Ingredients:

  • frozen puff pastry
  • 1 onion
  • 1 head cauliflower
  • a handful of ripe tomatoes
  • a handful of kalamata olives
  • thyme
  • garlic
  • olive oil, salt, and pepper

Steps for savory vegetable tart:

  1. Set frozen puff pastry out to thaw and preheat oven
  2. Slice the onions and brown them on the stove
  3. While the onions are browning, wash and chop the rest of the vegetables into bite-sized pieces.
  4. Sautee the cauliflower with some garlic and thyme. Salt and pepper to taste.
  5. Roll out the puff pastry and pre-bake for about 5 minutes.
  6. While it’s pre-baking, pit and chop the olives.
  7. Take puff pastry out of the oven and spread the browned onions on top. Then the tomatoes and then the cauliflower. Sprinkle on the chopped olives.
  8. Drizzle a little olive oil onto the tart and pop it back into the oven to bake until golden.