Bravo! Café and Bakery: Veggie Fish, Orange "Chicken", and Fried Tofu in Brown Sauce

More pictures of food from Bravo! Café and Bakery, as I posted a few days ago.

Again, and as almost every time, I ordered the Veggie Fish with Broccoli:



This time around, I opted for the Orange "Chicken" instead of Sesame:



And finally, some Fried Tofu in Brown Sauce:




I'm sure there will be more Bravo! in the future.

Mushroom Bites with Buffalo Sauce

Okay, so I wound up making this because I wanted a snack that I could dip into some buffalo sauce. These are frozen mushroom bites from Alexia Foods, aka an expensive frozen treat I buy every now and then. Buffalo sauce was made from Frank's Red Hot and melted Earth Balance.

Chiang Mai Thai: Laab Salad with Mock Duck

This is probably my favorite dish in the Twin Cities. It's from a restaurant called Chiang Mai Thai, and stands as one of the very few, if only, Thai restaurants I trust 100% to understand that vegan means no fish sauce or oyster sauce.

This "salad" is made here with mock duck, roasted rice powder, bell pepepers, lime juice, cilantro, scallions, onions, and some other spices/seasonings. It's served with 1/4 of a head of iceburg lettuce, 2-4 large slices of cucumbers, and 2-4 tomato wedges. Recently, they started serving it with fresh mint as well, which makes it even better. It's also served with a side of sticky rice. The idea is to make your own little lettuce cups. I also usuually get a spice level of 2 or 3 out of 4 because I like it spicy. I'm sure I'll have more pictures of this in the actual restaurant, maybe with an appetizer, too.

So freaking TASTY. They have some other dishes at Chiang which are decent, but it is really hard for me to ever order anything other than the Laab. Let's take another look:

Veggie Dogs in a Flour Tortilla with Rice Cheese

This dish was actually by the fiancé and not me, but I had to take a photo of it. It was pretty tasty because not only are the dogs in a tortilla, but the tortilla was in the toaster oven after it had been wrapped around the dogs. It ahd the crispy floury texture of a grilled burrito. Good stuff. Also included: a slice of Galaxy Foods Vegan Rice Cheese.

Tomatoes, Mushrooms, and Onions

This was a really simple but satisfying dish. I sliced a bunch of mushrooms, I think I used baby bellas here. I cut wedges of onions and tomatoes, and threw it all in a pan until done to my liking. I also added a generous shake of my favorite seasoning which just found it's way back on my counter:

B&T: "Bacon" and Tomato Sammy

Simple sandwich: Smart Bacon with sliced tomatoes and vegenaise on toast. I did not have any lettuce or greenery to put on the sandwich.

secret to Smart Bacon: CRISPY. Otherwise, it tastes like crap. And it's not like bacon at all, just adds that salty smoky flavor that bacon can add to stuff like this.

Bravo! Café and Bakery: Tofu with Szechuan Sauce; Sesame "Chicken," Veggie Fish with Broccoli

There is a tiny little bakery near me called Bravo! Café and Bakery which is so cute and it serves all-vegetarian Asian food, and most of the dishes are also vegan. They even sell vegan cakes by the slice or special request. They have been expanding because they now serve veggie dumplings, and offer brown rice for an extra .50; the meals are only $5 and you get a LOT. Here are 3 dishes we recently got for takeout:

Silken Tofu with Sczechuan Sauce and TVP pieces:



This dish is pretty good, but only if I'm in the mood for it. Fresh tofu is usually a turn off, and in this particular instance alex ordered the Fried Tofu in Brown Sauce but they gave us this and we didn't realize this until we got home. Ah well.

Sesame "Chicken" with veggies and brown rice:



This is also fairly tasty. Little deep fried pieces of vegetarian "chicken" in a sweet and sour style sauce and covered in sesame seeds. Served with brown rice and veggies.

Finally, we have my favorite (and blurry, sorry) Veggie Fish and Broccoli in Brown Sauce:



OMG. I think that they make the "fish" from scratch. It's like a chewy tofu, but different. The taste is actually somewhat "fishy", and they even have a "skin" on it made of nori or something. Soooooooooooo good. Love love love it.

That's all from Bravo! but I'm sure I'll have more soon.

Ginger-Orange Baked Tofu with Garlic Greens and Squash

This was one of the best dishes EVER.

Total credit for the marinade to The Post Punk Kitchen, though I did tweak it a bit.

* note: since The Post Punk Kitchen changed layouts, all the old recipes are not available (yet). I'll update the link when the changes occur.

(My Changes are in Bold)

Equipment:
9 x 13 baking dish
bowl

Ingredients
1 pound extra firm tofu, drained and pressed

Marinade
2 tablespoons grated ginger
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons finely grated orange zest
1/4 cup orange juice (fresh is preferred, you can use the juice of the orange that you zest)
1/4 cup dry white wine I Used Champagne Instead
1/4 cup pure maple syrup I Used Agave Nectar Instead
4 teaspoons soy sauce
2 teaspoons veg oil


Directions
Preheat oven to 375 F.

Combine all ingredient for the marinade in a small bowl and wisk vigorously.

Cut the tofu into 8 slice crosswise. Pour 1/2 marinade into the baking dish and dredge tofu slices. Pour the other half of marinade over the tofu. Let sit 10 minutes.

Cover baking dish with aluminum foil. Bake for 20 minutes. Remove from over and flip pieces over. Cook 15 more minutes uncovered. To give the tofu more chewiness, place in the broiler for 2 minutes on each side.
My baking was a bit screwy because I used a ceramic cooking pan, so it took a little longer. I ended up baking until the marinade was very thick and became more of a glaze.

For the Greens:
I cleaned a lot of collards, then chopped them up to smaller bite size. (Take out the hard center part.)

I crushed 2-3 cloves of garlic and 2-3 shakes of red pepper flakes in a pan with 1T of olive oil, then put the greens in until just wilted.

For the Squash:

I had a nice winter squash, which I sliced in half, then spooned out the seeds. I placed both halves face down in a glass casserole pan which I put some water in (1/2 inch?) and covered the top with foil. I baked for 20 minutes until tender, scraped out the flesh and served with vegan butter.

Ok, this was AWESOME. The sweetness of the squash and the tofu balanced really well with the bitter garlicky greens. Awesome. Tasty as hell.

Photo 2:

Crispy Buffalo Tofu Triangles

Wow. This was a fun experiement, and one I am doing again!

What You Need:

1 water packed container (12-18 oz) tofu, extra firm
1/2 of a small box of Shake and Bake Extra Crispy (or seasoned breadcrumbs)
1 bottle of Frank's Red Hot
Lots of Earth Balance Vegan Butter

Ok. I should say that in addition to the 18 oz container of tofu, we used a frozen block of tofu as well (I think it was 12 oz) which we thawed and drained. This was just to compare the two textures to see what worked best. We both agreed that the frozen was too tough when cooked side by side with the fresh stuff. Perhaps it would work better to cook the frozen tofu separately. It was still edible, but it was just too chewy for my preference.

1. drain your tofu, cut into triangles.

2. Make the buffalo sauce. I used the recipe off the Frank's Red Hot bottle which was something like one cup of Red Hot to 3/4 cup melted butter.

3. Put the tofu triangles in a bowl and pour the buffalo sauce over them. Allow for some good marinating time. I was too impatient and only waited 15 minutes or so.

4. Pour Shake n Bake on a plate and coat tofu piece by piece. (NOTE: next tiem, I will try to actually shake the tofu in a bag, but I was afraid that it might fall apart.)

5. Place breaded tofu on sheetpan which is covered in foil. Preheat oven (I think I did 325 F? I made this a while ago and I just followed the directions on the Shake-N-Bake box.)

6. Bake tofu. This took longer than I wanted it to, maybe close to 40 minutes? It took a while, but the breading eventually stuck on the tofu and really became a nice crispy coating.

7. Make dipping sides: I just used more buffalo sauce and some chipotle BBQ sauce.

8. EAT.


This was super addictive and I'm excited to try it again. We made WAY TOO MUCH with two big containers of tofu, but it was still great.

Another photo, sorry for the gross lighting: