Agedashi Tofu from Sakura [Vegan Mofo]

It's Day #3 ofVegan MoFo!

Today, I bring you an awesome dish: agedashi tofu. These particular photos are from Sakura Restaurant in St. Paul, but agedashi tofu is a popular appetizer at many/most Japanese restaurants. In my opinion, Sakura has the best agedashi tofu in town.

Perfectly crispy tofu with soft, creamy insides, topped with scallions as well as shredded ginger and daikon radish.

It's important to note that I order this appetizer with no dashi (fish broth) and no bonito flakes (fish flakes).

Another photo:

Vegan Pho With Tofu and Garnishes

Pho is a Vietnamese noodle soup consisting of a very flavorful broth usually made from beef. Thanks to a generous co-worker who provided me with a recipe and some ingredients, I made a vegan version.

A quick note: I didn't have a lot of whole spices, so I subbed ground. I would not necessarily recommend this but it still worked out great.

Recipe: Reposted from Food.com, with some changes in directions by me as well as substitutes in bold and italics
BROTH
1 small unpeeled onion, quartered -- I used an onion that was about 91g
2 unpeeled shallots, halved
8 garlic cloves, halved -- I peeled these even though the recipe didn't specify
Ginger, coarsely sliced -- I wound up using about 1/8 of ground ginger because I did not have fresh ginger. I would recommend 1 inch of fresh ginger.
2 [3 inch] cinnamon sticks -- Again, I only had ground, so I used 1t ground cinnamon
2 star anise pods -- I subbed 1t ground star anise
4 cloves -- I subbed 1t ground cloves
8c clear veg stock
3T Soy Sauce
salt, to taste

SOUP:
1lb Rice Noodles
8oz fried tofu or cooked seitan
6 scallions, thinly sliced
1.5c bean sprouts
1 lime, sliced into wedges
basil or mint or cilantro (or all of them); a big handful left whole
hoisin sauce, to taste
sriracha chili sauce, to taste

1. In a large pot, heat to medium-high heat and dry roast onion, shallots, garlic, ginger, cinnamon, star anise, and cloves. Stir occasionally until vegetables begin to char. I would recommend leaving the spices out until the vegetables start to char and then adding the spices in. I burned a few spices before the vegetables could char, but the broth still tasted great in the end. Prep the other vegetables/garnishes during this time as well.

2. Add the veg stock and soy sauce, bring to boil. Then lower heat to simmer, cover for 20-25 minutes. Start another pot boiling to cook the rice noodles.

3. Strain broth into a clean pot and discard the solids. Taste and add salt if necessary, set aside. Check noodles and drain them, rinsing thoroughly. Make a plate for the garnishes. I set mine up into little bowls for some items and larger items just on a plate, like bean noodles and chopped bok choy.

4. Put noodles into bowls; ladle the broth over the noodles. Garnish as you see fit. Enjoy.

The broth is the key along with a bunch of garnishes to really punch up the flavors. Fresh herbs and bean sprouts along with lime juice and soy sauce makes for a fantastic meal. I also added some fried tofu, but mock duck or other faux meats would work great as well.

Above is a photo of my garnish plate: bean sprouts, sliced jalapenos, cilantro, scallions, basil, and chopped bok choy are the ones I had around.

Below is my soup bowl, fixed up with everything. Rice noodles [I used larger flat rice noodles rather than the vermicelli style I usually get] with the broth ladled over it and then I topped mine with sautéed mushrooms, fried tofu, and all of the fixin's from the garnish plate along with some lime juice and shoyu.

Chin Chin Café - NYNY Casino in Las Vegas, NV

The Chin Chin Café is located inside the NYNY Casino and offers a very thorough menu which describes how any of the dishes can have soft or fried tofu in place of meat. They have a special vegetarian brown sauce and everything is made to order. Our waitress was excellent at investigating ingredients for certain sauces to make sure everything we ordered was fish and oyster sauce free.

Pictured above: fried veggie potstickers served with garlic soy sauce and chili sauce rather. We requested a special sauce since the usual sauce had fish or oyster sauce in it. Whew. Sorry to overuse the word "sauce."

First up, Peanut Noodles with fried tofu. The waitress told us all of the ingredients of the peanut sauce and it was very basic: peanut butter, soy sauce, chili sauce, oil, and one or two other things I can't remember but were definitely vegan.



A close up showing some of the tofu under the noodles:



Next, the Kung Pao dish with fried tofu. They altered the sauce a bit as the original has chicken broth or something in it. This dish features a TON of red bell peppers, peanuts and water chestnuts. Awesome.



Another photo, on my plate:



Chin Chin's is probably my favorite restaurant to eat at inside the casinos on the strip. Very accommodating and very tasty.

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: