hey everyone, today we’ve got a field report by my good friend kevin mudrick all about the newly opened vedge restaurant in philly. the upscale establishment is all vegan and offers the kind of fine dining that makes me wanna take a trip east just to eat there. for more kevin, check out vegan brew.

From the outside – a short block and a half from the walnut-locust subway stop. Didn’t really get any interior shots but the place is beautiful – lots of very nice wood on the walls, etc. The bar is magnificent and fancy-looking.

The menu. Lots of small plates so you get varying tastes. Between the two of us we got 1 from the dirt list (roasted sunchokes with smoked paprika aoil), 3 “plates” (grilled seitan, steak spice seared tofu, and the wood grilled maitake), 2 “for the table” (truffled fingerling fries and crispy cauliflower), and 2 desserts (trio of ice cream & choco taco)

The beer list is much improved over the old Horizons. Nice mix of local & belgian stuff – Rochefort 8 for instance is arguably one of the best belgian strong dark ales in the world! We chose to skip alcohol tonight as the Philly Marathon is this weekend. I didn’t take a picture of the “drinks” because I don’t really care about them.

Complimentary bread & spicy olive oil with a pesto. Good, though I wish the bread was warm.

Below is ruffled fingerling fries on top (good) and roasted cauliflower, kimchee cream, black vinegar on the bottom (phenomenal – one of the best appetizers I have ever had)…

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hey peeps, time for a field report from one of our favorite people! kevin from veganbrew.com brings us this awesome post regarding vegan thai food that doesn’t suck (a rarity to angelenos!) enjoy…

Living in South Philly for the past decade, I don’t know how I didn’t check out Circles sooner – even though several people I know have raved about it. It took a “Hey, wanna check out Circles tonight?” text from one of my friends yesterday to finally get over there.

Circles has been around for a few years for takeout & delivery, but only recently opened up a “dining” room restaurant extension. It’s not really an extension so much as another building across the street, where food gets shuffled back and forth over a small, slightly-larger-than-an-alley South Philly street. I love Thai food, but I’m always suspicious of places that are overly vegan-friendly – I hate playing a game of 20 questions (fish sauce? shrimp? oysters? etc) which has been my experience.

Circles clearly marks everything on their menu that is vegan, and most of the menu is able to be made vegan. Yay!

My friend and I started out with some appetizers:

Seitan Satay: Grilled thinly sliced marinated seitan served with peanut sauce and cucumber relish. ($6.95). Vegetable dumplings: Sauteed leeks with an Asian ginger seasoning and a vinaigrette soy sauce. ($5.95)

Seitan satay, which are yummy grilled thin strips of seitan on skewers served with a peanut sauce. Awesome! And Pan Fried Dumplings, which had a nice spicy kick to them.

Then we ordered two gigantic entrees as well:

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it’s that time again…for a vegan field report! this is the third one to come to us from kris of veganscraps, and she blogs about an entirely vegan bakery called sweet freedom located in the uncharted (by quarrygirl) territory of philadelphia. damn, it looks good! i have added this to my list of places to hit up when i finally make it to philly for an epic weekend of eating and drinking with vegan brew. check it:

Alas, I got to visit a bakery I’ve been wanting to for a while now! Sweet Freedom Bakery is located in the artsy city of Philadelphia and it is the city’s first bakery to bring a vegan healthy take on our favorite goodies! The items they offer are 100% Vegan as well as Gluten, Corn, Wheat, Peanut, and Soy free as well, while never using any Unrefined Sugars. Naturally I had to check it out while in Philly (it was my first stop from the train station!)…

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