Philly Food Diary

Happy Sunday wanderers!

Recently I went to Philly to visit a dear friend of mine. The trip had a couple of complications including my flight from Florida being delayed two days due to a winter storm and mislabeled luggage that wasn't located and recovered until I returned home to Cape Cod. However, a delayed flight only meant two more days in sunny Florida and I wasn't missing my summer clothing from my Caribbean adventure while in Philadelphia, I was going to have to borrow Taylor's clothes for the trip in the first place. All was well and positive. 

And let me tell you Philly has some frickin amazing vegan food! Ever since discovering a couple of months back that multiple restaurants offer vegan Philly cheesesteaks I have been dreaming of it and I finally made it to Philly to try their vegan fare. As my excitement for a vegan Philly cheesesteak was unparalleled I will include that first....

Wiz Kid

Although there are many different restaurants where you can get a vegan Philly cheesesteak I'm glad that I chose Wiz Kid. The Whole vibe of the place was very cool and hip. The workers were very friendly, service was fast and the food was nothing short of amazing. I knew on my hunt for a vegan Philly cheesesteak that the steak substitute at most places would probably be seitan. If you are not familiar with seitan it is a meat substitute made from vital wheat gluten. Although I usually love the taste, sometimes the texture can be overly chewy and kind of a turn off. However, the way they served it at Wiz Kid was absolutely perfect! It was very thin and shredded, eliminating the overly chewiness and they also include mushrooms which gives it that extra hit of flavor.

Wiz Kid interior.

Wiz Kid Menu.

The spread Taylor and I shared. I may or may not have needed to order an extra side of that killer cheese sauce...

Wiz fries: Highly reccomend! This is the best vegan cheese sauce I have ever tried.

WK Philly: Okay I did order a side of extra cheese sauce and pour it all over this. Amazing!

Rueben Steak: I must admit this was even better than the WK Philly. The extra fixings (smoked provalone cheese, pickles, spicy thousand island and tomatoes) really gave the sandwich the extra punch it needed. For me it was more reminiscent of cheesesteaks I've had pre veganism than the more plain WK Philly sandwich.

Me living my best life honestly.

Dottie's Donuts

On our hunt for Blackbird Pizzeria, which happened to be under construction we stumbled upon Dottie's Donuts and of course we had to get some. The exterior and interior was absolutely adorable. They rivaled PVD Donuts with their donut inspired art and imaginative donut flavors. I mean have you ever seen a Thai tea donut? Unlike PVD they only have cake donuts and no brioche (at least when I went) but I quite liked both donuts I tried. The worker was very sweet and even helped us with some vegan restaurant recommendations. I kind of regret not asking for his number honestly (tmi?) Hi if your reading this haha anways Dottie's Donuts was great...

Me living my best life again, thank you to Taylor who put up with taking pictures of me all weekend long.

Strawberry donut & chocolate pistachio donut. Both were amazing but chocolate pistachio takes the cake.

Charlie Was a Sinner

Our third and final vegan venture was Charlie Was a Sinner. This place was definitely the most upscale of all. The bar had very innovative and to be quite honest boujee cocktails. But lets be honest who doesn't love a boujee cocktail. This is one of those places that you just wouldn't know was completely vegan upon entering of even after reading the menu, but yes it is all vegan! Funnily enough one of Taylor's coworkers was actually convinced that this place wasn't vegan because she got meatballs here that were apparently very convincing to even omnivores. This is one of the places that really makes you take a step back and appreciate how far plant-based cuisine has come. The menu was small plate style which I like because you can order and try multiple things and everyone can share. I apologize for the flashback on some of the photos but this restaurant is very dimly lit. Perfect for ambiance and not so nice for food blogging but hey what can you do.

Taylor & the boujee cocktails.

Eggplant bao buns! These were supper tasty, you can hardly even tell there is eggplant at all, I would get these again. 

Pine nut ricotta with sourdough. This is one thing I saw on many tables that made me stop and question wait is this place really vegan? But yes yes it is. This was very interesting and nothing like I've ever tried before. I don't know what regular ricotta tastes like so I can't make a proper comparison but I think the texture must have been pretty spot on! The taste had a bit of a lemony undertone. It was great on sourdough but I couldn't help thinking it would be amazing on a scone. 

Cauliflower steak. Honestly would not get this again. It is exactly as it was described on the menu but for some reason I was expecting something more exciting. I understand cauliflower buffalo wings and the like but why are we trying to market a hunk of cauliflower as a steak? C'mon vegans! Don't get me wrong it was very good but what it was was cauliflower rice and a tasty cream sauce. You could make it yourself & there are more exciting things to try on this menu.

Potato gnocchi with butternut squash fondue, crispy brussel sprouts, sage and brown butter. Simply amazing. Would reccomend this over everything else I got here. The texture wasn't what I am used to for gnocchi, but somehow better. There was just a little bit of crispiness to the outside. View their full menu here.

Overall I have nothing but good things to say about the vegan food scene in Philly. Walking around it almost seemed like vegan restaurants outnumbered "normal" ones or atleast heavily rivaled them. I already can't wait to come back to try Blackbird Pizzeria and Vedge. As always when traveling I used the app Happy Cow to discover vegan restaurants. I hope everyone enjoyed this mouthwatering read. Let me know in the comments what you want to try the most!

Wander often & wonder always,