Franchia Kimbap
By Reed Mangels, PhD, RD
Franchia Vegan Café’s web site says, “It’s a stunning and distinctive area for a calming eating expertise.” It lives as much as this description with its conventional Korean décor, attentive service, and scrumptious meals. The menu is described as “Asian fusion” and whereas it contains many Korean dishes, it additionally has dishes from Thailand, Japan, China, and Malaysia.
We had been there on a Saturday afternoon and ordered from the dinner menu. There may be additionally a lunch menu (served noon-2:59 pm Monday by means of Friday), a prix fixe lunch menu, and a prix fixe dinner menu. We began our meal with Franchia Kimbap. This can be a seaweed roll, harking back to sushi, however described as a Korean seaweed rice roll. Our roll was stuffed with brown rice, spinach, tofu, carrots, yellow radish, and gosari. Gosari is an edible fern which is dried and rehydrated. It has a meaty texture. The roll got here in 10 beneficiant slices and was served with soy sauce, pickled ginger, and wasabi paste. This and a salad could be a superb lunch for one individual.
Basic Bibimbap
For entrées, we shared Basic Bibimbap and a Scorching Bulgogi Plate. The Bibimbap was a bowl of rice topped with fantastically ready greens – spinach, carrots, sprouts, mushrooms, shredded zucchini, hijiki, and gosari. You possibly can select one among three sauces – spicy chili, bean paste, or ginger soy. Our server instructed us to combine the greens and rice and add the sauce. It was easy and flavorful. The Bulgogi plate was served on a scorching sizzling metallic plate and included shiitake mushrooms, asparagus, broccoli, onions, and “beef” in a savory sauce. Our entrées had been served with a small bowl of candy pickled cabbage.
Scorching Bulgogi Plate
Different dishes on the dinner menu that sound particularly intriguing embody Pumpkin Porridge, Spicy Kimchi Dumplings, Katsu Curry Udon, Soondubu Jiigae (Korean gentle tofu stew with greens), Korean Candy and Bitter Mushrooms, Ticokbokki (rice truffles and greens stir-fried in spicy gochujang sauce), and Tempura Udon with fried “shrimp” and greens. There may be an intensive sushi choice. The lunch menu options most of the identical dishes because the dinner menu but in addition contains a number of sorts of ramen.
We didn’t order desserts or drinks however famous a number of attention-grabbing desserts together with Black Sesame Pie and Fried Taro and Candy Potato Rice Balls, in addition to vegan ice lotions and gluten-free truffles. Drinks embody vegan natural wines, beer, sake, signature cocktails, an intensive checklist of teas, soda, and glowing water.
Franchia is positioned at 12 Park Avenue (between 34th and 35th Avenue) in New York.
To discover a checklist of veggie eating places within the USA and Canada go to: https://www.vrg.org/restaurant/index.php
