- Still in New York.
- I'm hungry.
- I'm hungry too. Wait, wait for me.
- Look at the shape of that. Nice carrots.
- What is that?
- A big ol' squash. Garlic, yummy.
Flowers. Can't eat that.
Four kitties.
- Oh, pigeons.
- I'm not gonna lie, that's kind of a beautiful pigeon.
I want an apple.
You ready to eat an apple?
- Nice.
- So what are we doing eating these apples today?
- We're in the Big Apple.
(both laughing)
Vegan food. Today we are gonna be trying three vegan meals
at three drastically different price points
to find out which one is the most worth it at its price.
- Have you had much vegan food?
- I had a vegan burger. Tasting a strangely meaty,
but not meat burger, mmm.
From then I've been searching for good vegan food.
- I'm excited.
- You just ate the whole core?
You not gonna eat that, right?
(laughing)
- I'm Steven Appleseed. Today we're doing vegan meals.
(jazzy music)
- My name is Chef B
- I'm Aaron Beener, the son of Chef B.
And we're here at our restaurant Seasoned Vegan.
- Seasoned Vegan, the name.
- My dad actually came up with the name
and he is the inspiration for veganism in our household.
We were some really tough critics for my mom.
We really put the pressure on her to please our palates.
- It was trial and error. A garbage can tastes
a lot of my food during those days.
- It wasn't until she realized that she can keep her
same family recipes, but use plant based ingredients.
- My parents were both from Louisiana,
so I've incorporated that Louisiana flare to my food.
Basically the entire restaurant is my mom's recipes.
- What was the intention of opening here in Harlem?
- This is actually the first full service vegan restaurant
in the history of Harlem.
- We wanted to make a difference in the community.
We weren't trying to force anyone into being a vegan.
We just wanted people to know that there's another option.
- We're both voracious to eat here. And the po' boy,
what's going on with that dish?
- Well our shrimp are made, it's a yam base.
We make a batter made from tapioca starch,
and a vegan beer, and we fry it.
We take a baguette and we spread remoulade sauce on it.
We use a vegan based sour cream
and 32 seasonings in combination.
I wanted to duplicate that taste as much as I could.
Seems to be a hit cause everybody loves it.
- Look at that shrimp. That's yam?
- Yeah, somehow that's yam.
This is a smoothie they make called
- Powerful soul. Cheers.
- I've had a lot of green juices that just taste like
the lawnmower clippings.
This is so fruity, so delicious.
- No, this is no lawnmower. You get that half,
I'll get this half. Cheers.
(bread crunching) (jazzy music)
That's the texture and the flavor,
and like the meatiness of shrimp.
- It is a very satisfying whole bite experience.
- It tastes like one delicious flavor.
Is that better than shrimp?
- It's just a great sandwich.
- I try to live my life like this restaurant.
On the exterior you see, oh there's that handsome guy,
just a pretty face.
- What you're saying is you're just an imitation
of a handsome guy.
- No (laughing)
- So just like the yam shrimp, it looks like a delicious
shrimp, and even though it isn't, it's none the less.
- Exactly.
- Hey guys, I want you's to try one of our specialties.
This is a stuffed avocado.
- Oooh.
- Will you come have a bite with us?
- I most certainly will.
It's stuffed with almond meat, cashew cheese,
topped with pico de gallo, and a house dressing vinegarette.
Lean your head on mama's shoulder, it's okay.
- Thank you, oh my gosh.
I'm sorry, I just stole your mom. I'm sorry.
(chewing)
- That's really good.
- Thank you.
- Chef B. Tell me about the food.
- So good.
- So delightful, so delicious.
- Wait do you hear that?
- What?
Vegan fact.
- Vegan facts.
- In 2017 it was reported that six percent of Americans
are now claiming to be vegan.
Much higher than 2014 where it was one percent.
- Either the reporting was really bad,
or a lot of people have become vegan.
- That's a 600 percent increase.
What other things
- Have increased by 600 percent in the last three years?
- Yes.
- Um.
- My truffle intake.
- My cholestrol.
- My gold poops.
- The amount that I think about my own mortality.
- Oh, that's dark.
- What has increased 600 percent in your life?
- Let us know in the comments below.
Wipe that off.
- We're in the East Village.
We're on our way to our next vegan stop.
- It's called Avant Gard. En. Avant Garden.
- Solid vegan pun.
If I had a vegan or vegetarian restaurant
I would name it Vege-Tableaus.
Did that just tableau your mind?
(music)
- Welcome to Avant Garden,
my name is Anthony Mongeluzzi. I'm the executive chef.
- What is the motivation of this restaurant being vegan?
- Kill less animals, eat less meat.
The environment, make the world better.
We're not like a health restaurant or anything.
The main thing here is to make the food good.
All the plates are a little on the smaller side,
kind of like a tasting menu
so you get each course one by one.
I think it's much better. You can focus more
on the menu items.
The more you spread yourself out,
the less quality everything is.
- You got the Sicilian wine. I, however,
am going for the coconut.
Coconut brings me back to my days in Malaysia
where you just pop open a coconut and slurp away.
Like the monkeys do. Yes, there are monkeys outside
my grandpa's house. They're actually pretty annoying.
They're like raccoons.
- Like squirrels. I actually really like raccoons.
I think they're really cute.
- Cheers.
- I'll take wine over a coconut any day.
- No that is fresh.
- [Anthony] So the first thing you'll be having
is a sunchoke toast.
Just hit it with a little olive oil, toasted on the press,
you get sunchoke puree, fried sunchokes, pickled pears,
kalamata olive pistachio, and some mint.
A little saltiness, sweet, really rich and earthy.
- Cheers.
- You mean toast?
- Oh, nice.
(crunching)
- The combination of pistachios and the sunchoke
reminds me of Christmas, weirdly.
- It makes perfect sense, actually.
- This is truly titillating my appetite.
Can I say that without making you laugh?
- This is insanely good.
- [Anthony] Next we'll have the avocado salad.
We take sushi rice, we pan fry it.
Gets served with an avocado that's dressed
with a carrot ginger vinegarette, micro cilantro,
pickled ginger, and miso glaze.
- This looks so good. This is, ahh.
- I knew that you would be excited about this.
- That's rice down there.
- That is very good.
- You know the dance that babies do
when they eat something really good?
They just like close their eyes and like do this.
- I'm gonna have a little pepper.
- Why is the pepper so good?
- Ask the pepper.
- Why are you so good?
- Are you enjoying that Steven?
- [Anthony] Next is the hen of the woods mushroom.
Sauteed maitake mushrooms, white button mushroom puree,
pickled shimeji mushrooms, a little bit of kohlrabi
and scallion slaw.
- All right I have a confession to make.
I'm actually not the biggest fan of mushrooms.
- Really?
- I don't mind them, but I never choose mushrooms.
- It took me awhile to come around on mushrooms.
I loved the smell of mushrooms cooking.
I was like, oh it's mushrooms,
and then I ate the mushrooms and I was like,
oh yeah I do love mushrooms.
(upbeat music)
You like mushrooms now?
- A little bit more, yeah. A little bit more.
I think the thing that gets me
is just thinking about where they grow.
- Dark, damp places?
- Yeah.
- One of the things I love most about mushrooms
is just how gnarly and weird they look.
Like this alien creature that is also delicious
which is like win-win.
If aliens came to earth and we ate them,
would they be vegan?
- [Anthony] Final dish is the celery root.
We spiralize it to look like linguine,
and we make a mushroom stock out of
shiitake mushrooms, onions, garlic.
We make a liquid called suyu, and then we blend the two
together and it's the sauce for the pasta.
Crispy mushrooms on top, a little bit of lemon and garlic.
- Smell it.
- That's that mushroom smell that converted me to mushrooms.
- Mmm, wow.
- That's my favorite.
- It's insane.
- Never thought I'd be licking my fork
after a vegan dish like this.
- It's so creamy.
- Top gravies is my life.
I don't even know if they want me to call this gravy, but.
- Oh it's gravy.
- It's all gravy.
(laughing)
- [Andrew] Come on, pop that in your mouth.
We haven't got all day.
I got a little game for you. Top three favorite vegetables.
Starting with your third favorite. Beets.
- Onion.
Beets?
- Yeah. Of all the vegetables, they bleed the most.
- That's good, yeah.
- Two. Let me think about it.
Eggplant
- Kangkong.
- Whoa.
- I don't know what this vegetable is.
I could take you to a Malaysian restaurant
and you could try some.
- I would love that. Favorite vegetable on three.
One, two, three.
- Eggplant.
- Cucumber. Pickles. That's all I gotta say.
- Adam, my friend, we're going to a special place next.
We're going to abcV.
They may not know how to do the alphabet there,
but they do know how to make good vegan food.
(light plucking string music)
- My name is Neal Harden. I'm the chef de cuisine of abcV.
The whole focus of the restaurant is the fact that
we're two blocks away from the Union Square Greenmarket.
I think you really have to start with
the best ingredients, the finest sourcing.
- Can you tell me about what abcV is trying to accomplish
from an overall theme?
- Aesthetically there's kind of a mix of like
clean, white, fresh, beautiful look.
We're inside of ABC Home & Carpet,
which is a home goods store.
They design our interior, so it's a collaboration there.
With the food we're trying to do the same thing.
Clean and fresh and bright, but with a lot of texture
and a lot of secret surprises.
(classical music)
- You know what I realized today?
- What's that?
- I don't know much, if anything about vegetables.
It's like Pokemon when you just gotta bring new things
and you're adding them to your Pokedex.
So this is my Pokedex today, the menu.
- [Neal] The first thing I'm gonna start you guys with
is our hummus. We start with green chickpeas
instead of the dried brown ones.
Some lemon juice, olive oil, and we serve it with
sourdough buckwheat pita, and some fresh crudites
based on seasonal produce.
- [Andrew] Oh man.
- [Steven] Ooh.
- This is the best hummus.
- Crudite.
- You got a potato chip. How about a radish chip?
- Nice.
- This is almost like something from Avatar.
It's like a juicy, cold chip.
- Cheers.
This is the ripest pear.
- Can I try yours?
- Yeah. Ohh.
- Oh, I'm keeping this.
- [Neal] So our beet salad is all the different color
beets we get from the market.
We smash them and then we have a lot of flavors
that are sort of inspired by tartar.
Fermented chili mayonnaise, Dijon mustard,
capers and cornichons. Chives and shallots.
- This looks like a delicious slice of raw beef.
- Beets.
- If they're a vegetable, beets.
- Aw, shoot.
- This is gonna be crazy. It almost takes like
an In-N-Out burger, if In-N-Out burgers grew in the ground.
- [Neal] We have a dish of grilled donko shiitake,
which is a really nice grade of shiitake.
Really fat and plump. They're grown in the woods
so they have a lot deeper flavor.
- I've seen shiitake mushroom before,
but not as plump as this.
- It is like a cute little child,
you just want to pinch its cheeks.
- Aw, man.
- I feel like I'm in this forest made of candy
and there's all this delicious stuff
that I could grab off the earth.
I'm a little worried that there's an evil witch
about to murder me, stuff me in her oven
because this is too good to be true.
- [Neal] A warm salad of thinly shaved
crimini mushrooms, chanterelle mushroom,
and a cipollini onion, and a little bit of
aged soy sauce with black truffle juice.
- We just went deeper into the woods.
- And it's night time. The sun has set
and the world has come alive.
Yo, this crimini though, it's a crime
that something could be so delicious. It's so meaty.
- I love that every texture is here.
One of the biggest complaints about mushrooms
is that they're this mushy, icky things.
But here is a little mushroom chip.
(crunching)
- [Neal] Our carrots come atop a seed and nut butter
that we grind in house. Have all kinds of different seeds.
Poppy seeds, chia seeds, pecans and almonds
and macadamia nuts.
- Suddenly the forest clears for a spring meadow.
- Let me grab a carrot. Oh look at the earth below.
- It is kinda like pulling a carrot out of the mud.
- Yeah.
Whoa.
- This is what's so pleasing about this;
tasting things in a combination that I've never had before.
- We're so used to making the meat the star of the dish.
This is the star. When you're coaching basketball
you throw in the guy at the end of the bench.
- Turns out he's the star.
- He's the star.
- [Neal] Cauliflower, whole roasted in the wood fired oven.
The roasting really gives it a variance of texture.
There's like a smoky meatiness to it
from the wood fired oven.
You have a tahini sauce made with fresh turmeric.
That's really a centerpiece.
- [Andrew] Let me do the honors.
- [Steven] I've been waiting for this one.
- Can I sauce you?
- Oh, look at the sauce.
- Oh my God.
- I was a little scared that the outside would taste burnt,
but burnt cauliflower just tastes like a crust.
- It's incredible how many different textures
of cauliflower you have here.
Whenever I think of like what I want for dinner
I never think of the vegetable component first.
That is gonna change for me.
I don't know where I'm gonna go to get this stuff again.
- You wanna open a farm together?
- Sure.
(restaurant patrons chatting)
- Back in Union Square Park. The Greenmarket has closed
and so has a tale of two hungry boys.
- And their cameraman.
- Now with three full boys, who was your worth it winner?
- Avant Garden for me. I came into it never thinking
I would order a mushroom dish, but I'm gonna start
ordering mushroom dishes.
- Hey maybe you'll even turn into a fungi yourself.
- I'm going Seasoned Vegan.
Seasoned Vegan. Comfort and vegan come together.
Those magical feelings just warmed my heart.
- I think my worth it winner is abcV, not only because
it was super delicious, but also because I got to try
awesome new combinations of vegetables
that I've never had before.
What kind of price can you put on that?
Hey Adam, what's your worth it winner?
Adam picks abcV.
- Bye. We're gonna go open our farm now.
What should our farm name be?
Pigs only.
- Oh yes.