TRUEBEN: Papa G's Vegan Organic Deli

Papa G's opened several months ago, a few blocks east of Seven Corners. I lived nearby at the time, had just begun this blog, and was very excited about a new vegan dining option as well as the potential for a new reuben. It's a deli, right? And a reuben is a traditional deli standby.

I investigated Papa G's immediately after it finally opened, with somewhat sparse offerings, and sadly dismissed it as an unlikely reuben source. The centerpiece seemed to be their salad bar and hot, by the pound options like mashed potatoes and gravy and quinoa pilaf. Little besides their signature chewy, seasoned tofus graced the refrigerated deli case. I've returned a few times since, enjoying many of their offerings, but feeling a little bittersweet -- if only there were a reuben!

Since then, Papa G's has come into its own, expanding their offerings and instituting specials that make their per-pound options more attractive. A few weeks ago I was there enjoying the bowl special and a root beer float I'd made by combining a few scoops of their Temptation soy cream and a Virgil's root beer, when the word "reuben," like an ethereal whisper snagged my ear. I looked over to the deli case, where some employees were chatting, and was surprised to see that for who knows how long, Papa G's has indeed sold tempeh reubens. The plastic-wrapped sandwiches, almost indistinguishable from the tempeh burgers they rest beside, sit in the long, lower refrigerated case to the right of the hot offerings and cash register, above a variety of chilled salads and desserts I'd never paid much attention to.

B. and I opted to split one, supplementing our lunch with a few other dishes, and finding a seat at one of Papa G's outdoor tables.



Here it is after being unwrapped and warmed up. (Papa G's is sort of cafeteria style, you grab your own silverware and bus your own table, but the cashier/server was kind enough to bring it out to us after warming, which he recommended.)

It's sort of an unassuming sandwich, obviously not on rye but on some sort of savory bun that was a bit crispy around the edges and contained flecks of vegetable or seasoning, but of what my tastebuds couldn't detect. I took a closer look at the insides.



That appears to be a baby dill pickle sliced length-wise and a smattering of their house-made dill sauerkraut. Slicing it in half revealed a more interesting sandwich. The tempeh patty, which I assume is found on their tempeh burger as well, appeared to have seasonings mixed in. The tempeh was cushioned by a creamy layer of dressing. In fact, biting into it, my first thought was, "Wow, this is cheesy and creamy-tasting." If I didn't know Papa G's was 100% vegan, I might have been suspicious. The dressing softened the bun and I actually enjoyed the texture. B. wasn't positive warming up the sandwich had been a good idea, and wished we could compare.

As I expected, I was disappointed by the tiny amount of kraut. Is there a cabbage shortage in this town I'm not aware of? I didn't mind the pickles, but B. thought they were a strange touch. We both noticed a cheesy flavor, at first I thought it was the bread, B. thought maybe it was the tempeh itself, but I'm thinking it was probably the sauce, or a hard-to-see layer of cheesy spread next to the sauce.

I think B. was disappointed by this sandwich, not because it wasn't tasty, but because it didn't seem much like a reuben. The sauce lacked something "reubeny," obviously the bread wasn't rye, and there wasn't much kraut at all. Though I enjoyed the sandwich, I had to agree. It basically seemed like they took a tempeh burger and put some kraut, and maybe a different sauce, on it. I did like that creamy, cheesy taste, even though it wasn't really even reminiscent of a reuben.



I think B. was leaning even lower, but I give this sandwich a 3 out of 5. It's a TRUEBEN, it has some unique flavors and textures going on, everything is made on the premises, and hey, I thought it tasted good. It might be better with more kraut, a tangier sauce maybe in addition to whatever was making it cheesy, and the pickle on the side. All in all, I'm still glad Papa G's delivered on my expectations -- grab one sometime if you are passing through SE and need some quick wholesome vegan grub to go.

Papa G's Vegan Organic Deli
23rd and SE Division

$5.99 gets you a little burger-like tempeh reuben with the pickle on the inside. There are plenty of by the pound options to supplement your meal. Yes, it's pricey, but it's vegan, organic and pretty healthy.

Veganization: Reuben at Belmont Station Bier Cafe

If you don't know Belmont Station by now, it's definitely worth a visit, though the most obvious reason to go is beer, not food. This beer store on SE 45th and Stark (formerly located next to the Horse Brass over on Belmont, hence the name) has basically any beer you could want, in the bottle. With their new location, they added a cafe that serves a few hearty sandwiches as well as pub staples such as pita and hummus, and some choice beers on tap. You essentially have the option of drinking any beer on location, though I would probably stick to the draught microbrews or whatever the special is, as the "corking" fee for opening any bottle makes it much more expensive, understandably, than drinking it at home.

I enjoy the convenience of Belmont Station for one-stop beer shopping, especially recently, when I wanted to make a gift of several local microbrew 22s but didn't have the time to visit various individual breweries in town. But I never would have considered the Bier Cafe as a location for this blog, except that I found out, very much by accident, that they have a reuben on the menu that you can order with tempeh. So B. and I tried out a couple sandwiches before stocking up on the aforementioned bottles of beer.

The Belmont Station vegan reuben is a pretty simple sandwich, and this sandwich is actually two steps away from what was originally intended. First you swap the meat on the regular reuben out for tempeh, an option which used to be stated on the menu. I couldn't find it this time, but the guy working was more than happy to make it happen. Then of course you have to omit the dressing and cheese. You're left with a tempeh sandwich with sauerkraut on rye. The bartender/server/cook threw me for a loop by offering to put any assortment of veggies on my vegan reuben, I guess to make up for the austerity of the sandwich. I asked for mustard, and when pressed, allowed him to add roasted red pepper, though it threatened to mess with the equation. What resulted was still simple, but a surprisingly enjoyable sandwich.

For $8 I ended up with a panini-grilled tempeh sandwich with sauerkraut, juicy roasted red pepper, stoneground mustard with a couple pickle spears and some Beer Chips on the side. (Warning to strict vegans: Beer Chips come with all sandwiches at Belmont Station, but I checked one of the bags they sell inside and the chips have both honey and simply 'sugar' as ingredients, so if you don't eat honey or worry about bonechar refined sugar, you might want to skip these.)

I liked the crispiness the panini press lent the sandwich, and it was toasty hot when it arrived. The tempeh, though not marinated or seasoned, appeared to have been sliced crosswise, resulting in a number of smaller pieces that perhaps gave the sandwich a more even flavor. B. was not a fan of the pickle, but I didn't mind it, and over all I was surprised at how satisfying this sandwich was, both in flavor and hunger satisfaction. I wouldn't go out of my way to order it again, but for a simple sandwich, not weighed down with dressing, it was pretty good. The roasted red pepper was unusual, but a nice deviation from the standard mushroom or onion you would normally slap on a reuben. A little veganaise might have brought out the flavor a bit more strongly.



I would give this sandwich a 2.5 out of 5, and kudos to our host who went out of his way to make my sandwich more interesting, even though that wasn't the point. It was extremely edible, and I liked the panini-press effect, but still not anything I would return for, I think. The beer, of course, is the real reason to visit. I had an interesting dark IPA brewed in Gresham, and the lager that was the $3 a pint special wasn't bad at all.

Belmont Station does have some other tasty looking vegetarian sandwiches that could be veganized pretty easily, and they have nice outdoor tables that aren't in too high demand, if you find yourself on upper Stark on a summer afternoon.



So I'm actually writing from Cincinnati, though we visited Belmont Station much earlier this month. I doubt I'll find a tempeh reuben here to write about, even if I had the time (I'm flying out tomorrow before dinner), but B. and I did drive down the Oregon and California coast this past week, and there was a little restaurant we ended up having breakfast at that I feel the need to write about that. In the interest of increasing the vegan pit-stop canon and all that.

If you are ever in Crescent City, CA, looking for a decent vegan breakfast, by all means stop at the Good Harvest Cafe. I don't know the exact address, but it's on the thoroughfare if you are passing through town, on a weird little intersection with a Home Depot behind it. They don't have soy milk lattes or anything, and I don't think anything is straight vegan, but I had a little dish called Tofu Rancheros that I fell in love with. As you might guess, it's basically huevos rancheros with a few little portions of tofu in place of the eggs -- so tofu, black beans, red sauce on a tortilla, with toast (order it dry) and some great potatoes on the side to boot. It usually comes with sour cream and cheese, but I asked for some of their housemade salsa instead, which they subbed happily, and it was delicious. The smaller portion, for 7.95 (versus a 'large' for a buck more), was the perfect amount of food. The only thing that could have made it better was some Stumptown coffee and homemade jam instead of the Knott's stuff. So take that for what it's worth, if you ever find yourself driving south along the water, and you run out of trail mix.

Vegan Baked Goods Ride Epilogue

Jonathan Maus, of BikePortland.org, did a brief recap of our Vegan Baked Goods Ride, which was part of a nearly month long event here in Portland called Pedalpalooza. The Black Sheep Bakery location we visited is right below where Jonathan has his studio/office, so he caught sight of us Tuesday afternoon and came down to snap a few shots. Jonathan is a great photographer -- check out his post on my ride, then I encourage you to explore his site some more.

Thanks Jonathan!

In the Kitchen: Candle Cafe Reuben

B. and I have developed a pretty deep affection for tempeh reubens. This recipe came well recommended by Swell Vegan. This week it seemed it would be hard to get a reuben in at a restaurant, so we opted to try to make another at home. I'm happy to give you the recipe below, gleaned from this website. We halved it, but a bit roughly, so I'll just put what we ended up putting in. I'll note that there were many ingredients here I sort of resented buying, simply because I never use them any other time. Mostly the apple juice. But really blame is due to Trader Joe's, for having things like apple juice and vegan mayonaise only in gigantic containers, not the recipe, which turned out pretty awesome. I made a commitment to follow the recipe as much as possible, and I stuck to it -- even when it meant sending B. to the neighbor's for an eighth of a cup of ketchup.

Adapted Candle Cafe Tempeh Reubens (makes 2 sandwiches)

1/2 cup apple juice
1 tablespoons maple syrup
2 tablespoons soy sauce
4 garlic cloves, finely chopped (I used more garlic than the original recipe, because I love garlic)
4 slices of fresh ginger (I never know what recipes mean by "slices," I just shaved off a generous amount)
8 ounces of tempeh, cut into two sandwich-sized pieces
4 slices of rye bread
Approximately 1/4 cup sauerkraut
Approximately 1/2 cup caramelized onions

Russian Dressing:
1/4 cup of vegan mayo
1/8 cup ketchup
1/8 cup stone-ground mustard
1/8 cup finely chopped onion (We used dried minced onion we had in the cupboard).

You can follow her steps in the recipe. We pretty much did what she said, flipping halfway through during the marinating and also again when it was baking in the oven. B. was in charge of caramelizing the onions, though truthfully, neither of us were quite sure what that meant. I feel like all the times I've caramelized onions have been by accident.



I have to say he did a pretty good job, despite the fact I kept ignoring the timing of the recipe, and told him to start the caramelizing while the tempeh was still marinating, realized we didn't need over half an hour to caramelize onions, then made the same mistake again right when the tempeh went into the oven.



I did most of our shopping at Trader Joe's, so our mayo was Trader Joe's Reduced Fat version, and our bread was this Black Sour Rye, basically a cross between sourdough and rye. We assembled the dressing at about the same time we prepared the tempeh for marinating, so both got about half an hour in the fridge.



The tempeh baked for another 30 minutes, and were we ready for it. The recipe didn't say to toast or grill the bread, but we decided to toast it in B's toaster oven. It couldn't accommodate all four pieces, so we did the two bottom pieces first, and started assembling the sandwich while the top pieces of bread toasted. We slathered a bit of dressing on (it turned out quite thick, maybe because we used dehydrated onion instead of fresh), placed the tempeh slabs, added sauerkraut 'til it looked about right, then divided the onions between the two. When the top pieces came out, they got the dressing treatment also. We ended up with a couple tablespoons of extra dressing.



We were definitely ready to dig in (with our Apple Blossom cocktails, an attempt to use up a bunch of the apple juice) but I found my sandwich to be so pretty I had to go outside and try to get a good picture.



Let me just say that B.'s first words were, "Wow, this is really good." I was having my mind sort of blown as well. Later he stated that if we had ordered this in a restaurant, he would have come away very pleased.

I for one was very gratified that we'd actually followed the recipe. Because it was one frickin' tasty sandwich. I don't know if it was the combination of apple and maple flavors, the caramelized onions, or the McMenamin's Terminator Stout mustard we used in the dressing, but there was a delicious, smoky flavor to the sandwich. I almost would have sworn we'd put some liquid smoke in there. The bread was pretty good, too. Even though it threatened to fragment a little when I sliced the sandwiches, it held up quite well and I thought complimented the other flavors. It wasn't as pungent as other ryes, but there were so many other good flavors, it was good to have a bread that didn't overpower the sandwich. We might have toasted it more in the future. We were so eager to eat, and didn't want the tempeh to get cold, so each piece only got lightly toasted in the toaster oven. We were also too lazy to warm up the sauerkraut, but because the onions were warm, the tempeh was hot out of the oven, and the bread was toasted, we thought the over all temperature of the sandwich was good.

The only other improvement we could think of was that we should have tried to slice the tempeh lengthwise, to make it thinner, as the lovely author of "i eat food" does with her reubens. I had considered this at the start of the recipe, but this particular tempeh seemed a bit fragile and I didn't trust my knife skills, despite the fact that this was a lesson we'd learned long ago, when attempting other reuben recipes.

Over all, we give this sandwich a big hand all around. The recipe is so simple, yet in our experience, yields very tasty and complex results. Though apple juice is never really found in my fridge, and I almost didn't purchase it to use a scant half cup, I think it was definitely worthwhile, and I appreciated a marinade that didn't assume oil was necessary. All in all, I think the only real source of fat in this recipe was the dressing, which had a hefty amount of mayonnaise. The sandwich ultimately felt as light and healthy as it came out on paper.

I think we have to give this sandwich, a TRUEBEN, by the way, a 4.5 out of 5. This sandwich is so good...maybe our quest is over and we don't need to eat out anymore. Gasp!

Vegan Baked Goods Ride Recap

So, call me a Pedalpalooza newbie, but yet again I was pleased and amazed by the turn out and success of the vegan-themed ride I led this afternoon. Similar to the Vegan Cyclist Pub Crawl, we had over 25 folks at our largest, and every venue we visited made us feel more than welcome.

As planned, we started out at Papa G's Organic Vegan Deli, where many riders sampled their cinnamon walnut scones, cornbread and cookies, as well as had some more substantial food to prepare for the ride. Next stop was Cellar Door Coffee on SE 11th and Harrison. We had warned each business that we were planning to attend, but still, I was blown away by the preparations at Cellar Door. Jeremy, one of the awesome owners, had actually collaborated with the baking skills of Dovetail Bakery to create a small buffet of baked good samples -- completely free. Lucky riders tasted earl gray cupcakes, chocolate orange cupcakes, tart cherry muffins, the famous pecan sticky buns, and some delicious scones. All along the ride it was gratifying to hear riders express excitement at discovering a new location or a new variety of baked goods, and it was especially nice to win Cellar Door some new fans, as this little coffee roasting enterprise, tucked away in the SE industrial district just west of Ladd's Addition, is one of my favorite coffee shops in Portland.

Next stop was Black Sheep Bakery at SE 8th and Main, famous for its bike-through window, though there were definitely too many of us to take advantage of that. Again, we were treated to an amazing variety of baked goods, another buffet of free samples, from peanut butter brownies to raisin studded muffins, to even a wonderfully inventive savory breakfast treat of biscuit and vegan breakfast sausage and red pepper baked into muffin form. I swear, I couldn't have planned it this well. I had no idea that so many free samples would be in store, but we all certainly appreciated it a great deal.

After a trip across the Hawthorne Bridge, we arrived at Veganopolis, which does a fair amount of baking in-house, including cookies, muffins, brownies and even carrot cake squares. I was a bit full, so I didn't sample anything, but the goods seemed to go over well. A few riders also opted for vegan root beer floats, as it was getting a bit hot at this point.

Because of the heat, it seemed good timing to hit Blossoming Lotus at NW 10th and Davis next. The restaurant/yoga studio lobby is open and airy, and my chilled live fudge certainly hit the spot. The restaurant was only moderately busy, about to hit the lull between lunch and dinner, so they were tolerant of us lingering and drinking lots of water. The vegan soft serve machine was in the middle of creating a new batch, so I don't know if anyone took advantage of that, but I would recommend Blossoming Lotus as a wonderful and refreshing summer afternoon stop to anyone, whether you're into vegan and/or raw food, or not.

Eventually we rallied and made it to our last stop, Sweetpea Baking at SE 12th and Stark. After all the unanticipated free samples, I was essentially overloading on sugar at this point, but many riders were still game to try some of Sweetpea's awesome cupcakes and cookies. I give special thanks to Sweetpea for the fact that, when we warned them the week before the event of our arrival, they responded by taking special requests for certain goods. As such they had a lot of great cupcakes ready for us, as well as my favorite phenomenon, the vegan cream cheese danish. I wished I had room for one, but I managed to convince others in the group to try it -- because really, where else can you get something like this?

Now that I'm coming down from all the riding and sugar, I'm about ready for bed. But soon I'll post about a trueben recipe B. and I are dying to tell you about.

Another vegan Pedalpalooza ride and a trick for TJ's

We'll be posting a trueben soon, but I wanted to do a quick post on the Vegan Baked Goods Ride I'm helping lead tomorrow afternoon.

The ride meets at 1:45 at Papa G's Vegan Deli, where there are a variety of options baked in-house, including scones, cookies and cornbread. Next we'll head to Cellar Door, where we should find a few different goods baked by Dovetail, and possibly some St. Cupcake vegan offerings. The drive-through bike window at Black Sheep Bakery and Cawfee Shop is next, followed by a trip across the Hawthorne Bridge to Veganopolis, Coffee Plant (which bakes their own vegan pumpkin muffins) and Blossoming Lotus. Then we'll head back east to Sweetpea and the vegan mini-mall at 12th and Stark. At this point some may head up to Laughing Planet on Belmont to sample from their smorgasbord of sweets (all their baked desserts are vegan!) and some may head to the new, extremely bike-friendly Voo Doo Donuts location near 10th and Sandy. (By the way, Black Sheep Bakery also has a second retail location at 19th just past Sandy now -- no bike-through window but there is bike parking, and they are apparently open a little later than their SE counterpart).

Anyway, this itinerary is of course subject to change. It should be a beautiful, sunny day and a lot of fun. You should bring cash, but don't worry, not everyone has to buy something at every stop. Though hopefully at least one person will buy something at each place (I'm not having lunch in case I have to do the heroic thing and take a cupcake for the team).

Have you ever wondered if Trader Joe's sold something, but couldn't find a product list on their website? I've had this problem before, but discovered a solution of sorts last night. Trader Joe's doesn't list all their products on their website, but they do have listings of specially labeled items, like vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free. So you can see a PDF file of all their vegan products here. Though for some reason the vegan list doesn't include any bakery items, which is lame, because I know TJ's has vegan bread, but probably this is something that varies a lot from store to store.

Updates

Just so you know, despite a lack of posting this week, we have not lost sight of our mission. The other night we went to Valentine's, a cute little cafe and bar in Southwest, because I'd read online they had a vegan tempeh reuben. It turns out they've revamped their menu and now serve Japanese-type food, with many vegan options. We didn't sample any, but it looked like they had some nice happy hour deals until 9, FYI.

Despite that obstacle, expect a post soon, as we still have a few more truebens to try. A fellow vegan pub crawler let me know last week that the Cup and Saucer has a tofu reuben, so that is now on the list. I love leads and recommendations, so keep them coming! We also hope to get back into the kitchen sometime next month, if not sooner, so we'll be posting a recipe or two for you to try at home.