It was Wednesday night in a sweltering city. Three women made their way to a vegan bistro called Sacred Chow. The place is tiny and easy to miss in the mix of little cafes and bars Sullivan Street is full of. Since none of us had been there before, we walked right past it in a state of heat-induced stupor. We backtrack, find the place, sit down and order a pitcher of Sangria. Things are looking up.
The restaurant is entirely vegan and the menu is packed with all sorts of veggie delights. I'm drooling. You sure as hell wouldn't come across something like Korean tofu cutlets on a menu in a restaurant back at home. I'm thinking, Helsinki, you need to get with it.
We go for some tapas: Mama's Soy Meatballs with Sicilian Sauce, Sun Dried Tomato Risotto, White Beans and Fried Potatoes, Cornbread with Sweet Potato Tempeh. The food arrives; everything looks good in home-cooked kinda way. The meatballs are lovely, the tomato sauce has a nice kick to it. And this cornbread, i love it. Warm, crumbly, almost too sweet to be bread and seriously moreish. Also, it's delicious with the whole sweet potato and tempeh combo.
We're absolutely stuffed after our entrees, but take a look at the dessert menu in any case. It features a Brownie Sundae. We can't resist. The vegan chocolate brownie comes with hot fudge sauce, vanilla ice cream and sprinkles. I lick my spoon and wonder whether i can discreetly unbutton my jeans.
We enter the muggy night once more and head to the Cake Shop on Ludlow Street, which features live music pretty much every night.
True to its name, the place does some pretty nice-looking cake, has a pretty big collection of vinyls for sale, and doubles as a gig venue. The street level cafe is all decked out in thrift store furniture and the walls are papered in what seem to be 80s fashion ads.The downstairs live music venue is small, dark and features a bar lit up by lamps with tasseled silk shades that look like they've been stolen from my granny. A little stage decked out in fairy lights takes up one end of the small space. It's got that slightly manky, yet lovable vibe, like Lepakkomies or Semifinal. I'm liking it.
The night's lineup is four local bands we've never heard of, but look forward to checking out nonetheless. The first band is called The Crawl Babies. The three-man band plays some rather generic indie stuff and the dudes look like the poster boys of hipsterishness. Their Myspace site claims they're from Osaka and Kyoto and features pics of Japanese folk to support the claim. We think this is part of their cunning branding scheme. The drummer plays his instrument standing up and never once looks at the audience. There's something irritating about the singer's voice and his spasmodic twitching on stage. But i've always been one to appreciate a little self irony, whether it's intentional or not.
The third band is called My Pet Ghost Project. They describe themselves as a sonic wrecking crew, which is quite accurate. Their music is cinematic, moody and songs build up to a rolling climax, courtesy of synths, serious drumming and the talented playing of the guitarists. For the most part, this is instrumental, gigantic stuff lacking in vocals and making up for it in terms of ambiance.
The music wasn't the only intriguing part of the night, either. Because i enjoy taking pics of toilets, i couldn't leave this out. Some serious cool graffiti and stickers on the walls of the Cake Shop restrooms. Also, this may or may not have been the guys' toilet. Why do i think that? Perhaps the pic below was a clue. Shitballs.
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