6784 germantown avenue
philadelphia (mt. airy), pa
(215) 844 1188
type of cuisine: italian/pizza
culinary excellence: 5
vegan friendliness: 6
must thank the good vegans at the post punk kitchen forums for hipping me to this local pizza joint, run by robert moezi, a vegan of over 20 years. moezi is slowly trying to veganize the menu, adding a cruelty-free item every now and then and taking off a meat item. i asked him why, if he is a committed vegan, that he didn't open an entirely vegan restaurant, and he said "i thought i was the only one!" now he is slowly building up a vegan base in the area. here's looking forward to teese pizza, seitan stromboli and soy cannolis!
unfortunately, moezi seems a bit behind the times when it comes to vegan cuisine. from what he describes, he eats an entirely whole foods, mostly raw diet which excludes sugar and salt. so it's not terribly surprising that he's not up on new vegan cheese products (hello DAIYA!), but i was surprised he had never tried raw pizza, like the slices i still dream of from life thyme in new york. god i miss new york sometimes. anyway, what fino's does offer is pretty decent, and it seems counterproductive to complain, given that it is the only place actually serving vegan pizza in the area. (unless i'm wrong about that?) right now there are four vegan pizzas on the menu and i think two veggie steak options that use follow your heart cheese.
i ordered a healthy balance pizza, made with vegan chicken, caramelized onion with flax seed oil, cherry tomatoes, grilled broccoli, roasted garlic and roasted peppers. i chose pesto sauce from the three sauce options - pesto, pomegranate and chipotle:
so excited when i got home after a long drive from bethesda to have a hot vegan pizza in my car and a fudgy vegan treats brownie from infusion! though it was not in the least disappointing, this is certainly not the zenith of vegan pizza. however, in the event that i don't feel like spending four hours preparing "isa pizza" from vegan with a vengeance, one of fino's rounds is not such a bad substitute. overall the flavor was savory and full. i loved the broccoli, tomato, peppers and garlic. the caramelized onions could have been way more caramelized though, and i might have appreciated bigger chunks of seitanic chicken instead of the sprinkling of tiny pieces. i also was a little frustrated with the pesto. it was more like a smattering of finely chopped, flavorless basil than a sauce. i like my pesto salty and grainy with pine nuts, bursting with flavor. don't get me wrong - i'm definitely going to try every variation of fino's vegan offerings and i totally appreciate their efforts, but moezi may need some encouragement from other local vegans to invest in daiya and learn to make lovely nutritional yeasty tofu ricotta. maybe some talented ppker can school him in the art of vegan funnel cakes, too. that would be divine on a friday night.
in the meantime, their fries are pretty satisfying:
i have since tried two more of fino's vegan pizza's, along with their basic french fries. the nature's pizza is just like the healthy balance but instead of "chicken" it had "beef". i also got it with chipotle sauce instead of pesto, which was rather spicy. i also tried the first vegan pizza on their menu - i can't remember the name of it, but it had corn and broccoli and onions and some other veggies, this time with pomegranate sauce. it was a bit of a let down. there were not nearly enough veggies to cover the pizza and the sauce seemed like your basic marinara - not sure what it had to do with pomegranates.
ReplyDelete