Vegan Kosher Restaurant Hits All the Bases

I've written about restaurants that cater to those with wheat allergies because those are so rare as to be worth spreading the word about.

Vegan restaurants aren't as rare. I'm sure you can find one about every ten feet in some college towns.

But a vegan kosher restaurant? That's a find.

And you'll find it at 1010 Cherry Street in Philadelphia, in the heart of Philadelphia's Chinatown. It's called, not very imaginatively, I'm afraid, the Cherry Street Vegetarian Restaurant.

Before you get worried about the "vegetarian" in the name, apparently all the meats are "mock," made from wheat gluten (sorry, celiacs) and soy. That puts the kosher in the picture, since fake shellfish - not allowed by the kosher dietary laws - is on the menu.

Lisa Kelvin Tuttle writes about the Cherry Street Vegetarian Restaurant in the July 2006 issue of The Philadelphia Jewish Voice. She said:

"Shrimp" Toast for Two? Moo Shoo "Pork"? Sautéed Mushrooms with "Ham" and Kale? Oh yes, and all of them kosher Vegan to boot. There are also "chicken," "duck," "fish," and "beef" and of course many rice, noodle, and veggie dishes to round out the enormous menu. The chefs are masters with the ancient art of working wheat gluten and soy into copycat versions of poultry, meat, fish, and shellfish so that the kosher diner can experience the best of traditional Chinese dishes while observing Jewish dietary laws.

Recipes for Fast, Easy Cold Sesame Noodles and Homemade Fortune Cookies are also included.