You'd never know it was vegan

This is the first entry in an ongoing series of the best meals I've ever had. I'm fortunate enough to get to travel around a bit due to my boyfriend's job (not that I travel with him, but I get to visit often), and so I get to try new restaurants in new cities more often than I used to. If I'm being honest about this list, I'd go back and rewrite the post I made about Blossom in NYC, because that meal was absolutely wonderful. You can read it here if you're interested in revisiting it.

Moving on to the meal. Jason and I were in Philadelphia, and I'd spent some time reading about restaurants on Yelp, trying to find something well-reviewed yet vegetarian friendly. The first restaurant that came up was Horizons. We made reservations and ate there the first night I was in town, which, honestly, ruined us for the rest of the weekend because nothing compared.

Horizons is fully vegan, something that's pretty scary to most diners. I would bet money that we could've brought any number of our carnivorous friends with us to Horizons and ordered anything off the menu for them and convinced them it was actually meat, it was that flavorful and texturized.

We ordered the Vietnamese Tacos as an appetizer, and while they were good, they weren't great.

We also ordered the Warm Maitake Mushroom Salad app, which was better than the tacos, but still nothing to necessarily rave about. So, we were a little nervous at first.


However, this delicious beer that I ordered made my concerns lessen. It's hard to find outside of Philly, which is sad because it's probably the best beer I ever had.


For my entree, I ordered the Pan Seared Tofu. It came with a saffron emulsion, local baby squashes, garbanzo hash and was seasoned with basil, green olive and pistachio. It was soft and creamy, with full, rich flavors. The best bite was when I managed to get all of the components on the fork at once.


Jason ordered the Grilled Seitan, which came with yukon mash, spinach, horseradish cream, and a roasted red pepper tapenade. Admittedly, It's been a long time since I've had beef, but I swear, this was like eating the most succulent, well-done pot roast ever.

As it turned out, we switched dishes because we each liked what the other ordered more.


We were so full, we didn't order dessert but we did partake in two rounds of this locally made absinthe. I've had several kinds of absinthe before (one from France, one from Spain, one at The Edison in LA that was probably Absente [fake absinthe]), but this was by far and away the best ever. It was sweet and tart and licorice-y and completely balanced. And cheap! It only cost $8 a round, which is why we got two.

It's been a couple months since we were in Philly, but I think about this meal probably once a week. I'd love to learn how to recreate it. I'll get started on that right away.