Vegan Eats
graphic courtesy of nina bridges
When you decide to venture off the beaten path — travel beyond Pastabilities and Original Grain — you may discover that Syracuse has a lively and diverse culinary scene.
Syracuse is a sanctuary city, meaning there are limitations on the extent to which they are willing to cooperate with national governmental policies intended to enforce immigration law. The city prohibits government officials from questioning anyone about their immigration status and refuses requests by national immigration authorities to detail individuals beyond their release dates.
These policies reduce fear among immigrants and, as a result, foster diversity which ends up reflected in the culinary community. There’s authentic Ethiopian at Habiba’s Kitchen. Habiba herself was an immigrant who left Ethiopia at four years old hen spend 10 years at the Kakuma Refugee camp in Kenya before eventually settling and setting up shop in Syracuse. There’s With Love where a different chef brings their native style of cooking to the brick and mortar location every six weeks. This cycle, it’s Somalia.
But our favorite is New Century. There is no better place to find the Vietnamese classic dish, pho, in the city of Syracuse. This North Side hidden gem is unassuming from the outside as is the decor inside, but once those big, hot, steaming bowl go broth with all the fixings come rolling to your table, everything changes. It’s too pho-king good. Excuse our pho-rench.
The most popular item on the expansive 100-item menu is the pho dac biet combo, a soup containing rare steak, brisket, tenderloin, tripe and meatballs in a beef broth which comes in at an impressive $7.95. Consuming this big bowl of deliciousness is a task that requires considerable concentration. Simultaneously maneuvering the short-handled spoon and a pair of chopsticks is no easy task, especially for those of us who never really grasped how to use chopsticks to begin with. But every flavorful bite is worth the struggle, and it really can be a struggle. The biggest struggle however, is making it to the bottom of that bowl. We have never successfully been able to do it, and yet we absolutely refuse to share. Why? You tell us, we’d love to know.
We at Jerk truly believes soup has the power to save souls, especially when that soup is a bowl of pho from New Century. And it saves sinuses too. Huddling over that steamy broth really works wonders on those nasal passages.
We haven’t even gotten to the best part; New Century is vegan and vegetarian friendly too. We’ve even received the stamp of approval from our resident vegan. It could be debated that the #94, the vegetarian noodle soup made with a fragrant and flavorful vegetable broth, filled to the brim with tofu, seitan, broccoli, cauliflower, rice noodles and more, might even be better than the beef broth based dishes that has become so popular among patrons. The vegetarian egg rolls certainly aren’t slacking either. And the iced coffee with condensed milk. Ugh! Chef’s kiss! If anyone at New Century happens to be reading; yes, we would love to be a brand ambassador.