Chomp or Chop: Vegan Chopped Cheese
These Harlem original sandwiches are far from vegan, but this Bronx-born and an African American and Puerto Rican woman …
I've lived in Harlem for far too long to have never been to a Puerto Rican Day festival, and that ended today. I've been following @blackricanvegan for years, and I finally got to try her chopped cheese no egg roll, and oh baby was it worth the wait and the line. Although it's the least Puerto Rican item on the menu today, I couldn't pass it up. The Chopped Cheese, for those not in the know, is a Harlem original sandwich WITH RULES. They should only be ordered in a bodega, should be somewhere in the $5 range, and are quintessentially not vegan in nearly every way. For my non-New York peeps, think Philly cheesesteak meets sloppy joe with a resemblance of a deconstructed cheeseburger. These sandos were special drunken night treats in my late 20s, but tbh, they don't quite hit the same in my mid-30s and are less inebriated. We love a rule breaker, though, and BRV broke all the chopped cheese rules with this one. For $15, you get two egg rolls filled with beyond meat, vegan cheddar, and onions and peppers wrapped as an egg roll, fried to bubbly golden perfection, and topped with pink sauce and sprouts. It ticked all of the chopped cheese flavors. Savory, salty, filling, delicious, juicy, and greasy. It really tasted like a chopped cheese with one big difference. I've never had a chopped cheese with this serious of a crunch! The fact that you can actually hear the crunch through competing festival sounds should give you a tip that this shit right here was on another level. The festival, of course, did not disappoint. I'd be remiss not to mention that it was a wild and beautiful thing to see open weed consumption and distribution in Spanish Harlem, side by side with the police. Historically, weed was weaponized to persecute this community, but not today. The police, the community, the vendors, everyone was there to celebrate Puerto Rican pride, and no one was going to kill that vibe. One cop even apologized to me for interrupting my bite as he gently asked me to move to the left. I came, I ate, I enjoyed great music, and I walked home. It was a beautiful and tasty Saturday 🇵🇷 How was yours?