THENEWYORKER, SEPTEMBER 16, 2019 13
PHOTOGRAPH BY JESSICA PETTWAY FOR THE NEW YORKER; ILLUSTRATION BY JOOST SWARTE
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TABLESFORTWO
Jajaja Plantas Mexicana
162 East Broadway
Vegan cuisine is hit or miss, a meat-
eater would imagine, whether you like
to eat food derived from animals or not.
To this day, four decades after the
“Moosewood Cookbook” revolution,
it’s more miss than hit. Vegan cheese,
made from soy or legumes or coconut,
remains thin on flavor and terrible on
texture; “burger” patties, in spite of in-
roads made with plant-based heme
molecules, which lend a meaty flavor,
are mostly dry and crumbly. But climate
change is happening, and many people
are trying, valiantly, to eat vegan, even
if only sporadically, for reasons other
than animal welfare and personal well-
ness. And so a place like Jajaja Plantas
Mexicana, which serves vegan Mexican
food with a millennial tinge, feeds both
the striving masses and the Zeitgeist.
Jajaja opened two years ago, on a cor-
ner across from Seward Park, in east
Chinatown, lately a hipster food hub
that includes Dimes, Mission Chinese
Food, Kopitiam, Scarr’s Pizza, Kiki’s,
and Metrograph Commissary. (There’s
a smaller Jajaja location in Williams-
burg, and a new, bigger one in the West
Village.) Judging from recent crowds,
Jajaja is where the Everlane-mom-
jeans-and-lavender-hair set heads
after work to get the night started with
pomegranate-jalapeño margaritas, or on
weekends for kale pancakes and porto-
bello steak and (tofu) “eggs.”
The pale beechwood ceiling, penny-
tiled floor, Miami-mint metal chairs,
and snaking philodendrons give the
room a hippie-beach vibe; the list of
more than sixty tequilas and mezcals
signals party time. And what’s better
party food than nachos? Nacho lovers
can put up with pretty much any kind
of cheese—in desperate times even
movie-theatre “cheese” will do. Upon
trying Jajaja’s nachos, which arrive in
a gargantuan pile, those people might
wonder if there’s any “cheese” involved
at all, and then realize, oh, right, it’s that
liquidy orange stuff. (It’s cashew cheese,
with turmeric for that authentic color.)
For some reason, there are peas and corn,
too, but also beans and guacamole (thank
God), and the chips are nicely crunchy.
You would think that Mexican food
would be a natural fit for vegan prepa-
ration, with all the rice, beans, salsa,
and corn. Maybe it is, but Jajaja doesn’t
take any chances, front-loading every
seemingly familiar item with some sort
of trickery: shiitake “bacon” on the ut-
terly lovely pupusas, in which soft, fluffy
corn rounds are stuffed with beans and
topped with pleasantly charred mush-
rooms (that don’t taste like bacon);
fish tacos in which the “fish” is actually
wedges of chayote squash coated with a
hemp-and-flaxseed batter and fried. It’s
not bad, but it tastes like juicy squash—
why bother calling it “fish”?
The reason that the Enchiladas
Mole were not good on a recent eve-
ning was not the weird “shredded palm
carnitas,” which amounted to chopped
heart of palm dyed pink (to make it look
like pork?) and gave the whole dish a
watery tang. The main problem was
that the mole sauce tasted like cinna-
mon ketchup.
Some of the innovations turn out to
be great. The quesadilla, which could
have been disastrous, is filled with a co-
conut queso that melts like a dream;
grilled to a crisp, it’s rather craveable,
its lingering coconut aftertaste accented
with fresh pico de gallo. The chorizo
burrito gets back to normal vegan ter-
ritory, the meat-flavored texturized
protein, an old standby. The burrito
is painted like the Mexican flag, in a
bright, savory green-chili sauce, a white
tofu-based sour cream, and a red-pep-
per sauce. (Peas show up in the bur-
rito, too, but it’s fine.) There are buffa-
lo-cauliflower tacos with chopped celery
and shredded carrots, which sounds
like a punch line; the real kicker is that
they’re delicious.
One outlier on the menu doesn’t try
any funny business: the churros. Thick,
with cinnamon sugar and a crenellated
crunch, they’re plain old fantastic chur-
ros, with no need to imitate anything.
(Dishes $8-$16.)
—Shauna Lyon
