French Fry Diary 05: Maoz

Yep, I went to a vegetarian restaurant.

The big thing was that my friends Crystal and Anthony just couldn't wait to tell my wife that they had taken me to, and that I had eaten at, a vegetarian restaurant. Me, who never ate right and especially never ate my vegetables, and here I was at Maoz, a quirky cool tiny little vegetarian restaurant take out place on Philadelphia's eclectic South Street.

Maoz, just for the record, is an international franchise with locations all over the world, but only a handful here in the States, and we're lucky enough to have two in Philly.

Back at the vegetarian restaurant. The fix was that Glenn was there for the fries. Heck, you could lure me through the gates of Hell with the temptation of French fries. Now the fries at Maoz had an additional allure - they were Belgian fries (at least on the menu), and Belgian fries are the gold standard of French fries.

Other than the tasty selection of Coke products, these classic pomme frites called "Belgian chips" here at Maoz were the only dangerous item on the menu. Everything else was the usual healthy fare that every good vegetarian restaurant should have.

While I was at first excited by the prospect of Belgian fries, and I did enjoy them, I was a bit disappointed on closer inspection. They were really steak fries - par-fried, frozen and store bought. While they were in fact cooked and served in the traditional manner - they were still steak fries. They tasted quite similar in taste to the steak fries (called Fat Fries there) at Fatburger.

Now like I said, this doesn't mean they weren't good - they just weren't Belgian fries is all. I'd still go back, and now I can say I've been to a vegetarian restaurant. Believe it or not, it's true.


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