Minnesota-based rapper Brother Ali admits that one of his only vices in life is food. An avid cook at home, Ali has to rely mostly on restaurants when he’s touring, and on his travels he’s found that some of the best places to eat out serve vegan soul food. Not a vegan himself, Ali appreciates the care that goes into cooking soul food without any animal products and making it taste great.
Is there a restaurant that you’ve come across on tour that even comes close to the kind of food you like to cook at home?
Ali: Yeah, there are a lot of them. One of my favourite ones is in Seattle;there’s this vegan soul food restaurant called Plumb Bistro and it’s probably one of my favourite spots. It’s all vegan soul food and it’s amazing. They have these crispy mashed potato things, and sometimes they do mac and cheese with nutritional yeast that they use to make the cheese. It’s amazing. I’m not vegan, but that food is pretty crazy. And there’s a lot of vegan soul food restaurants across the country. There’s Soul Vegetarian in Chicago, and they have them in Atlanta; it’s a chain. Those are really good, too.
It’s nice when the vegan restaurants can win over the non-vegans.
Yeah, yeah. My first DJ that I built my career with was vegan, and when you’re vegan you really have to know how to cook. Anybody can make chicken and cheese, and all of that kind of stuff, taste good; there’s nothing really too special about that. Anybody can put some barbeque sauce on chicken and make it taste good, but, man, when you’re talking about not using any animal products, and not even using anything related to animals, like honey, dairy; that’s another level of the game. So, yeah, vegan chefs are always great. I’ve had bad vegan food, but I’ve never met an actual vegan chef who wasn’t amazing. They’re always amazing.
And Plumb in Seattle is one of the best?
Plumb Bistro, yeah, definitely. But there’s a lot of good vegan soul food restaurants out there, in different spots like Philly and Chicago.
Brother Ali is currently on his Home Away from Home North American tour. His latest album, 2012’s Mourning in America and Dreaming in Color is available on Rhymesayers Entertainment.
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