Good Taste: Meatless banh mi

Last summer, chef George Sabatino defied common logic by serving serious restaurant food to the 1,500 people who would flock on weekend days to the seasonal riverside beer garden scene of Morgan's Pier.

This season's chef at the Pier, former KooZeeDoo owner David Gilberg, was given a different directive: keep it simple.

Which means, of course, he's serving up hundreds of cheeseburgers and fried chicken sandwiches a night.

But Gilberg still has chops. And his best item here, it turns out, may well be the menu's worst seller: a mushroom banh mi that you don't have to be vegan to love.

Gilberg riffs veggie on the traditionally porky Vietnamese classic by compression-marinating portobello mushrooms in Coca-Cola and cloves, then slicing the roasted mushrooms paper-thin to evoke the meaty twang and textural snap of ham. Tucked into a Ba Le hoagie roll with pickled daikon, cilantro, and a gingery smear of minced mushroom "pâté" (deepened with Maggi seasoning instead of fish sauce), this may, in fact, be the best vegan banh mi in Philly.

Morgan Pier's best ambitions, served on a bun.

- Craig LaBan

Mushroom banh mi, $10, Morgan's Pier, 221 N. Columbus Blvd., 215-279-7134; morganspier.com