100 Favorite Dishes: No 19. -- Hearts of Palm Cake From Darbster

Candace West

​As a countdown to the Best of Broward Palm Beach 2011, coming in June, Clean Plate Charlie is serving up a hundred of our favorite dishes in South Florida. Send your own nominations to Deirdra.Funcheon@BrowardPalmBeach.com.

The problem with a lot of vegetarian cuisine is that most protein substitutes lack the sort of protein satisfaction you get with real meat. I mean, no red-blooded meatist in their
right mind would take a bite of a Garden Burger and think, "Wow, no more meat for me! This is tops!" But at Darbster in West Palm Beach, a lovely waterside restaurant serving vegan and raw food, the faux meat dishes are so tasty and purely satisfying that they could convert even the staunchest of meatophiles. Chief among them is the palm cake, a panko-coated orb of goodness that's filled with artichoke-like hearts of palm. The recipe actually belongs to co-owner Alan Gould, who dreamed up the idea that shredding the fibrous vegetable would create a texture not unlike that of crab meat. What you get is a dish that tastes entirely unique, but has the sort of appealing texture that would have even Dr. Atkins begging for seconds.

Darbster Waterside Bistro.
8020 S. Dixie Hwy., West Palm Beach

---

Follow Clean Plate Charlie on Facebook and on Twitter: @CleanPlateBPB.