He's dark, he's brooding, he looks like Marilyn Manson and he doesn't eat animal byproducts. His name is Brian Manowitz — the Vegan Black Metal Chef — and he's a YouTube super celebrity.

The first episode of Vegan Black Metal Chef launched on YouTube last month. It featured Manowitz, dressed in black metal armor and satanic face paint, instructing viewers on the proper way to prepare a stellar vegan pad thai, all set to a death-metal song. The video immediately went viral and had more than 1.3 million views as of this week.

Since then, he has been interviewed by Rolling Stone, the Huffington Post and other major news outlets, becoming a bona fide celebrity. His YouTube channel (youtube.com/user/veganblackmetalchef) only has two episodes, but he has gained quite a following. His website (www.veganblackmetalchef.com) is a simple blog that is both cheeky and informative.

The video is a legitimate cooking show, and it is absolutely hilarious.

Manowitz's cooking is both healthy and low-maintenance. He doesn't avoid prepared stocks or sauces, as long as they're vegan and healthy — the idea being that veganism shouldn't be a difficult lifestyle to maintain.

Manowitz knows his way around the kitchen, and makes a mean pad thai. The recipe takes careful note of the small touches that create the proper texture of the dish.

Of course, the most important element in pad thai is the sauce, and a big portion of the video is devoted to making the sauce from scratch ("The ones in the stores all suck," Manowitz states in video states).

He makes no bones about how much sugar goes into the sauce. A little vinegar, tamarind paste, garlic powder, cilantro, and a few throaty satanic growls later, and the authentic sauce is ready.

The tofu gets deep fried — not the healthiest choice, but the most flavorful. Vegetables are then added to the sauce, followed by the noodles. At this point, the music gets faster, and the video instructs us to add the last missing ingredient: the heat of Satan.

It is this high-heat cooking that causes the sauce to cook down and coat the noodles with that characteristic pad thai stickiness. A few minutes of stirring later, and I served myself some of the best pad thai I'd ever had.

Cooking along to this video requires a sense of humor and certain amount of patience.

The song runs throughout and is both hilarious and extremely detailed. I admire the deftness with which he prepares his meal, using black knives that seem to have been borrowed off the set of Xena: Warrior Princess. A sprinkling of frank opinions, throaty growls, deliberate misspellings and curse words remind us that cooking shows have come a long way since Julia Child. Plus, Manowitz has pulled off something wholly original — he makes being a vegan seem downright badass.


1 package tofu

1 package bean sprouts (about 2 cups)

1 package flat rice noodles

FOR THE SAUCE

Handful of peanuts, roasted unsalted

1 cup sugar

Pinch chili powder

Pinch garlic powder

11/2 tablespoons tamarind paste or soup paste

1/4 cup white vinegar

1 squeeze sriracha

3-4 cloves garlic

2 tablespoons crunchy peanut butter

1 tomato

1 bunch green onions

1 teaspoon peanut oil

1 cup peanut oil

Handful cilantro

1 lime

Preparation: Soak the rice noodles in a bowl of water to soften. Leave them to soak during the rest of the preparation.

Press the water out of the tofu by cutting it into 1-inch-thick triangles and placing it between two paper towels and putting a heavy pot on top.

Make the sauce: Put the peanuts into a large plastic bag and crush with a rolling pin into a medium-fine powder.

Place the sugar and chili and garlic powders in a medium bowl and add the crushed peanuts. Add the tamarind paste, 1 cup water, vinegar and sriracha. Stir to combine.

Grate the garlic into the sauce and add peanut butter. Stir to combine.

Thickly slice the tomato and green onions.

Heat the peanut oil in a wok or large saucepan. Add the tomatoes and sauté for 1 minute. In a deep fryer or deep pot, heat the frying oil. When it's hot, deep fry the tofu until crispy.

Add the bean sprouts and green onions to the tomato; cook for about 1 minute. Add the fried tofu.

Add the sauce and the softened rice noodles. Turn the heat up to high. Stir continuously to keep the noodles from burning, about 6 minutes, until all the water is gone.

Serve with additional peanuts and lime wedges.