Like I said in the previous post, here where we currently stay on the South coast of Boston, it is close to impossible to find restaurants and cafes with an organic/vegan/earth conscious philosophy. New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Miami and California comes to mind when dreaming of such places.
Montauk on Long Island that we sailed to a few months ago, offered a couple very nice on-the-go lunch spots. I'd definitely visit Naturally Good Foods and Cafe, and Joni's Kitchen again.
One of my five younger sisters came for a visit in New York last week. How wonderful to get such an extended time to spend together. Our favorite restaurant find of the week was Nizza on 9th Ave. A casual Italian that offer a complete gluten free menu: pizzas, pastas, breads, everything - perfectly suitable for my gluten intolerant sister. Another gem, Cho Dang Gol, the fourth Korean restaurant we approached in Koreatown. A warm, rustic place that at the time of our visit had approx. 90% Korean customers which probably says something about the authenticity of the food. Delicious and interesting either way.
Spring is finally here so we'll def be back in the city very soon. Follow my Instagram for daily updates.
The second restaurant we visited while in New York was one that I have kept hearing about from different directions ever since we arrived in the States a few months ago. The sympathetic owner Sarma Melngailis have had success with not only one but three vegan restaurants in the city since she opened her first one in 2004. Two of them goes by the name One Lucky Duck and are smaller joints with healthy juices and raw vegan food for takeaway. The flagship restaurant, which is a favorite vegan choice of Bill Clinton, Gisele Bundchen among many others, is a fine dining establishment called Pure Food and Wine, located on Irving place downtown.
Raw vegan food made with local organic produce is naturally the most nutritionally valuable food one can digest, and to get it served in such a sophisticated setting made the experience all that more impressive. Healthy, light, compassionate, inspiring, colorful and tremendously tasteful food dined in one of the warmer and most comfortable outdoor terraces New York have to offer, served by super attentive and knowledgeable waiters - tell me what in that equation could possibly be wrong.
As much as I would love to eat tasty raw vegan food on the daily for the nutritional benefits, I must admit I find it a huge challenge to keep it inspiring on a home "cooking" level, so I personally limit my own raw food ambitions to cold soups, salads, juices and desserts. But this place totally blew my mind from the beginning to the end with its creativity and ability to perfectly match unexpected flavor combinations, from the starter to the long impressive list of mind-blowing desserts. That I also got an opportunity to watch the preparations from the beautiful kitchen, to observe how the careful process took place, and to see how clean, fresh, green and extremely well organized the space was backstage - amplified the overall experience by ten.
In a terribly mass produced and cluttered world where profit and humanity seldom get to collaborate, it was a wholeheartedly positive experience getting to spend a long night at this consciously created and well thought out restaurant. Don't you just love it when you go to a place, prepared with high expectations and end up loving it more than what you had ever hoped for?
Go check out the restaurant's website here and don't forget to like their Facebook page here.
I am still pretty new on my quest to eat as vegan as possible, been only six months yet, so I am always on the lookout for good restaurants and good substitutes to meat and dairy. I have gotten used to the new lifestyle and the way I prepare food, but I am also still trying my way around this whole new vast landscape of foods, always in search for inspiration. So when we left for New York last week, one of my greatest missions were understandably to locate and try as many good vegan restaurants as we could find time for. Couldn't have picked a better city for it as NYC is packed with great options, and many of them have been around since long before the trend got mainstream. Besides getting tips from friends and readers, I jumped on the Google machine and after some research, I decided on two of the restaurants that came up most frequently in articles and reviews. Blossom's been located in Chelsea for seven years and is a small, cozy, intimate and elegant restaurant. The type you go to for a leisure dinner with your girlfriends, or a romantic date, sipping great organic wines in low lit candle light.
Besides their Chelsea flagship restaurant, Blossom is also located on the Upper West side, and another sister restaurant in West Village. Definitely going to try those two out on future trips, as they apparently have completely different menus on each of their locations. So much good food and places to try out, so little time it seems!
Check out their Facebook page here and website here. The restaurant is located on 187 9th Ave, between 21st and 22nd street.
