(Anyone who's ever been to NYC will totally get that.)
Just as certainly as hearing that phrase eighty-six times a day riding the subway, we came to expect an awesome dining experience at every vegan restaurant we went to in NYC.
A couple of Asian restaurants on Chloe Coscarelli's NYC list were Franchia and Hangawi. We hit up Franchia for an early dinner on New Years Day before seeing Book of Mormon, and it worked out perfectly. We were running short on time, but because we were there early there was hardly anyone else in the restaurant yet, so we were able to order quickly and get our food quickly. This place has an abundant selection of tea, and though I'm not a fan of tea, I fell in love with their plum iced tea...absolutely delicious.
Chloe recommended the assorted dumplings
which we ordered along with brown rice sushi
and potato pancakes.
Everything was perfect.
Rob the Husband especially liked Franchia because of the calm atmosphere and great service, and he just really appreciated how quickly we were able to get in and how the whole dining experience worked out under a time crunch.
which we ordered along with brown rice sushi
and potato pancakes.
Everything was perfect.
Rob the Husband especially liked Franchia because of the calm atmosphere and great service, and he just really appreciated how quickly we were able to get in and how the whole dining experience worked out under a time crunch.
Hangawi is a Korean restaurant on Chloe's list, and definitely one of the more unique places we ate at. You take off your shoes upon entering, and the eating areas are sunken into the floor, so you sit very low. The floor under your table is heated, so it keeps your feet toasty warm, though I don't know how smart it is to make it a policy to remove shoes, especially when you can't predict what people's feet will smell like after a day of wandering around New York.
But the atmosphere is zen and the food is pretty cool. Rob ordered a sesame porridge that looked like black goo and tasted awesome.
The combination pancakes were also delicious...very similar to what we had at Franchia.
The entrees were a bit odd. I ordered the mushroom sizzler, an entree of assorted mushrooms on a stone plate...and that's all it was. Mushrooms. They were great, and I'm a huge fan of mushrooms, but it was weird to get an entree that was just mushrooms...and pay $26 for it. I thought there would be more to it other than a few veggies thrown on top.
Rob ordered ssam bab...do it yourself lettuce wraps with veggies & rice. Very tasty, but super awkward to put together. It comes with romaine lettuce, and it was impossible to wrap anything in the leaves. Not a particularly elegant dish to eat in such a fancy setting. But it tasted good.
Hangawi was definitely an experience. The food is good but pricey...maybe that's so they can afford to heat the floors and keep customers' shoeless feet toasty warm.
It's not only important to keep your feet toasty warm when wandering around NYC, but also the rest of you...which is why we made the trip over the bridge to Brooklyn so I could check out Vaute Couture.
It is really hard finding warm outerwear that is not made with down or wool, and a few years ago Vaute Couture recognized this and set out to fill the need for fashionable, warm, cruelty-free outerwear. I already had two Vaute coats that I ordered online, and I absolutely love them! So when I realized the actual store was in Brooklyn, I was super excited to be able to go there in person.
I went in with the intention of finding either a black coat or puffy jacket, but my heart was quickly claimed by the adorable petal pink luxe Yasuko.
I. Love. This. Coat. Holy. Shit. Do. I. Ever. Love. This. Coat. :) :) :) And it's machine washable. Awwww yeahhhhh.
I totally lucked out with my timing, because there was a staff meeting in progress when we got there, so I got to meet pretty much everyone, including the founder, Leanne. She was very helpful in recommending her fave vegan eats in the city, including a place that serves a vegan omelette which wasn't on our radar. She was a sweetheart and obliged my request for a pic with her, but made me promise not to tag her on facebook or anything because she was all dressed down...which really didn't matter because the girl is absolutely gorgeous, but ima respect her wishes, because she designs incredible coats.
Like my adorable petal pink luxe Yasuko.
I'm in a bad habit of skipping breakfast, especially when I'm traveling, as I'm very rarely hungry in the morning...but I was eager to try the vegan omelette Leanne mentioned, so the next morning we headed to The Organic Grill for breakfast. This was one of the only places we ate at that wasn't 100% vegan (they serve eggs and dairy from Amish country). I kind of wanted to stick to all vegan restaurants on this trip since there certainly was an abundance of them, but the idea of a vegan omelette (not just a tofu scramble, but an actual friggen omelette) was too interesting to pass up.
I'm really glad we took Leanne's advice, because the omelette was awesome.
You choose your own fillings, so I went with spinach, vegan cheese, and cauliflower. I'd never had cauliflower in an omelette (vegan or otherwise), and now I question why that is, because cauliflower totally works in this context...it is seriously good. How have I never, in my 32 years, come across cauliflower as an omelette filling? I've been missing out. And so have you. I suggest you remedy this immediately and make yourself an omelette with cauliflower asap.
Also on the menu? Vegan perogies. Served with cashew sour cream. How could we not?
Thumbs up Organic Cafe. Thumbs up indeed.
The other exception we made to the 100% vegan restaurant plan was an Ethiopian restaurant called Meskell.
This was the only place we ate at that served meat, but we had to try Ethiopian food in NYC, since Ethiopian cuisine is my absolute favourite food everrrr. We even managed to find an Ethiopian restaurant in Stockholm a few years ago.
It's pretty simple to order at an Ethiopian place...we just get the veggie combo and try a bit of everything...cabbage, kale, green beans, lentils, split peas...all served with injera (bread that can be best described as a sourdough crepe).
Meskell also offered an avocado salad which I had never seen before at an Ethiopian place, so we had that too.
Because most Ethiopian vegetarian dishes are vegan by default, Ethiopian food is always a great bet for us.
And no NYC city dining experience would be complete without tracking down a food cart, so we were thrilled to discover Cinnamon Snail. I had started following these guys on Twitter a few months ago, and they're always in a different location, so you have to check in the morning to find out where they're going to be that day.
I was expecting a few basic dishes and pastries. I was not expecting this.
This pastry case was sensory overload for me. You need to understand that when I look into a typical pastry case I'm usually scanning for that one item that might be egg & dairy-free, if I bother to look in the pastry case at all.
To look into a pastry case as glorious and colorful and interesting as this one with the understanding that nothing is off limits...I think I may have shed a little tear.
We kinda went nuts on the pastries...
And we still ordered breakfast.
Don't be fooled by the paper carton presentation. That there is the Standard American Riot...Blue corn pancakes with Vermont maple syrup, scrambled tofu, maple breakfast tempeh strips and greens. You out that on a fancy schmancy plate and you got yourself a fancy schmancy breakfast.
Friggen blue corn pancakes. Such a unique flavour. Brought me back to my grade 12 trip to Tijuana.
This breakfast was 5 star hotel worthy. Or so I thought until my 5 star hotel ended up THROWING OUT MY CINNAMON SNAIL PASTRIES.
Oh yes. Those incredible pastries in the photo above? The Plaza THREW 3.5 OF THEM OUT. Ohhh I was pissed.
You see, we stayed at the Plaza for the second half of our trip (staying for an entire week was wayyyyyyy out of our tax bracket). When we checked in we were gifted with a lovely fruit tray.
We had eaten the cherries, grapes and banana, and put our Cinnamon Snail stash on the plate with the remaining fruit.
And when we got back to the room later that night, it was gone.
Let me clarify that these were not picked over, half eaten remains. That plate was FULL. We'd only eaten the raspberry blackout donut and half the bourbon custard donut.
The cinnamon snail? Lavender pear turnover? Marshmallow cookie? Gone. Tossed with half a plate of perfect fruit.
Really Plaza housekeeping? Really?
I was more pissed with the wastefulness than anything.
So a couple of days later we tracked down Cinnamon Snail again. And stocked up. Again.
They were super busy this afternoon and sold out of a lot of stuff by the time we got there, but we still managed to score some good stuff.
This time I hid the stash in a drawer. Stupid Plaza.
So we've covered NYC vegan fine dining, casual dining, and food cart dining, which leaves us with the most important dining of all...ice cream dining.
And for the best tity-milk-free ice cream in New York, and dare I say, the universe, you need look no further than Lula's Sweet Apothecary.
This ice cream is hands down the creamiest, most delicious, most satisfying ice cream I've had since Haagen Dazs. Actually, even if I was still partaking in titty-milk, I'd still choose Lula's over Haagen Dazs.
This is a cashew based ice cream. Absolutely amazing.
We came here three days in a row. Because it was absolutely amazing.
Day 1: Rob didn't have any ice cream. He was all like, nah, you go ahead.
Peanut butter chocolate cookie/ orange creamscicle
Day 2: Rob totally had ice cream.
Orange creamscicle/espresso
Vanilla malt/cookies & cream
Day 3: My first banana split in 2 years.
It is ridiculous how happy ice cream makes me.
Dear Vancouver,
We really really really need a Lula's Sweet Apothecary on the west coast.
Sincerely,
Yola
Dear Lula's Sweet Apothecary,
Please move to Vancouver.
Sincerely,
Yola
New York was truly breathtaking. It is such a dazzling, dramatic, interesting place. And as much as I would have loved to eat 24/7, even I have my limits. So we did do a few things to pass the time between stuffing our faces...
Like wandering...
Admiring huge balls...
Visiting the Apple cube...
Appreciating readily accessible vegan literature...
But the atmosphere is zen and the food is pretty cool. Rob ordered a sesame porridge that looked like black goo and tasted awesome.
The combination pancakes were also delicious...very similar to what we had at Franchia.
The entrees were a bit odd. I ordered the mushroom sizzler, an entree of assorted mushrooms on a stone plate...and that's all it was. Mushrooms. They were great, and I'm a huge fan of mushrooms, but it was weird to get an entree that was just mushrooms...and pay $26 for it. I thought there would be more to it other than a few veggies thrown on top.
Rob ordered ssam bab...do it yourself lettuce wraps with veggies & rice. Very tasty, but super awkward to put together. It comes with romaine lettuce, and it was impossible to wrap anything in the leaves. Not a particularly elegant dish to eat in such a fancy setting. But it tasted good.
Hangawi was definitely an experience. The food is good but pricey...maybe that's so they can afford to heat the floors and keep customers' shoeless feet toasty warm.
It's not only important to keep your feet toasty warm when wandering around NYC, but also the rest of you...which is why we made the trip over the bridge to Brooklyn so I could check out Vaute Couture.
It is really hard finding warm outerwear that is not made with down or wool, and a few years ago Vaute Couture recognized this and set out to fill the need for fashionable, warm, cruelty-free outerwear. I already had two Vaute coats that I ordered online, and I absolutely love them! So when I realized the actual store was in Brooklyn, I was super excited to be able to go there in person.
I went in with the intention of finding either a black coat or puffy jacket, but my heart was quickly claimed by the adorable petal pink luxe Yasuko.
I. Love. This. Coat. Holy. Shit. Do. I. Ever. Love. This. Coat. :) :) :) And it's machine washable. Awwww yeahhhhh.
I totally lucked out with my timing, because there was a staff meeting in progress when we got there, so I got to meet pretty much everyone, including the founder, Leanne. She was very helpful in recommending her fave vegan eats in the city, including a place that serves a vegan omelette which wasn't on our radar. She was a sweetheart and obliged my request for a pic with her, but made me promise not to tag her on facebook or anything because she was all dressed down...which really didn't matter because the girl is absolutely gorgeous, but ima respect her wishes, because she designs incredible coats.
Like my adorable petal pink luxe Yasuko.
I'm in a bad habit of skipping breakfast, especially when I'm traveling, as I'm very rarely hungry in the morning...but I was eager to try the vegan omelette Leanne mentioned, so the next morning we headed to The Organic Grill for breakfast. This was one of the only places we ate at that wasn't 100% vegan (they serve eggs and dairy from Amish country). I kind of wanted to stick to all vegan restaurants on this trip since there certainly was an abundance of them, but the idea of a vegan omelette (not just a tofu scramble, but an actual friggen omelette) was too interesting to pass up.
I'm really glad we took Leanne's advice, because the omelette was awesome.
You choose your own fillings, so I went with spinach, vegan cheese, and cauliflower. I'd never had cauliflower in an omelette (vegan or otherwise), and now I question why that is, because cauliflower totally works in this context...it is seriously good. How have I never, in my 32 years, come across cauliflower as an omelette filling? I've been missing out. And so have you. I suggest you remedy this immediately and make yourself an omelette with cauliflower asap.
Also on the menu? Vegan perogies. Served with cashew sour cream. How could we not?
Thumbs up Organic Cafe. Thumbs up indeed.
The other exception we made to the 100% vegan restaurant plan was an Ethiopian restaurant called Meskell.
This was the only place we ate at that served meat, but we had to try Ethiopian food in NYC, since Ethiopian cuisine is my absolute favourite food everrrr. We even managed to find an Ethiopian restaurant in Stockholm a few years ago.
 |
| Stockholm February 2010 |
Meskell also offered an avocado salad which I had never seen before at an Ethiopian place, so we had that too.
Because most Ethiopian vegetarian dishes are vegan by default, Ethiopian food is always a great bet for us.
And no NYC city dining experience would be complete without tracking down a food cart, so we were thrilled to discover Cinnamon Snail. I had started following these guys on Twitter a few months ago, and they're always in a different location, so you have to check in the morning to find out where they're going to be that day.
I was expecting a few basic dishes and pastries. I was not expecting this.
This pastry case was sensory overload for me. You need to understand that when I look into a typical pastry case I'm usually scanning for that one item that might be egg & dairy-free, if I bother to look in the pastry case at all.
To look into a pastry case as glorious and colorful and interesting as this one with the understanding that nothing is off limits...I think I may have shed a little tear.
We kinda went nuts on the pastries...
 |
| Clockwise from top left: Lavender pear turnover, marshmallow cookie (it had a really cool name but I forget), raspberry blackout donut, bourbon custard donut, cinnamon snail |
Don't be fooled by the paper carton presentation. That there is the Standard American Riot...Blue corn pancakes with Vermont maple syrup, scrambled tofu, maple breakfast tempeh strips and greens. You out that on a fancy schmancy plate and you got yourself a fancy schmancy breakfast.
Friggen blue corn pancakes. Such a unique flavour. Brought me back to my grade 12 trip to Tijuana.
This breakfast was 5 star hotel worthy. Or so I thought until my 5 star hotel ended up THROWING OUT MY CINNAMON SNAIL PASTRIES.
Oh yes. Those incredible pastries in the photo above? The Plaza THREW 3.5 OF THEM OUT. Ohhh I was pissed.
You see, we stayed at the Plaza for the second half of our trip (staying for an entire week was wayyyyyyy out of our tax bracket). When we checked in we were gifted with a lovely fruit tray.
We had eaten the cherries, grapes and banana, and put our Cinnamon Snail stash on the plate with the remaining fruit.
And when we got back to the room later that night, it was gone.
Let me clarify that these were not picked over, half eaten remains. That plate was FULL. We'd only eaten the raspberry blackout donut and half the bourbon custard donut.
The cinnamon snail? Lavender pear turnover? Marshmallow cookie? Gone. Tossed with half a plate of perfect fruit.
Really Plaza housekeeping? Really?
I was more pissed with the wastefulness than anything.
So a couple of days later we tracked down Cinnamon Snail again. And stocked up. Again.
They were super busy this afternoon and sold out of a lot of stuff by the time we got there, but we still managed to score some good stuff.
 |
| Clockwise from top left: peanut butter cheesecake brownie, marshmallow cookie, maple glazed donut, coconut Thai basil donut, raspberry cheese danish |
So we've covered NYC vegan fine dining, casual dining, and food cart dining, which leaves us with the most important dining of all...ice cream dining.
And for the best tity-milk-free ice cream in New York, and dare I say, the universe, you need look no further than Lula's Sweet Apothecary.
This ice cream is hands down the creamiest, most delicious, most satisfying ice cream I've had since Haagen Dazs. Actually, even if I was still partaking in titty-milk, I'd still choose Lula's over Haagen Dazs.
Since forsaking titty-milk I've discovered some great dairy-free ice creams that I love. But Lula's blows them all away.
This is a cashew based ice cream. Absolutely amazing.
We came here three days in a row. Because it was absolutely amazing.
Day 1: Rob didn't have any ice cream. He was all like, nah, you go ahead.
Peanut butter chocolate cookie/ orange creamscicle
Day 2: Rob totally had ice cream.
Orange creamscicle/espresso
Vanilla malt/cookies & cream
Day 3: My first banana split in 2 years.
With cinnamon pecan, cookies & cream and chocolate ice cream, drizzled with chocolate fudge and marshmallow fluff, topped with gummy bears, coconut whip, and a maraschino cherry...but not one of those bright red artificially colored cherries...the real deal.
It is ridiculous how happy ice cream makes me.
Dear Vancouver,
We really really really need a Lula's Sweet Apothecary on the west coast.
Sincerely,
Yola
Dear Lula's Sweet Apothecary,
Please move to Vancouver.
Sincerely,
Yola
Like wandering...
Frolicking...
Times Square-ing...
Hailing cabs...
Stalking SNL...
Admiring huge balls...
and huge trees...
Appreciating readily accessible vegan literature...
Hating on Monsanto...
Giving a dollar to what appears to be an animal rights cause but upon further examination just appears to be a weirdo filming me with an iPad that I totally didn't notice until Rob told me the guy had an iPad and was filming me...
Occupying Wall Street...
Visiting Thomas Crown...
and Donald Trump...
 |
| You're fired. |
Searching for Kevin McCallister...
but finding the Plaza bear instead...
Gettin' our Met on...
 |
| Just a nice little Renoir |
Gettin' our modern art on...
 |
| Picasso |
 |
| Pollock |
 |
| Warhol |
Gettin' our Public Library on...
Gettin' our viewpoint on...
Gettin' our Central Park on...
And of course, getting my Stella on...
 |
| Why yes those are non-leather Stella McCartney boots for 60% off, thank you for asking. |
I love New York :) It's a pretty great place to hang out.
Except for all the assholes wearing fur.
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