You may know New York as the birthplace of cheesy, thin-crusted pizza that you have to fold in half to eat but for vegans like me it is a special eating experience and a dream come true. Within the concrete jungle, plant foodies have a whole lot of options from vegan ice cream to vegan sushi. No matter where I ended up within New York City, I was sure to wind up eating deliciously vegetable-based foods filled with bold flavors. Experiencing the city as a vegan was fun and effortless. Not only is the big apple bursting with veggie options, but the best part of it all was that every food spot was only a subway ride away. I’d go back in a heartbeat! How could I not fall in love with a city that speaks my tastebud’s love language?
For my vegan tour of the city, the first stop was Candle Cáfe on the Upper East Side. I did get lost on the way there and discovered Candle 79, Candle Café’s more sophisticated and more expensive sister. You already know I was on that student budget so I headed down the block and went for more casual vegan food. On the inside, they had a fresh juice bar and an overall warm and fuzzy environment. I quickly ordered a barbeque tofu wrap to-go and was happy to receive it in sustainable packaging for the turtles of course.
Then I food crawled my way to MTHR vegan in Midtown NYC. From their menu of burgers, tacos, and salads, I tried my first vegan rendering of a Nashville hot chicken burger. I love spicy. This fried chicken burger was flavored with cayenne pepper, Scorpion sauce, buffalo wing slaw, and just a hint of brown sugar. I was impressed that the sandwich was enough to take me back to my pre-vegan days of eating Publix fried chicken.
On the next day in my vegan itinerary, I landed at the vegan mecca ByChloe. I was blown away by the food. I’m now pretty sure that you can pick anything from their animal-free menu and it will be absolutely delicious. I opted for the BLT which came with shiitake bacon, lettuce, tomato, and chipotle aioli served between slices of seven-grain toast. For the first time, I tried my sandwich with their vibrant beet ketchup. Basically, it was a super healthy ketchup. I felt compelled to also order a side of kale artichoke dip and it turned out to be the best vegan dip I’d ever come across. That dip deserves some awards, okay?
Courtesy: YeahThatsKosher.com
One of my unexpected vegan finds was Dos Caminos nestled in times square. Although most of their menu was meat-heavy, there was one designated vegan option and it was a pretty good vegan option too. I ate a vegan cauliflower adobo taco served with yummy cilantro rice. I could really taste the tacos’ corn shell, but it wasn’t overpowering and it blended well with the crispy cauliflower, pico de gallo, grilled avocado, and cashew cream.
For the ultimate vegan ice cream, I traveled to Dumbo and was informed that Dumbo stands for “down under the Manhattan bridge underpass.” After having the most breathtaking view of the Brooklyn Bridge at night I was craving ice cream. So, we popped into Oddfellows where I sampled the most peculiar ice cream flavors. One of the flavors had olive oil in it! I ended up liking the miso cherry vegan ice cream and got a little scoop of it. To me, it was more cherry than miso, but my friend Sam thought it was very miso-y.
Courtesy: York Avenue Blog
New York can be expensive, and I must confess that visiting these places made the cost of the trip add up fast. There were definitely vegan New York restaurants on my list like Cienfuegos and Franchia that I had to skip over in order to save my wallet. Some days I chose to try out Dunkin’s brand new vegan breakfast sausage or Burger King’s beyond whopper.
By the end of the trip, I became more of a vegan foodie than I ever was. It was fun to treat myself to vegan foods that I had never tried before. My favorite non-food activity though was seeing Grand Central Station. Before seeing it for myself, I only recognized it from that one scene in Madagascar where Marty and the gang were running from the NYPD. What the movie doesn’t show you is the gorgeous emerald green ceiling in Grand Central Station that maps out a few of the stars in the zodiac. New York really has it all, doesn’t it?
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