Zen Palate

Order Date: January 26, 2006, evening

I don't consider Zen Palate to be a treat at all. Why? Because I only eat their food when I work late and have to order dinner. I have several restaurant choices with good vegetarian food, but I usually choose Zen Palate because their delivery is lightening fast.

I've tried many of their dishes, but they've added a bunch of new ones recently that I haven't tried yet. Oh, and great news! They used to have some non-vegan items (containing dairy and/or eggs), and they used to be kind of shifty about admitting that. They've redone their website, and in the FAQs section, they list the vegan items. Last time I looked, there were just a few things with egg and a couple of desserts with dairy. Well, I looked again while writing this, and they now only list the two desserts with dairy as non-vegan. I emailed them to make sure this is right, and their response (lightening fast, like the delivery) is that they've gotten rid of the eggs, and now the only non-vegan dishes are those two desserts. Check out their website, which is crazy-detailed, with pictures of most dishes and customer reviews.

On this night I ordered my favorite dish. It's the "Moo Shu Mexican Style." It's two spinach pancake/tortillas filled with a kidney bean and soy protein mixture, guacamole, a spicy carrot salad, and cous-cous. Actually, it's not cous-cous. That's what they call it, but I'm almost positive it's millet (which I love!).

It's a little hard to eat...you need a knife to cut them...or, to be in your office with the door shut so that no one can see you tearing at them with a hand/fork combination. The guacamole is good, except that some culinary delinquent decided to put a few tiny pieces of celery in it. They're small enough and few enough that you can kind of ignore them. The carrot slaw is a great combo of spicy and sweet, and, of course, the millet is great. It also comes with two little spring rolls (the flavor of which I can only describe as "deep fried"), but for an extra dollar you can have those replaced with the moo shu basil rolls, which are in rice paper and filled with basil, peanuts, jicama (?), and I don't know what else. But they're delicious. In general, I find the food to be inconsistent, though, so sometimes things that have previously been great show up mushy and flavorless.

And here's the sad "I'm about to eat dinner at my desk" picture...

Eva's

Visit Date: January 22, 2006, afternoon

Eva's (8th St btwn 5th & 6th Ave.) is one of those kind of scary "health food" places that caters to body builders. They sell lots of vitamins, protein shakes, lean meat/egg-white dishes, etc. But the bright side is that they use brown rice and whole wheat bread and have plenty of veggies and tofu.

On this visit I had the "vegan special," which consists of lentil soup over brown rice, a salad, and a whole wheat pita. It's $5.50, but you can get 10% off with an NYU student ID.

They call it the "vegan special," but I think of it as the "mild hangover special." It's heavy enough to help re-fortify you, but not so big and greasy as to make you immobile for the next few hours. If you need something for a more serious hangover (or if you've just run 13 miles), I recommend the "vegetarian (non-dairy) combination," which consists of falafel, green salad, brown rice, chickpea salad, eggplant salad, and whole wheat pita. You won't need to eat again for the rest of the day.

They also have many other vegan options consisting of various combinations of falafel, hummus, brown rice, lentil soup, chili, tofu, steamed veggies, whole wheat pasta, etc. And they have vegan spirutein chocolate chip cookies, but I've never tried one. I think I have some trust issues with an egg-and-meat place claiming to make vegan cookies....

Here's the vegan special:




The lentil soup and brown rice are pretty average; I recommend asking for hot sauce. "Salad" is a generous term for the dish of lettuce with a few carrot and cabbage shavings. Although Eva's has a nice selection of dressings, the salad seems to be pre-dressed with oil, which seems to be flavorless, but always makes me hesitant to add more dressing. The pita is sometimes more fresh than others...on this day it was very stale.

Still, for $5.50 - 10% + tax? It's a pretty good deal.

Union Square Farmers' Market

Visit date: January 21, 2006, morning

This is one of the best things about Saturdays in the city. It's January, so there's not nearly as much produce available at the market as there is throughout the spring and summer, but it's still worth the weekly trip.

There are lots of apples there now. This picture is of pink lady apples. I didn't buy these...I bought from a smaller vendor who's always very friendly and liberal with samples and freebies, but I thought this picture was the prettiest.




I love the colorful varieties of potatoes. I didn't buy any today because I'm still making my way through the surplus I discovered in my cabinet, apparently due to over-buying in previous weeks.

There's a stand that sells flavored tofu, among other things. I've never tried or purchased the tofu...it always just looks greasy to me, but it's probably good because they're always there selling it. The picture is of the samples.

And here's the highlight. This is the whole reason I'm posting this. The vegan carrot raisin walnut cookies. I've had these before, and they're delicious. They're heavy on the carrot, and you can taste the maple syrup in them. They're a soft cake-like cookie. Really, with the carrots, raisins, walnuts, and whole wheat flour, you can kind of convince yourself that they're not a dessert cookie...more like a "health cookie." Good for snacks...and breakfast? And they're big enough to munch on all day, or over a couple of days.

This stand is at the market on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and they claim to always have the vegan cookies. They're $2.25 each.

I was kind of disappointed with the picture since the plastic wrap prevents a good view of the cookies themselves, so I was forced to buy one. Here it is on my kitchen counter. I'm playing with the macro mode on my camera. Oh, and while playing with the macro mode, I discovered that the camera actually has a "food mode," designed to "take appetizing pictures of prepared food." Yeah. How silly is that? I mean, I'm using it of course, in case it makes the cookie look more appetizing...

Moustache

Falafel!


Date of visit: January 15, 2006, lunch

I'd heard a lot about this tiny Middle Eastern restaurant in my neighborhood, but never tried it until today.
Upon walking inside, I was pleasantly surprised that it's much cuter inside than I'd thought from peering in the windows. It's not tiny and claustrophobic as I'd expected, but warm and cozy and clean without seeming antiseptic.
I had a falafel sandwich that consisted of falafel, lettuce, tomato, and tahini sauce wrapped up in -- this is the best part -- a freshly-made soft fluffy pita. The bread was obviously very fresh and managed to reach the perfect balance of flaky and elastic. The falafel balls also tasted fresh and were not greasy nor mushy. The tahini sauce was pretty run-of-the-mill: very good, but nothing spectacular. Overall the flavors blended together well, but were very mild. No garlickiness that you find in some falafel. It was great gentle food if you're hung over (like I was), and it was a nice change not to have post-falafel garlic breath.
I'd like to rate the sandwich higher than those at Bread & Olive in midtown because of the incredible bread, but I don't think I can because Bread & Olive wins me over with their garlicky falafel (I love it despite the ill effects on my breath) and the pickled radish they put in the sandwich. However, I'll definitely return to Moustache, and look forward to more bread and to trying their hummus.

Pukk

Visit date: Jan. 10, 2006, dinner time

Here are some things you should know about Pukk:

• It's a vegetarian Thai restaurant in the East Village (1st Ave around 5th St). It's not all vegan, but I think you can have the eggs left out of any dishes that include them to make everything vegan.
• They made some sort of horrible mistake with their decor. You will notice right away, and it may even keep you from entering the restaurant. They have a white and neon green color scheme, and from the style, my guess is that they got a great deal on all of their furnishings from some Miami night club that went out of business. It's important that you're prepared for this before you get there; show up knowing that you should walk in the door despite every instinct you have urging you to never enter a place that looks like that. Trust me, it'll be worth it.
• It's an incredible relief to go to a Thai restaurant and not worry about fish sauce!
• Many of their dishes come with your choice of protein: "chicken," "beef," "duck," or tofu.
• The service is quick and the food is cheap! Check out their menu here.

On my recent visit, I had the red curry with "chicken." I think the biggest problem that Pukk has is that some of their fake meat doesn't look very appealing. I looked down at my "chicken," and I thought "oh no, I ordered the wrong thing!" The stuff looks like plastic. I don't need my mock meats to look like real meats, but I do want them to look like food.

Despite the appearance, the red curry was really good. It has pineapple and bamboo shoots in it. It was decently spicy, but not burning hot. The "chicken" has a good texture; no one's going to believe that it's real chicken, but it's nice and chewy with a very mild flavor that basically just sucks up the flavor of the sauce it's in. It could have been slightly less greasy, but I tend to say that about everything I eat in a restaurant.

On a previous visit I had the green papaya salad. It was delicious. I definitely recommend it!

In this picture, on the left is the red curry and on the right is the "perfect protein duck."

Mmmm....vegan fork....

I've stumbled upon a few blogs like this before, and that's always very exciting. But they're missing something. Pictures! So as long as I can remember to take my camera with me when I'm eating around town, I'll be able to both show AND tell you about all of the yummy vegan food available in this city. That is, for as long as my friends can put up with me always saying "Wait, don't start eating yet! I need to take a picture!" and asking them such questions as "Was the mock duck firmer or mushier than the mock chicken? Can you rate the chewiness on a scale of one to five?"

As I seem to be simultaneously one of nature's list-makers but also often disorganized, I think this will be a great way for me to keep track of the various restaurants and dishes that I like and dislike. I actually have some menus from restaurants where I've intended to try as many dishes as possible and rate them. I've come up with intricate rating systems involving cryptic codes, but I look back at the menus and have no idea what they mean (the "*" must be better than the "+", right? But what is that other symbol? A squiggly? What does it mean? I don't think I've ever had that dish...how could I have given it a squiggly?)

I hope you enjoy seeing the many vegan options available in NYC!