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.