Sacred Chow

Today I went to Sacred Chow for lunch. It's a cute little place just below Washington Square Park serving tapas, sandwiches, and breakfast/brunch food.

I was really in the mood for a sandwich instead of sweet breakfasty stuff, otherwise I would not have been able to resist the banana bread french toast (that will require another visit).

I was torn between the roasted black olive seitan sub and the orange bbq seitan sub. I went with the black olive seitan, but I'm not sure it was the right decision. It was good, but the seitan was kind of salty and didn't have any black olive flavor (beyond the saltiness). Some pieces of the seitan were a little big and kind of doughy in the middle, too. It came with vegan "mozzarella," which was good but not too cheese-like...it was creamy/liquidy like a creamy sauce. And boy was it messy -- and giant. The cole slaw it came with was not very good (my dining partner took one bite and pronounced it "unremarkable").




I think next time I'll try the orange bbq seitan...or some tapas, but I don't know if I can convince anyone I know to go to a tiny little vegan restaurant for tapas....it seems like most people I know like all the weird meats and cheeses they get when going out for tapas, so I don't know if seitan and raw kale will do it.

Galaxy Global Eatery

Galaxy Global Eatery is a restaurant on Irving Place (right next to Irving Plaza) with an international/outer-space theme AND a hemp obsession. It sounds like so much fun that I was very excited to go there.

I went for brunch...which might be part of why I didn't feel like I was in outer-space at all (like I was expecting). Maybe the atmosphere works better at night.

They have plenty of fun cocktails on the menu, but they were out of ingredients that went into several that I tried to order. I ended up with something good, but it wasn't my first (or second or third) choice. They're also one of those places that puts all of their cocktails in martini glasses, which just makes them likely to spill...which they all did plenty of as the server carried them from the bar to our table.

I had a tofu scramble, which came with tempeh bacon, some potatoes, and a salad. It was good (though nowhere nearly as good as Spring Street Natural's tofu scramble). I think the potatoes were actually some sort of potato salad with a vinaigrette. If I went back to Galaxy Global, I would probably order something else, but this wasn't bad for brunch.

Blossom

Despite the fact that it was an evening of bad ordering on my part, I had a great dinner at Blossom in Chelsea. The place doesn't have that crunchy-granola atmosphere that you find at a lot of vegan restaurants. Despite being right on 9th Avenue, it felt very private and tucked away. It as quiet and dark but with a lot of candles, and the tables weren't too close together.

For an appetizer we had the South Asian Lumpia, which was delicious. It was like a really good samosa with seitan inside.

For an entree I ordered the porcini filet. It was okay, but not great. It didn't have any really distinct flavor other than "salty," which I think was because it just had too much gravy. The mashed potatoes were good, but again covered in too much gravy. The porcini filet is on the left in the picture (see all that gravy?). On the right is the "savory seitan & herb potatoes." I had a couple of bites of this, and it was delicious. The seitan's texture was great, the potatoes were little roasted cubes with lots of flavor, the green beans tasted really fresh, and the whole dish had a wonderful garlic flavor. If I go back to Blossom, I would definitely order this.




I made another mistake ordering dessert. After much debate, we decided on the chocolate ganache torte, at my insistence. It looks good, but it was very bland...it tasted like two-day old cake made from a cake mix with hot fudge from a jar. Even the ice cream wasn't very good. For the rest of the night, all I could think was that I wished I'd ordered the berry tarte.