A month ago I spent one of the best weeks of my life in New York. In this article, I will not talk about the impact this trip had on my life, nor what we saw. Anyway, it was a typical tourist trip, so you can probably find everything we saw online and in guidebooks. I'd rather tell you about where we ate, because if you visit the Big Apple and follow an endometriosis diet, you'll be surprised. On the one hand, you'll find it incredibly easy, because everything is there, but on the other hand, they're a bit tricky, so let's see why. Let the pictures do the talking and I promise you'll hear more about New York. 🙂
So, on the one hand, you can find plant-based food anywhere, even if you don't go to a specifically vegan place. However, what was particularly difficult for me was that they seem to go to great lengths to make the plant food as similar to meat as possible, in taste, texture and appearance. This is very appealing for those who have become vegan for ethical reasons only but who otherwise love meat, like Kristóf Steiner, but for those who have never been into it, it's not an easy experience. Kristóf's partner Nimi and I were particularly nauseous at times, I had a brain that didn't realise I wasn't eating an animal, and even though our Anixis experience was very high quality, I was actually sick afterwards and shared the fresh air outside the restaurant with the fattest rat I've ever seen - which shows the power of our thoughts and what goes on in our heads. I rarely drink alcohol, but I joined in the cocktails at Anixi and Beyond Sushi, otherwise I don't think I would have had a bite down my throat. At these pretend meat-eating places, my favourites were definitely the desserts. 🙂
At both Anexi and Beyond Sushi, I was told that non-vegan family members are often brought here for celebrations and events. Also, nowhere on the menu does it say that everything is made from plants, so you order chicken, beef, fish, it just says somewhere on the restaurants website that the place is vegan.
Here's a taste of some of the places we tried. If I could pick just one, my absolute favourite is the one I've unfortunately forgotten the name of, it's my form, it's close to the Vessel and we saw some celebrity eating there who I had no idea who he was, but the rest of us were absolutely blown away. However, when Jared Leto came into view as we exited the Sex and the City sex shop, I was the one who fell apart, everyone else stayed calm, saying come on, we have our own Jared Letonk in the form of Nimrod Dagan. But seriously, look. Okay, you can't see it here, anyway, trust me, it's Jared Leto, in fact, Jared Leto is worse than Jared Leto.
BURGER VILLAGE: salads, burgers in all quantities.
CHELSEA MARKET: tacos and cookies, but we had everything that the eye could eat.
TIME OUT MARKET: I don't know, because I only went to the bathroom, but the others said it was good:-)
MAGNOLIA BAKERY: sorry, I only listed that out of respect for Carrie Bradshaw, and unfortunately I was fibbing, because there was nothing vegan about it.
ANIXI: We ate a vegan and kosher five course testing menu, my brain has ruled out exactly what, some kebab on skewers thing or the fact that I had the best cheesecake of my life here. By the way, it was made by Zsuzsi Barta, a Hungarian-born freelance chef we met at Beyond Sushi.
ACE PIZZERIA: I can only speak superlatives about it, I think only in Trieste can I find a better vegan pizza. By the way, from here to Happy Zoe we went on a vegan tasting tour of Brooklyn organised by New York Vegan, I highly recommend anyone passing by to find Verana and walk around my absolute favourite neighbourhood in New York together.
GARDEN CARVER: I had the best vegan cheese platter of my life here, and I'm a pro at it. Unlike meat, I used to love cheese, so I play around with making all sorts of plant-based cheeses at home, but they don't even come close!
JAJAJA: amazing hospitality and very tasty, a little too spicy for me, but the good old guacamole with its many tortilla chips saved us.
NEXT STOP VEGAN: by the way, it's not really fair to rate these restaurants, because obviously as we progressed on the tour we became less and less hungry after all the tasting. I, for example, didn't get hungry at all, but I did have a bite of the lentil and quinoa empanada. I didn't have the capacity left for the vegan Mac&Cheese.
HAPPY ZOE VEGAN BAKERY: this place has it all, I was full, but I still had a taste of all the cakes. The pumpkin cheesecake made me cry, it was so good. The others were more of a blueberry Halloween special, but that's ok, I had more of the pumpkin deliciousness left for me. Of course, it could have been that I had a high fever here, which always makes my eyes water. I want to live above this little bakery and follow Zoe wherever she goes. I'm afraid I'll have to do pilates all day, because I'll be fat, but whatever.
PLANTEGA: it's like a Subway, only the difference is that it's good. You can pick and choose what you want in your bread, but if you have decision burnout and, like me, stare glassy-eyed at the counter for ten minutes, they have pre-made sandwiches. You can get takeaway, but be warned, if you carry it more than two blocks vegan cheese sauce will be all over your bag and k hard to wash with baby wipes, I'm told.
VIDAVERDE: this is a very cosy Mexican restaurant, where I had my usual life-saving favourite in the middle of the night, tortilla chips with avocado cream. We had everything else on our table because I was so hungry I put everything together and then couldn't even eat a quarter of it. Luckily, you can always count on Kristof for that kind of thing. This restaurant is relatively close to Studio 54, where we had previously watched a Louis Armstrong musical. Anyway, I wanted to go to a Broadway show so badly but so badly that I had about what it took to just go, and in the process I realized that I was not interested in Lois Armstrong's life anyway, and I didn't know any of her songs, so I slept through the whole thing. It must have been all the late nights and the jet lag and everything, because it wasn't just me, it was more than half of our group taking a nap. Poor Louis. They left the most famous song that everyone knows to the very end, so we got up and got hungry and ended up at Vida Verde near Studio 54.
BEYOND SUSHI: Oh well, looking back now, it was quite an emotional trip to New York. I cried here too. I hate sushi by the way, but relax, that's not why I was crying, it was because it was our last night in New York and I didn't want to come home. We had a three course heavenly dinner menu prepared for us by Chef Guy Vaknin, and Zsuzsi Barta was here, so we had cheesecake at the end:-)
To be continued, in the meantime meet me here:
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