I know, you must be thinking "What? Another vegan review??" Don't worry - I am still a meat loving eater but I'm always open to trying new and different cuisines and when Amy bought a Groupon for this place, I was down to try it. It's long been a vegan/raw food staple in the New York restaurant scene and for that reason alone, it's never really been high on my list of places to try. Vegan is one thing but raw is a whole other ball game. But people rave about this place, so I was willing to give it a shot. I'm starting to wonder if I need to start a label for vegan/vegetarian only places on my blog!
They do a really good job of making the menu sound really good. Everything sounded really delicious and appetizing. We opted to split the Philly Roll ($19) to start which was their take on a sushi roll. It's avocado, kim chee, cashew cheese, tatsoi, hijiki, scallion and sweet chili sauce wrapped in seaweed. It was a fairly hearty dish with all those different ingredients (and I'll be honest I have no idea what tatsoi or hijiki are). Of course, it doesn't compare to a real sushi roll but it wasn't some sad flavorless roll either. For our entrees, we decided to split all of our dishes. We got the zucchini and heirloom tomato lasagna ($24), the hen of the woods tacos ($22), and the portabella mushroom with cauliflower and horseradish aioli ($23). As you can see from the prices, they are all fairly expensive for food that is not even cooked! Luckily, they all tasted pretty good otherwise I would have been really really upset. My favorite was the zucchini and tomato lasagna. It was served with a pesto pistachio pesto, sun-dried tomato marinara, and pumpkin seed ricotta. Yes - it was cold and raw, but there was enough flavor from the tomato and pesto to carry the dish. Of course I missed the pasta and warm gooey-ness of cheese, but I've made vegetarian lasagna before where I subbed out the pasta for strips of eggplant and zucchini, so it was kind of similar here. It was a pretty meaty dish to the point where we didn't even finish it between the three of us because we were all getting so full. The tacos were served with smoked guacamole, hearts of palm, fresh corn, guajillo crema fresca and pickled onions. It was pretty good and I particularly enjoyed the corn concoction part of the dish. Overall, it wasn't too much of a stretch to make this dish vegan, it was mostly like a regular vegetarian taco dish you would get at a Mexican place. Lastly, the portabella mushroom dish came with kale chimichurri, peach salsa, barbecue sauce and a bunch of haricots verts. Again, this dish didn't seem like too much of a stretch because the mushroom tasted like a regular roasted mushroom (ok, so I guess this place wasn't 100% raw but I don't think they cook things at a high temperature here) and the cauliflower was similar to a mashed potato consistency in that it was mashed up and mixed together with a horseradish and scooped out in a ball. This was also a super filling and hearty dish - in fact everything here had this rich element without any oil or fats. I was pretty impressed at how good the meal could be considering how many not so great savory vegan meals are out there.
Since it's fall, we opted to get the pumpkin praline pie for dessert (an outrageous $16) which was delicious and served with a large frozen poached pear covered in chocolate. It was so frozen that we could barely bite into it because it was so painful on the teeth. The pie tasted just like a pumpkin pie should but $16 for 1 slice is really just highway robbery (even if it did include a sweet praline ice cream). All in all, the food here was definitely the most fancy and high end of any vegan place I've been to and the prices reflect as such. I left surprisingly full and impressed at the level of creativity and tastiness raw food can have, but it's definitely not going to sway me to change into a hippie anytime soon! Total bill: $47/pp with tax, tip and a Groupon.
Photo Credit: Yelp
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