The cross section of Chinatown/Lower East Side seems to be the new hipster hot spot these days. There are tons of new restaurants popping up these days and Dimes is one that has gotten a lot of press these days. I had actually tried to go to Dimes last year with my friend Nicole since she lives around the corner, but the place is literally the size of my kitchen and the wait was awful, so we left but I had bookmarked it as some place to return.
The appeal of Dimes is that it's like being in California - it's all healthy, clean, crunchy, granola type food but all in a good way. The menu is full of salads and entrees with things like farro, quinoa, bulgar wheat, kale, and acai bowls (it's the only place I've seen acai outside of Brazil). So you get the idea. I opted for the Summer Tacos ($8) because it was one of the rare items that had egg in it and it was brunch time, so I had to go with something that was more egg-y. We also got the Love Toast ($6) for the table and I got a hot chai tea ($3.50). The toast was essentially 2 pieces of wheat toast with housemade tahini, mint, honey and topped with raspberries. I liked the combination of the tahini and honey - it was really filling and rich - it was kind of like having peanut butter and honey but slightly different with the tahini. It's definitely something to think about as a substitute for my breads in the future. Next came the summer tacos - luckily there were 2 of them but it didn't come with anything else on the plate. Although I guess for $8, it makes sense that that's all you're going to get. At least they were some damn delicious tacos. They are made with perfectly soft scrambled eggs, spicy mango salsa, tomatillo, cheddar cheese, avocado, hot sauce and cilantro. The taco shell is a nice soft flour tortilla and all the flavors blend really well for each other. It was a nice "healthy" breakfast - no meat, no carbs (except for the tortillas obviously) and not a lot of grease or oil to it. They were really quite fantastic and it made me think that I could go straight home and make my own breakfast tacos but I'm sure they wouldn't be as good.
The reason I don't give this place a higher rating is that it's really just a shitshow waiting for a table and then when you do sit down, it's a bit uncomfortably tight. Luckily we had gotten one of the corner tables because we were a group of 3 but otherwise, everyone else seemed to be piled on top of each other. It's just too small of the space to keep up with the demand. The clientele is also a bit too hipster/model/too cool for school kind of vibe but I really can't complain when I do live in the epi-center of hipsterville. I would definitely come back, maybe during an off hour when it's not so crowded. If you're looking for some healthy, clean eating, Dimes is worth the trek and even if you're too lazy to wait, at least you can still walk around and grab some great food nearby in Chinatown. Total bill: $20/pp with tax and tip
Photo Credit: Yelp
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