I had passed The Butcher's Daughter before while walking in Chinatown/Nolita and commented on how cute it was, so when Amy and Anuja mentioned they were going to dinner there last night, I couldn't help but crash their "Rabbit Habbit" dinner. The theme here is all vegetarian and organic - most of it is actually vegan and gluten-free. While I'm primarily a meat and seafood happy girl, I'm always willing to try new things and honestly I've been to some fantastic vegetarian only places (I'm looking at you Dirt Candy) so I know it can be good food. Sadly, that wasn't really the case here.
What I mainly liked about this place was the decor. It's really clean and beautiful and it really draws you in. The menu has potential and I wasn't turned off by how any of the dishes were described. I had read in Yelp that the service was awful and while I've had worse, I can say it was severely lacking. It took forever to place our order and I had to ask 3 times what the soup of the day was. Granted, it looked like there was 1 poor waiter for the entire outside section but it just didn't make for a pleasant experience when you have to chase down your waiter 3 or 4 times to get an answer to something. We decided to share a bunch of stuff for the table: smashed avocado toast bites ($8), mushroom-walnut pate, white bean fennel sausage, and beet tartare (3 for $16) and the raw pesto linguine ($14). They also have a long list of juices and elixir shots if you're into that kind of stuff. The avocado toast came out and it was really guacamole without the tomato and cilantro. It was mashed up avocado with curry, mustard seeds, and lime served with very soft pieces of 7-grain bread. I love anything avocado, so there wasn't anything really to dislike about this dish, although it could have probably used a bit more salt. Next I tried the white bean fennel sausage - which in case you haven't guessed, isn't really made out of meat. It looked exactly like a sausage and had a similar taste to it but you could tell it was missing the fat and moisture of meat to it. It was a bit dry but it was an adequate enough meat substitute in a pinch. Just a warning that it is incredibly spicy. The mushroom-walnut pate was also decent in taste if not a bit unmemorable. It was just like a paste or spread put on a crostini and it seemed like a fine snack I would eat at home but not something I would necessarily want to eat out at a restaurant. Next I tried the raw pesto linguine - this was made from ribbons of raw zucchini, walnut-basil pesto and topped with cashew ricotta and served with marinated mushrooms and tomato slices on the slide. I was most excited for this dish but it just didn't really taste that good. Maybe its because I'm not a huge raw food fan, but you could just taste the rawness of the dish and I don't mean that in a good way. It was too earthy for me and this is where I draw the line and would want my food cooked - at least the zucchini ribbons. The same can be said about the beet tartare. It was thinly sliced strings of beets but it kind of tasted like it was just dug out of the ground. I prefer my beets steamed or a bit softer in texture.
In the end, I appreciate what they are trying to do here and I'm all for promoting a healthy lifestyle. But at the same time there has got to be flavor in your food as well. All the dishes really lacked some element of seasoning. Even though I loved the decor and outdoor seating, I probably won't be back unless they did an overhaul of the menu and improved the service. It's food like this that makes me want to go home and fire up a burger on the grill at home and top it with cheese. Total bill: $27/pp with tax and tip.
Photo Credit: Yelp
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