By Chloe is one the hottest and most Instagramed places of 2016. Whoever does their marketing and PR is a genius because it's vegan food that I've seen at a bunch of other places but yet somehow the lines and crowds just keep coming in. It's in the heart of NYU, so it brings in a lot of students and because of its vegan/healthy menu, it also brings in a lot of uber skinny models - neither of which make this place super appealing. But what did appeal to me was the solid and healthy looking menu.
Aarti and I went on a Monday at 1:30pm, which I thought was an off standard lunch hour, but it was still super super crowded. It's not an actual restaurant but a place where you order your food at the counter and then you find a seat in their open communal space. This place is NOT big enough for the crowds. It was absolute mayhem from start to finish. People are watching over those sitting down like a hawk, swooping in for a seat from miles away. There is no place to wait for your food or think about what to order because it's co-mingled with the same area where people are waiting for a seat. Operational nightmare. By the time I got to the counter, I was a flustered mess. It didn't help that the cashier had an "I give zero fucks" attitude and could have cared less about what I was ordering and in fact, got it wrong on the 1st try. It was so stressful to order that Aarti and I both ended up getting the guac burger ($9.95) and split the air baked fries ($3.95) and a pomegranate lemonade without giving it much thought. The overall menu actually sounded pretty good and if I wasn't smashed up against the counter, I would have taken the time to order more stuff to try, like the quinoa tacos or the avocado pesto pasta. As I mentioned before, everything here is vegan and/or gluten free - how f'ing hipster and trendy. But I'll give them that the food turned out to be pretty tasty.
First, we had to get a seat and we were literally sitting on top of a couple who was clearly only half done with their food but they were nice and didn't dilly dally for very long. Finally we get the food and I dive right in. The guac burger is made with a black bean quinoa sweet potato patty, topped with corn salsa, onions, guacamole, tortilla strips, chipotle aioli on top of a whole grain bun. As far as a non-meat burger goes, it was pretty good. I normally don't eat veggie burgers because on the few times that I have, it's normally dry and mealy. This one wasn't, although topping it with guacamole, salsa and aioli is probably part of the reason why it stayed moist. It still is not substitute for a real burger in my opinion but I wasn't unhappy with this at all. The fries were good - you can tell that they were obviously not fried and air baked but that wasn't a deal breaker for me. They have this funky beet ketchup you can dip them it, which was interesting, different and not as bad as it sounds.
Overall, while I would say that the food is definitely good and the menu is quite appealing, the complete chaos, lack of order and frankly annoying clientele is enough to make me only want to come back here on off-off peak hours. Luckily, it looks like they are opening another location which is close to my Barre class, so hopefully that one will be a bit more calming and I can try out some of their other healthy options. Total bill: $30 for 2 people
Photo Credit: Yelp
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