hey everyone, time for another quickbite from our resident pizza expert jon. you may remember him from the garage pizza review, or the post about john’s of 12th street. his brother is scott of scott’s pizza tours, so obviously a love of pizza runs in the family. anyways here’s his take on 900 degrees, a new pizzeria in manhattan’s west village…

900 Degrees in NYC is amazing. It’s just over a month old and they have a few options on the menu for vegetarians and vegans. Some pizzas are not on the menu, but are totally vegan and totally amazing.

Chef, Audrey Sherman, made me a pizza with a roasted garlic white bean spread, fried leeks, sicilian black olives, white asparagus and swiss chard sprinkled with olive oil.

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we get a lot of field reports here on the blog from all over the place, and i think this one has to be my favorite of all. jon sent us this post from john’s of 12th street in nyc, an italian restaurant that’s been around for over a century and recently added a separate vegan menu. i’m kinda freaking out. i seriously can’t wait to get to manhattan and hit this place up ASAP!

Basically, John’s has been around for 103 years – very old school NYC Italian restaurant. About 1.5-2 years ago, they decided to make some changes and introduced an entirely separate vegan menu, which includes separate vegan cooking utensils (whaaaaat?!).

Vegan Garlic Bread

They didn’t half-ass anything, either. They brought in vegan authors to learn about veganism and the chefs tinkered with recipes until they were 100% perfect and worthy of being served.

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if you’re a longtime reader of this blog, you may remember that candle 79 in NYC is one of our favorite restaurants ever. well as it turns out, the fancy uptown restaurant has a casual little brother located just a few blocks away called candle cafe. we visited the 3rd avenue eatery on our most recent trip to manhattan, and found that while ambiance is a bit dressed down compared to candle 79, the food is incredible and indistinguishable.

seitan chimichurri: citrus herb marinated seitan skewers. $8

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hey peeps! time for a field report on one of my favorite foods ever: NYC PIZZA! this one comes to us from blogger JL goes vegan, as she reports on the super vegan-friendly west village pizzeria, slice. i am booking a trip to manhattan as you read this. no joke!

I attended the NYC book signing party for The Happy Herbivore Cookbook which was held at SLICE (on Hudson Street). I’ve been dying to have a slice of SLICE’s vegan pizza!

I started with the Fresh Salad with Carrot Ginger Dressing…

Fresh Salad: Organic mesclun greens, carrots, cucumbers, plum tomatoes. Choice of homemade carrot ginger dressing or house balsamic vinaigrette. $4

This is a great, fresh salad. The dressing is good (LOTS of garlic).

This was my first time at a “pizza joint” with vegan choices (you know, other than “hold the cheese”). I went with the server’s suggestion and ordered the Skilled Eggplant.

Skilled Eggplant (vegan): Herb crust, sundried tomato pesto, vegan cheese, sauteed eggplant, kalamata olives. $13

I ordered the personal pizza size (versus one slice). And…

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hey everyone, we have a new segment on the blog called quick bites! basically if you are ever dining out anywhere and you eat an epic vegan meal (good or bad), snap a pic (with your cell or whateves) and email it to me here…and it may end up on the blog. no promises, but it’s a possibility. if you could send a little description as well, that’ll score points. the first quickbite comes to us from none other than mr. meaner, who is traveling in NYC and hit up one of our favorite spots, franchia, for dinner. here are his quick bites (i am paraphrasing!):

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oh, the knish! i can’t believe i went through life for so long before trying one. the popular new york foodstuff was brought to america by jewish immigrants in the 1800s, and consists usually of mashed potatoes and vegetables encased in a thin layer of dough. of all the places to buy a knish in manhattan, yonah schimmel’s is known as the best, and by default their vegetable knishes are vegan.

we popped by the knishery on our recent trip to NYC, and the food was so good that i know we’ll be back every time we’re in the city. the moment we walked in, i knew we were entering somewhere special…

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on our recent trip to nyc, we ate at our fair share of vegan restaurants and a really damn good one was cafe blossom. there are a few blossom locations in manhattan, but we ate at the up town restaurant on the recommendation from vegan beauty review.

seitan skewers: flame grilled seitan in a bbq sauce served with jicama slaw. $8

we started with an order of seitan skewers, which were fantastic. thick wheat meat mixed up with a tangy yet not too sweet sauce, served with a refreshing side of jicama slaw. we polished them right off. a+!

soy bacon cheeseburger: grilled soy burger topped with caramelized onions, daiya cheese, soy bacon, mushrooms, lettuce and chipotle aioli. $13

we also ordered a soy bacon cheeseburger….and this thing was was not fucking around. it came stacked with a juicy patty, daiya cheese, grilled vegetables and crispy bacon. my only complaint was that the patty was too small for the bun. i mean, look at it—i had to go through two bites of bread before even reaching the “meat”. either way, it was really good and it made me wish LA had more vegan bacon burgers. we ordered it with a side of potato salad, which would have been perfect if it didn’t have bell peppers in it.

southern seitan sandwich: spiced seitan with caramelized onions, avocado and chipotle aioli on foccacia bread. $14

we also shared the southern seitan sandwich with an order of fries. the sandwich was good, but from the description i thought it would be much better. overall it was a little dry and just didn’t hold up to the awesomeness of the bacon cheeseburger. the fries were excellent though, long thin and crispy—some of the best i’ve had in a while.

although the food was on point for the most part, our service was a bit slow. the place wasn’t busy, and we had to go find our server and ask for the check because we’d been sitting there for thirty minutes. oh well, maybe they were just having an off day. either way, i will definitely be back next time i’m in nyc for some more skewers and a bacon cheeseburger.

blossom up town
466 Columbus Avenue, NYC
212-875-2600

Open Daily
Monday – Friday: 11am-10pm
Saturday: 11am-10:30pm
Sunday: 11am-9:30pm

manhattan is full of upscale places that charge a phenomenally high price for food in a posh, trendy environment…and now vegans can get in on the fun. cocoa v is a recently opened and entirely vegan chocolate & wine bar located in chelsea NYC that definitely offers the fancy pants experience. we hit them up last month on a snowy day for a late afternoon snack and had a very lovely, albeit very expensive time.

although cocoa v has a menu full of incredible-sounding chocolate plates (or as the pretentiously call them, “chocolat” plates), we decided to go the a la carte route and save ourselves for the cheese plate. we had a look at the display case up front an chose a couple stumptown coffee candies, as well as a serving of coffee-flavored chocolate bark. i believe each piece of chocolate was about $4, and while it was tasty, the candy itself did not justify the price. i guess you aren’t just paying for the chocolate though, you are paying for the location, the atmosphere, and the all upperclassy-ness of it all.

we also ordered a few glasses of house red wine and a cocoa v cheese plate, which came with a combo of dr. cow cheese, crackers, strawberries and vegan honey.

the cheese plate was delicious (i am a big fan of dr. cow), although it was phenomenally expensive. it came with 3 small wedges of cheese cut into thirds, and i think the whole plate was about $17. i would probably pay it again though, considering it was so tasty and the ambiance was so relaxing.

overall, i would recommend cocoa v if you want to go somewhere special and don’t mind paying what most people would consider way too much money. our bill before tip for the items pictured above was around $50…but hey, the place is beautiful and it’s a bloody upscale VEGAN chocolate bar in nyc! what do you expect? since our visit, they have posted an expanded menu online which looks pretty interesting. they’ve got stuff like english tea sandwiches, quiche, and even a nutella plate.

i definitely plan to return to cocoa v on my next visit to new york; i just better start saving up for it now.

CocoaV
174 Ninth Ave (20th & 21st)
New York, NY 10011
212-242-3339

Hours:
Mon: 1 PM–8 PM
Tue-Thurs: 11 AM–9 PM
Fri: 11 AM–10 PM
Sat: 10:30 AM–10 PM
Sun: 12 AM–8 PM