Well, yes, it's still my birthday month, and if you know me at all you know I use that technicality through all of March in order to get people to pay for my drinks and maybe even buy me lunch. Doesn't work so well toward the end of the month when it's other peoples' birthdays, but, I can always drop the facts and see what happens.
I'm overdue to talk about my birthday dinner, which was amazing. We went to
Dirt Candy in the East Village in Manhattan, where the owner claims it's not so much a vegetarian restaurant, but a vegetable restaurant. It's true. The menu is categorized by the featured vegetable in the dish, and can be ordered as its standard, decadent version, often with egg or dairy, but, every one of the dishes can be made into a very similar, sometimes even tastier vegan version. Here's what we had. *Please note that these are not my photos this time. These are from the restaurant's website.
SNACK: We started out with a snack and had some jalapeño hushpuppies with maple butter, veganized. I'm pretty sure that just means the maple butter was vegan. They were fluffy and delicious and just the right amount of spiciness.
CARROT: Then we shared an order of steamed BBQ carrot buns, vegan style, in a hoisin sauce, accompanied by a pile of sesame ginger and cucumber salad. Amazing! The BBQ sauce in the carrot buns was especially tasty and the salad was extra refreshing with a healthy helping of fresh ginger threads throughout.
BROCCOLINI: For my entree I chose the broccolini option, no veganization required, with crispy tofu in a orange buttery beurre blanc sauce, with deep fried orange segments. I'd never had deep fried orange segments or anything that called itself a beurre blanc sauce, so this was pretty excellent.
CAULIFLOWER: My date ordered the restaurant's play on the classic Chicken and Waffles, vegan style. He said it was the best thing he's ever eaten ever, except for my cooking, of course! The dish was battered cauliflower over waffles with a horseradish sauce and wild arugula.
DESSERT: We opted for the Nanaimo Bar for dessert, which is a sweet pea, mint, and chocolate ice cream bar. I have a weakness for mint chocolate anything and I had to know what sweet pea ice cream was like. It was pretty amazing and it went very well with the white peony tea I ordered at the end of the meal.
The End! If you want to go to
Dirt Candy in NYC, make sure you book your reservation several weeks in advance. They can only seat 22 people at a time!
