In search for the best vegetarian place, we ended up at Angelica Kitchen in the East Village, after having heard about it by my wife's cousin, Jessica. As mentioned in prior posts, I am more a carnivore, but I am always interested in trying different types of cuisines.
We went to that place on a Saturday, for lunch. I thought it would be more crowded, but it was not the case.
As the weather was still nice, we needed a nice drink to rehydrate. Jodi ordered a lemonade and I ordered an hibiscus cooler. The lemonade was really good and not too sweet. The cooler was surprisingly good considering that the only hibiscus I ever saw was in a pot at my Mom's place...
We decided to skip the appetizers and ordered Angelica's cornbread.
Forget any reference to cornbread as it does not at all taste like it! The wheat is replaced by rice that make it very dense. It was good, but a bit dry. They give you a big piece of it and we could not finish.
For the main dish, Jodi ordered the wee dragon, half a portion of a dragon bowl.
This dish used to be served in a Chinese bowl (hence the name) and came in a plate. I was not sure how to take the photo as no angle made it look good...The bowl was made of rice, beans, tofu, sea vegetables & steamed vegetables. You just need to pick a dressing to go with it. Jodi picked the balsamic vinaigrette. None of us liked the dish unfortunately: it was mushy and bland. Definitely disappointing.
On my side, I ordered one of the special of the day: Ancho Autumn Equinox, a gluten free dish.
This dish had a nice presentation at least! It was a coconut-vegetable curry served with red bell peppers, tomatoes, yukon gold potatoes, sweet peas, carrots, celery, lemongrass and basil. It was accompanied with tofu, broccoli and roasted yellow squash. This dish had definitely more flavors than the dragon bowl, but it was not as tasty as a curry (even vegetarian) you would find in a Thai restaurant. I at least enjoyed the rice that was a bit sticky, as well as I enjoyed the tofu and squash.
The way the food was, we of course decided to skip dessert and have something sweet somewhere else...
So I was a bit disappointed with Angelica Kitchen. For vegetarian, I prefer Gobo or Zen Palate, or even vegetarian dishes you would find in a Thai or Indian restaurant. It was a miss for me!
Enjoy (the post)!
