One of my favorite things about studying at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition was lunch time. Now, I'm not saying that the classes weren't good, because they were really excellent. But at lunch time, my friends and I would jump in a cab and take a short ride from Lincoln Center to Cafe Blossom on Columbus and 82nd. Cafe Blossom is laid back and casual, but they serve really amazing and healthy vegan food. All of the restaurants around Lincoln Center were always packed with our fellow students, but Cafe Blossom was just far enough away for us to escape the crowd. Until word got out that they were close and suddenly the place filled up with fellow IIN'ers. Imagine our shock when we walked in the door to find the place packed with familiar faces from class! That didn't stop us from eating there though. We just ran out the door to make sure we got there first!
I've eaten at Cafe Blossom more times than I can count, but sadly, Dennis had never been there, so I decided it was time to take him. We went for dinner on Saturday, and I'm pleased to report that he now loves it as much as I do. Most of my trips to Cafe Blossom were during lunch time, so it was nice to be able to sample some of their delicious dinner dishes.
We both started out with yummy ginseng iced teas.
I had pan seared polenta with shaved baby artichokes as an appetizer.
Dennis had blacked eyed pea cakes.
For dinner I had dijon grilled tofu. It came with eggplant purée, leeks, chard, snow peas and cherry tomatoes. I have no idea what they did to those veggies, but they were absolutely divine. I could have eaten a giant plate of them and been perfectly happy.
Dennis had porcini rigatoni. I tried a little bit of the greens and the sauce, and it was delicious. He really loved it.
For dessert we both had cashew ice cream, which was actually from Lula's Sweet Apothecary. The dish comes with three scoops of ice cream and you can mix flavors. In retrospect, we should have split a dish, but we each got our own. I ordered cookies and cream, chocolate chocolate swirl and drumstick. The drumstick ice cream is named after those prepackaged ice cream cones that I used to eat tons of in the summer when I was little. It had peanut butter, chocolate covered peanuts and sugar cone mixed in. I'm sure there was wheat in the it, as well as in the cookies and cream ice cream, but it the amount was minimal and I didn't notice any kind of reaction from it.
Dennis had cookies and cream, drumstick and strawberry. The ice cream was really rich and we had a lot of it, so we were really full after dinner. We had tickets to see Race on 47th, street, and we actually walked the 35 blocks to the theater. We figured the walk would be good for our digestion and it would help burn off some of the calories from the ice cream. We apparently forgot that it was about 225 degrees with 98 percent humidity out. We were both drenched in sweat by the time we got to the theater, and the heat really wiped me out!
The play was really good, but I might be biased because I love Eddie Izzard and would pay to see him read the phone book. He did a really good job in the roll and would definitely recommend it if you happen to be in the area!
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