The V Note

A new restaurant from the owners of Blossom opened in New York City recently called The V Note. Since I love the Blossom restaurants, I knew I had to get into the City immediately and try it. The menu is made up of all the best items from Blossom, Cafe Blossom and Cocoa V, with a few new dishes added to the mix.

I went to V Note on Saturday with my friend Jessica. We both ate way too much food and gave the restaurant two thumbs up! Jessica and I agreed that the Blossoms need to put out a cookbook, so we can give their creations a try at home!

We started out with a Pea Cake, which we split. I really love the chipotle aioli they serve it with. 

Even though I've been avoiding wheat, I really wanted a sandwich. I gave in to temptation and had a BLT with sweet potato fries. The sandwich was made with tempeh bacon, breaded tofu, lettuce, tomato and chipotle aioli. In was on delicious ciabatta bread.

Jessica  had the Bacon Cheeseburger. It consisted of a veggie burger, soy bacon, mushrooms, Daiya cheese, lettuce, tomatoes and aioli. She really loved it.

We fished the meal off with delicious chocolate fondue. It was served with fresh fruit and a few cookie bites. The chocolate was so rich that we couldn't finish it all, which is strange behavior for two chocoholics!

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The Last of the Birthday Celebrations

Yes, my birthday was in the middle of June, but who says you can't have a celebration 6 weeks later? Actually, my friend Irina bought me tickets to see Spoon and The Arcade Fire at Madison Square Garden for my birthday, and the concert was last week. Before the show, we had dinner at Blossom and then stopped in at Cocoa V to buy some chocolate for dessert. The Blossoms have become my favorite places to get delicious healthy vegan food in NYC. And Cocoa V has the BEST chocolate around. Sadly, Cocoa V was half the size it used to be. I guess the "eat in" business isn't doing as well as they had hoped. The lunch I had there a few months ago was amazing, so I'm not sure why.

Irina and I split a salad of arugula, avocado, onions, chickpeas and hearts of palm.

Then we both had the night's special, which was a delicious artichoke risotto. Yummy!

Spoon

The Arcade Fire

Sadly I had to leave the show a little early. The Arcade Fire didn't come on until 10:15, and I had to catch the 11:20 train home. Fortunately, Penn Station is right under Madison Square Garden, and they had the music from the concert playing outside, so I was able to listen to another song while I was walking down to the train. Thanks so much for the tickets, Irina, - it was such a fun night!


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A Very Blossom Day

So like I said yesterday, Saturday was my last at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, which was rather bittersweet for me. I've been working with five amazing first year students, and I'm going to miss them. We had a group lunch at Cafe Blossom to celebrate the end of the "school year". We all split a plate of raw autumn rolls, and then we all ordered raw zucchini linguine. It was really tasty, and Cafe Blossom has become one of my favorite places to eat in NYC.



After class, my friend Jessica and I took the subway downtown, to the beginning of the High Line. Everything is blooming and it looks much prettier than the last time I was there. We walked up it up to 20th Street and then walked over to Blossom Restaurant. The restaurant is more upscale than the cafe, and the food is equally as good. We split an order of crab cake appetizers, and we forgot to take a picture before we dug in.

Jessica had Hickory Basted Tempeh. I tried a piece and it was really good.


I had pistachio and pepper dusted tofu. It came with a crepe filled with root veggies. I've been eating small amounts of soy, and I don't think it's affecting me at all. I think the crepe was made with wheat, and of course, I'm allergic to the nuts, but this meal was really good, and I didn't have a big reaction to it - just some eye itching from the nuts.

We had talked about going to Cocoa V (which is also part of the Blossom chain) across the street for dessert, but I was just too full. So instead we got some chocolates to go. I got a few bagged chocolates, and some really pretty bonbons. Their chocolates are so pretty that it's almost a shame to eat them. They're so delicious though! The peanut butter bonbons (the blue plaid ones) are my favorites.



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