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!

Like what you're reading? Then sign up for my healthy living newsletter!

Cafe Blossom

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!

Like what you're reading? Follow me on Twitter!

http://twitter.com/diannewenz

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.



Like what you're reading? Follow me on Twitter!
http://twitter.com/diannewenz