Borough Vegetarian

Xi'an Famous Foods and Biang! - Awesome Spicy Vegetarian Option in Multiple Locations

Xi’an Famous Foods - a New York City mini-chain with locations now in Flushing, East Village, Chinatown, Midtown, Upper West Side, Upper East Side, East Williamsburg, and Greenpoint (!) - serves delicious and inexpensive northwestern Chinese cuisine.  AND they clearly state which of there dishes are vegetarian, a major benefit to both this blog writer and readers.  

I love spicy food generally, and the combination of Chinese spices and oils with hand-ripped noodles is a particular treat that Xi’an consistently serves up, no matter the location (well, at least for the 3 locations I have visited to date).  And if you are looking for a sit-down restaurant experience with alcohol (i.e., a cold beer to wash down the spice), I highly recommend going to their Biang! location in Flushing.  

My favorite dishes are the hot oil seared noodles and the spicy tofu.  The portions are pretty generous so if you get two dishes, like I usually do, you’ll have plenty of great leftovers for another meal.

(Hot Oil Seared Noodles)

Multiple locations across NYC (Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn)

Ippudo - NYC Ramen Favorite with Great Vegetarian and Vegan Options!

Like many caught up in this global food trend, I love ramen.  I love the chewiness of the noodles, the rich broth, the varied toppings, and the ability to eat a truly one dish complete meal.  

However, unlike many global ramen lovers, I am also vegetarian and finding truly vegetarian ramen (made with vegetarian broth) can be a bit of a struggle.  Thankfully, there are a few strong vegetarian ramen options scattered through NYC’s five boroughs that can meet the needs of vegetarians and their meat-eating friends alike.

Ippudo, one of the most popular NYC ramen restaurants - if not the most popular NYC ramen destination - fits that bill.  Ippudo has been serving vegetarian appetizer and ramen options for years, and their new-ish location in Hells Kitchen now serves a vegan and gluten-free ramen called Sho-jin that changes seasonally.  AND it gets better - Ippudo actually marks on their menu the vegetarian and vegan options available.

Among their vegetarian starters are the cucumbers with a spicy sesame oil (pictured above), a dish that combines spicy, salty and crunchy into each bite.

Earlier this fall at the Hells Kitchen location, I had the seasonal cold Sho-jin that was rich, satisfying and refreshing.  While not the rich, creamy hot vegetarian ramen served at the downtown location, this ramen hit a few other culinary notes including light sweetness from the goji berries.

Definitely check out Ippudo - great, great place for vegetarians!

Ippudo NY

Two Locations:  East Village (65 Fourth Avenue, btwn. 9th and 10th Streets) and Hell’s Kitchen (321 W. 51th Street, btwn. 8th and 9th Avenues).  Both very accessible by several subway options (for East Village - 6 at Astor Place or 4/5/6/L/N/Q/R at 14th Street-Union Square; for Hell's Kitchen, C/E at 50th Street).

Manhattan, NY

Han Dynasty - A Guilty Sichuan Pleasure

Han Dynasty has easily become one of the most popular Chinese restaurants in Manhattan, despite it’s status as an outpost of a Philadelphia-based chain.  The waiting crowds for this relatively new restaurant can easily take up a good chunk of their 3rd Avenue block, but thankfully not only will the restaurant take your phone number to call when your table is ready (so you can get a drink elsewhere), but also the food is really good.  Not the best or most refined Sichuan-style food one can find in NYC’s boroughs, but certainly a spicy, greasy, and sometimes messy, indulgence.

My favorite vegetarian dish at Han Dynasty to date is Pickled Chili Style Tofu - a dish with the slightly sour and spicy flavor of pickled vegetables.  I don’t think I have ever had a dish like it before, and the picked vegetables add this flavor that to me is addicting.

Another strong, albeit very oily dish, is the Hot Sauce Style Tofu (pictured below), which is quite spicy though lacks some of the familiar flavors of Ma Po Tofu, another greasy version of the Sichuan favorite that can be made vegetarian.

Finally, there are a range of vegetable options that can help break up the sauce-laden tofu and meat dishes, including the wonderfully spicy Chinese Cabbage with Dry Peppers (pictured below).  The only downside of this particular dish though is that it really accentuates the over-oiling of Han Dynasty’s dishes - half the oil and it would not only probably taste better, but also make one feel less guilty after eating it!

So if you can’t make it out to Little Pepper in College Point, Queens, or to Cafe China in midtown Manhattan, definitely check out the East Village location of Han Dynasty.

Han Dynasty

90th 3rd Avenue (between 12th and 13th Streets)

Easily accessible from the 4/5/6 and N/Q/R trains at 14th Street/Union Square, and the L train from the same stop or 3rd Avenue stop.  10 - 15 walk from the F/M at 14th Street.

Zabb Elee - Best Thai in Manhattan?

When we crave really good Thai food, we generally head to Queens, where Ayada, SriPraPhai, and the mini Chao empire serve fantastic Thai meals.  And SriPraPhai - which will have it’s own post forthcoming - also has an entire special vegetarian menu (appetizers, soups, salads, entrees and desserts), a rarity for any kind of restaurant.  

Zabb Elee is sadly on the other end of the spectrum in terms of vegetarian friendliness.  And unlike the rest of the Queens Thai giants, it also has a Manhattan outpost in addition to its Jackson Heights location, which seems like it could go either way in terms of quality and consistency.

But gosh, the one vegetarian dish I consistently order at Zabb Elee’s Manhattan location is so good that not only do I think Zabb Elee warrants its own post, but also that in my estimation, it is the best NYC Thai restaurant outside of Queens and the best Thai restaurant in Manhattan we have tried to date.  

We have taken a wide range of people to Zabb Elee in the past, from friends who love Thai food, to friends who have limited experience with Thai meals, and even to my parents.  Each set of new arrivals to Zabb Elee has not only loved their meals, but many have also gone back to Zabb Elee independent of us (maybe that is a sign of our company, as I think about it?).  

The vegetarian dish that I consistently order when I visit Zabb Elee is the Pad Ped Proam.  The dish generally comes with vegetarian duck, but I usually order it with either steamed tofu in place of the vegetarian duck or with just the vegetables itself.  The dish has an amazing complexity of flavor, with large chards of ginger and basil, as well as the unique ingredient of fresh peppercorns strands throughout the dish.  

I’ve also ordered some of the sauteed greens without meat before, which are definitely a solid entree or side, but nothing beats this Pad Ped Proam.  In fact, the more I think about it, this may also be my favorite - if not one of my top two - Thai dishes I have ever had.

Whenever you next find yourself in the East Village, I definitely recommend checking out Zabb Elee - the paucity of vegetarian options is certainly bolstered by the amazing quality of the vegetarian dish(es) they do have.

(Close up of the Peppercorns)

Zabb Elee

75 2nd Avenue, between 4th and 5th Streets

East Village, Manhattan

Accessible by the F train at 2nd Avenue, the 6 train at Astor Place-NYU, or a longer walk from the L train at 3rd Avenue

Other location is in Jackson Heights, Queens - 71-28 Roosevelt Avenue, accessible via the 7/E/F/M/R trains at 74th Street-Roosevelt

Oda House - Totally Vegetarian-Friendly Georgian Restaurant in the East Village

I don’t think I have ever had Georgian food until I visited Oda House in the East Village a few months back.  

Oda House has a ton of vegetarian offerings and I enjoyed everything that we ordered.  The food we ordered - which was partially from the lunch menu and partially from the dinner menu, which we persuaded them to offer us on a Sunday afternoon - tasted fresh, nuanced and fairly light (except for one notable dish).  

Our lunch included the vegetarian Khinkali, which are large, somewhat doughy steamed dumplings.  We asked for one of the each vegetarian Khinkali, which consisted of one potato, one cheese and one mushroom filled dumpling.  The three Khinkalis were each tasty, though I think the sampling of three different Khinkali was the way to go because three of one type may not have been interesting enough to carry one entire dish.

We also ordered the Mtsvane Lobio, the stewed green beans, which was served with a hearty cut of bread.  I really enjoyed the flavor of the warm beans because of the balance of a lot of different spices and herbs, in addition to the tomatoes and onions in the dish.

Finally (though it was our first course to arrive), we ordered the Adjaruli, a Georgian bread baked with two kinds of cheese, served with a poached egg on top.  Before we ate the bread, our waiter stirred the poached egg into the cheese on to the top of the bread.  This hearty bread dish was fantastic - the bread was perfectly crunchy on the outside and chewy in the interior, and the cheeses/egg added a rich saltiness to the bread.  Although this was easily the least healthy option of the dishes we ordered, it was definitely one of our favorites.

I can definitely see us returning to Oda House in the future for simple, fresh Georgian food that has a lot of vegetarian options.

Oda House

76 Avenue B

East Village, Manhattan

Approx. 5 - 10 minute walk from F train at 2nd Avenue, or a longer 10 - 15 minute walk from the 6 train at Astor Place or the L train at 1st Avenue