Right before our tour in Jackson Heights I visited a Indian restaurant called Samudra Vegetarian Restaurant.  When I searched through the menu I didn’t see anything that was vegan so I waited for the waiter to approach.  When he came over I explained to him that I noticed almost all the dishes contained butter was there any way that I could get things without dairy.  He explained that many vegans come in and that the Masala Dosa was a pretty typical Indian dish and they can make that for me without any dairy.  I thought ok I never heard of that so it would be interesting to try.  When it came to the table it was about a foot long and extremely thin.  The waiter told me to break it open in the middle and dip the contents into the sauces that came.  It included coconut sauce, a tomato sauce and one I was unsure but it had many Indian spices and was a little too spicy for me. Inside of the Dosa was Potato and peas.  It was very flavorful and very light.  After eating the entire meal you feel satisfying and not full.  I would definitely go here again to try other dishes.

This past weekend I had the pleasure of being invited to a vegan pop up event in Williamsburg.  Chickpea and olive a vegan restaurant was there with a few different dishes catering to chickpeas.  I saw another guest order this and thought it was beautiful so I had to try it.  It was  a curried coconut chickpea served with Kale and spinach on top of pureed purple sweet potato.  This dish packed a lot of heat for all the many spices it contained but it wasn’t overly spicy.  I did ask if this was a normal dish on their menu and they told me that sometimes depending on the season and the quality of the vegetables that they find.  Everything on their menu was fresh and not canned or packaged.

I was on my way to work one day and had time to waste so I decided to get a little lunch before I went in. I went to this vegan restaurant in Koreatown on 35th and Park Avenue. It was called Franchia Vegan Cafe. After looking at the menu I saw a dessert called monkey bread and I thought it sound interesting so I asked the waiter what it was he told me it was like a large cinnamon roll that was very gooey and served with ice cream. When it came to my table it looked exactly that like mini cinnamon rolls baked together and it was served with a coconut non-dairy ice cream on top of it. the monkey bread was served warm but the ice cream wasn’t melting on top of them and I thought that was very interesting. I tried the monkey bread without the ice cream first and it was very sweet and chewy although it tasted good it was really messy and it was a little too sweet for me. I then tried a piece with the coconut ice cream and the ice cream balanced out the sweetness of the monkey bread and made it taste delicious.  I think that this is a good dessert and I would have it again but I wouldn’t go out of my way to order it