NYC for Vegetarians

This is my first vacation as a vegetarian (with fish + eggs + cheese ). And so far it has been a great success!! Joe's also a good sport about trying these restaurants with me. In return, I have to walk/run 100,000 steps in my 5 day trip here. It's been 20,000 steps each day so far :) Manhattan is the PERFECT place to make a pedometer happy.

1) Mana Organic Restaurant
Had dinner here after a 3 mile jog and it was really good! We shared the Tempeh-Tofu (sauteed in apple juice, ginger, garlic and tamari) and the Ginger-Tamari Salmon. Both dishes came with a good helping of brown rice and steamed vegetables. I think the prices and portions were reasonable as well.


2) Pink Berry
Eeks, so much for eating my low calorie natural frozen yogurt with mango, strawberries and pomegranate! Ever since Cat introduce Pinkberry to me, its been a NY tradition. Well until I read the article in the NYTimes. It has extracts of fructose from corn syrup!!! :(


3) Homemade breakfast
We went shopping for fruits and snacks last night and also picked up some Yogurt - the greek kind! And some almond granola and grape fruit for my breakfast. yummmmmy. I really recommend this yogurt - it tastes exactly like the fro-yo at pink berry...without the chemicals! :)



4) Good Health Burger
After a 3 hour stroll through Central Park and 5th Avenue, I headed here to have a Chicken Bacon and Cheeseburger (all Vegetarian of course). The "chicken" was soooo goood. I swear, I think it was really chicken. The whole wheat bun and non dairy mayo were good too. The "bacon" - well it was ok.


5. Red Bamboo
After my stroll through MoMA, we headed to Greenwich Village for some more imitation meat. I had Edamame for my appetizer while Joe had a Roti Prata. Then we ordered the Creole Chicken and the Ginger Beef. Why did the chicken taste way better than normal chicken nuggets? Or the IMITATION beef had the same fatty awesome texture of real beef? The meals came with ample steamed veggies which I really enjoyed! It was soo good...but portions were gigantic though. We feasted for $20 each :)


Have I told you that I HEART NY?

Last night we walked to Time Warner building and was asked to take pictures for these guys leaving Per Se - Thomas Keller's NYC restaurant. I've gone to French Laundry and I've heard that Per Se is better. Anyway these guys were nice enough to give us their take-home dessert. One of them turned out to be the chef at Le Cirque. Anyway I'm sure the treat was 2000 calories on its own. So I ate half ;) It was a 2 mile walk home to burn it off anyways! I can't say no to Thomas Keller food...shoot. Here's a picture of Joe enjoying the sweets: