Yesterday, we found the coolest place:
That’s coconut soft-serve, above, and it was absolutely fabulous!
Nestled into the Hell’s Kitchen area, Kyotofu is a modern Japanese restaurant and dessert bar with exquisitely-presented food. Although the establishment isn’t vegetarian, some of its offerings are completely vegan, such as two seasonally-rotating flavors of soft-serve ice cream.
We were lucky enough to go on a day when the flavors were coconut and Thai chili chocolate.
Yes, Thai chili chocolate.
The first spoonful simply tasted like chocolate (really delicious chocolate). But watch out!
It has quite a kick, so you’d better be prepared with water. Above is one of Kyotofu’s gorgeous sundaes: fresh berries, chocolate cookie crumbles, green tea mochi, and the most delectable caramel sauce I have ever tasted. (I want to try and recreate the caramel—which has a special ingredient—as soon as I get back to Texas.)
After snack, we explored The Westerly Market. Jessica is my health-food-shopping partner in crime, and I have to take advantage… because when S comes he won’t want to do any of this!
If only I lived closer, I would’ve taken home one of their many raw pies or cakes: Tiramisu, Strawberry Cheesecake, Carrot Cake, Chocolate Cream Pie…
Instead, I went with something more portable: chocolate!
(We also explored a few other shops, including a fun little four-story place called “Lee’s Art Shop,” which sold gifts, lights, art supplies, and toys.)
Dinner was at Josies, a charming vegetarian-friendly restaurant on the Upper West Side:
I was happy to find that the vegan lentil loaf I’d so loved on my previous visit hadn’t changed at all. The loaf features organic lentils, mushroom, sweet potato, and tahini, and it was just as flavorful, soft, and comforting as I remembered from last summer.
What’s the weirdest ice cream flavor you’ve ever seen?
There’s a gelato place near me that sells Black Pepper, as well as Violet and Chocolate Jalapeño. And in California, they have a summer garlic festival with garlic ice cream! Awhile back, someone sent me a link to the top 100 weirdest ice cream flavors ever, which listed things like Squid Ink, Chicken Wing, and Soy Sauce Ice Cream! Oh, and Viagra ice cream. 😕
Link of the Day:
There’s a great ice cream store in Meadville, PA (near where we vacation each summer) that makes all of their wonderful, and sometimes crazy favors on site. The other day I tasted their sweet potato casserole ice cream. It was surprisingly delicious, but a taste was enough for me – I couldn’t commit to the full scoop. Hum, maybe you could come up with some tasty sweet potato casserole dessert!
That lentil loaf looks sooo good oh my gosh
If there is “ice cream” in the name of anything, I’ll have it.
This probably doesn’t exactly count as an ice cream flavor, but I recently visited a popular popsicle place in my hometown, and they had a pineapple jalapeno flavor! It was actually kind of good!
I’ve heard of the garlic festival…and garlic ice cream..ewww! Lol!
Oh man, all of these posts from NYC are absolutely contributing to my wanderlust. I’m so excited to start planning a trip there, and am particularly comforted to know where some of the GOOD vegeterian/GF/healthy-eating places are!
As for weird ice cream… I live across the street from the best gelato parlour in our city. They have 50 flavours at any one time, and the flavours rotate about twice a day. There’s a new flavour almost every day, and I would know… ’cause that’s how often I’m there! (So sad…).
The strangest flavours I’ve seen (and my thoughts, ’cause I’ve tried them all):
Wasabi (weirdly good — it would be AWESOME on steak if I were a steak eater)
Caramelized onion (so AMAZING!)
Dijon mustard (was really really terrible. I love dijon mustard and eat it with a spoon, but this one was really inedible).
Saffron (awesome).
Butter (so smooth and amazing).
Mascarpone (traditionally italian, and absolutely divine. SO good with figs).
Blue cheese (I couldn’t get over *frozen* blue cheese. It probably would have been good with steak).
Garlic (pretty damn awesome).
Garlic and honey (they bring this out during cold and flu season. It’s really soothing!).
Cauliflower (really nice texture, actually!)
Ham and cheese (really, REALLY gross. I didn’t go back for months after that one!).
They’ve got lots of really amazing flavours, too! My top 5:
5. Chocolate peanut-butter (of course).
4. Stracciatella (traditional italian vanilla with chocolate flakes).
3. Espresso flake (espresso gelato with chocolate flakes)
2. Skrock (NOT skor, like I thought! They use almond, hazelnut, pistachio, and macadamia pastes to make a strangely textured but amazing toffee-flavoured gelato).
1. Vanilla black-currant. (They take super creamy vanilla gelato and swirl in a really concentrated black currant sorbet. I was surprised because I usually can’t handle the black currant taste, but it’s a perfect pairing).
Oh, and the pistachio and green tea gelatos are also amazing.
Hmm. I think I should go for a walk… across the street!
I’ve been wanting to try Organic Avenue for awhile now! Did you try any of the cold pressed juices?! And interesting fact, they’re owned by Starbucks!
I didn’t… I tried some weird tumeric juice, but it was out as a sample and came in a bottle. I really wanted to buy the mint-chocolate drink but I was trying not to spend too much!
Upper West Side! That’s my neighborhood 😀 I walk by Josie’s and am always curious about it. Also, love Peacefood Cafe AND Lula’s (I love their toppings options with the ginger cookies yummy)! Glad to see you’re thoroughly enjoying the city!!!
XOXO
Katie! you were in my hood. my yoga studio is in bells kitchen ad westerly feeds me daily. they have the besttttt stufffff.