New Job Neighbourhood Food Tour 2014: Chelsea Edition (And Other Thoughts)

Midway through my General Tso’s seitan sandwich, fixed with slices of pickled beets and very spicy mayo, on a toasty baguette, I realized I’d overdone it. I’d put off lunchtime, letting myself get very hungry. I meant to get something a little healthier but my new shoes hurt and I was short on time. There I was, at my desk, downing too much sandwich, and too quickly. Today was also the day I’d decided to wear the tightest jeans I own, fresh from the laundromat dryer. Oof.

And then came the deja vu. I’d been at my new job for a few weeks, and it’s located in a markedly better food neighbourhood than my last job was. The excitement of new lunch options overtook me. But with my restrictions (no meat, no chicken, no dairy), lunch has tended to fall into two categories: salads and versions of sandwiches with versions of various meat substitutes. The tofu bahn mi. The tofu wrap. And yes, the General Tso’s seitan sandwich. Which is delicious, really. But taste and nutrition wise, I felt like I’d eaten some version of a large and fancy hotdog. It was two days before Thanksgiving, and I had a lot to do, without fighting off the massive, rapidly descending food coma. And so, a moratorium: no more junky vegan lunches.

At my last job, I got really good at bringing myself delicious and healthy lunches from home. Leftover roasted veggies, salad greens, quinoa, avocado, black beans, some baked tofu or leftover salmon or even… an omelet (the poor man’s steak, if you will), made at home and the thrown atop the contents of my lunch container – any combo of those required a small amount of planning, whether it be cooking extra dinner to ensure leftovers, or just having a few extra groceries around. So I gotta bring that back. But in the meantime, mini-reviews of the recently sampled vegan and kosher-friendly lunch options in my new work neighbourhood:

No. 7 Sub

Located at the Ace Hotel, No. 7 Sub has a number of vegan options, including the General Tso’s seitan sambo I mentioned earlier. Still fending off that gluten and sugar coma. The pickled beets were a nice detail, though. At $12, before tax, this was probably the priciest of the local lunches. I was tempted by some kind of cucumber seltzer mentioned on their beverage list, but at $3.50, I was like, I should just be drinking more water 😦

V-Life

For a not-too-junky and pretty economic (lunch for about $8) vegan wrap, this place is great. It’s also miniscule, but never that busy. Their tofu wrap comes full of fresh salad greens, and is nicely filling. Actually, once I ordered their hummus wrap and wasn’t able to finish it. I think I finished it anyway.

Num Pang

More sandwiches! Slabs of spicy tofu, with lots of delicious pickled vegetables and a selection of sauces (I generally err on the side of whatever version of spicy mayo on offer), CILANTRO (alas, I married into a cilantro-free home so this is always very exciting), on a toasty, not-too-giant baguette. On the cheaper side, and with just enough veggies to not leave me appalled at my own lifestyle choices.

Bombay Sandwich Co.

Incredibly, I did not eat a sandwich here. “I want something hot and filling!” I told the nice man behind the counter. Bombay Sandwich Co. is entirely vegan, and it’s nice not to have to worry about my food rubbing up against someone’s porcine lunch. I had one of their bowls – a pretty unattractive brown rice and chickpea slop, with a few dabs of side sauces, and some soggy fresh salad. It was warm and tasty but honestly something that should have cost half of what it did. Based on the super-cute store design, and their clever branding, it seems to be a bit of an emperor’s new clothes situation, only with lots of cardamom.

Sweetgreen

Love fancy salad. Love. I had one of their salads, instead of customizing my own. It included delicious greens, avocado, tofu, the sweetest raw beets, broccoli, a sort of lime dressing – it was delicious, actually. And less than $10. Albeit for a day in which I am less hungry, but still. And I love that bit of sourdough they throw in with the mix. Very good for wiping up surplus dressing.

What can I say? It was fun while it lasted. As always, it’s cheaper and healthier to bring lunch from home. I plan to recommit after Thanksgiving, which is also when, coincidentally, I plan to recommit to lots of other things.

Work@Lunch: Circa Salad, a haiku

be still, my heart

Small tub of mixed greens

Much stuff, perfect harmony

I travel for you

Work @ Lunch presents: the Hunt for Veg

I work near Union Square. This is great because farmers market, shopping, subway, shopping and shopping.  But there is a distinct dearth of kosher lunch spots in the hood which forces me to be creative, color outside the lines, and forever in pursuit of a tasty veggie lunch.

Enter Haven’s Kitchen: http://havenskitchen.com. Cute little cafe/cooking school tucked away on W18th, surrounded by home furnishing shops, new and old, and lots of other stores with things girls love.

Each week features a couple sandwiches, soups and salads, equal amounts with and without meat. If you’re like me and everything always looks good you are allowed to choose two half-sized portions of two things.

** PROTIP for lunch spots all over this island: OFFER THE HALF & HALF.  We live in NYC and we want it all. **

So today I got this:

• salad 0.5:  Mung Bean Noodles, Radish, Carrots, Scallion, Cilantro, Peanuts, Chili-Lime Vinaigrette
• sandwich 0.5 : White Bean Spread, Egg, Scallion, Sriracha

Salad – nice, zingy, refreshing.  Sandwich – great, spicy, toasty. Not saying I won’t need a lil piece of chocolate in a few hours but I might be wishing it was another half sandwich instead…

oh and since it’s almost (?) spring now and this will apply, Haven’s Kitch also makes The Best Iced Coffee.  Worth all 400 pennies, I promise.

Work @ Lunch presents: Trying The Tofu

There was a time I was very good at bringing my own lunch to work. I had some of those Ziploc containers and I’d buy a bag of greens, a carton of grape tomatoes, a block of smoked tofu (Soyboy, I think? It’s very delicious) , maybe some carrots, and cook up a little pot of quinoa and throw it all together. It took minutes! So it’s weird that suddenly, that is way too much trouble to go to. I normally don’t have time for breakfast and often don’t eat until mid-afternoon. This is terrible. I usually have some desk snacks; roasted almonds, dried mango, rice snacks (my allegiance to Trader Joe’s is astounding) and I’ll have a coffee – sometimes a green juice – to tide me over though. Right now, my desk snack drawer contains only wasabi peas, which was misguided; wasabi peas are not a good first food of the day. Hard though, to find a sensible and kosher/kosher adjacent lunch in Midtown. Our old office had a full kitchen, and on a regular day I’d cook up an omelet and some salad and it was great. But those days are over and now we have a kitchenette and we’re not near any fun grocery stores from which I can harvest a colorful salad. I cannot bring myself to have food delivered to my office either. I don’t know – it feels wrong somehow. Lunch is for LEAVING your job (but not for too long! Because then you get in trouble, like I did last week). Any employee deserves a designated number of minutes during the day when they can pretend they don’t have a job. To walk the streets, see the sights and find some lunch, just like a regular person.

All of this is to say that Chipotle, the friendly and well-meaning restaurant chain, has just added tofu to their menus. I’m pretty new to Chipotle, but it’s nice alone in their large, clean restaurants eating lunch listening to the fun music they play. I’m a bad patron of Mexican food, in general. I can’t have the meat, I don’t like dairy and I’m forever ‘meh’ about avocado. Which leaves me rice, beans and salsas which, truth be told, is not a bad lunch. Adding tofu to the mix makes it a little more substantive, so I thought I’d give it a try. Because I’m a food reporter! I leave my real job for an hour to carry out my imaginary job at a restaurant. What a life I lead.

I opted for the burrito bowl over the actual burrito. This was a last minute change of plans. Tortillas are endlessly appealing (warm and chewy!) but last night, while talking about how little gluten I eat, I realized that I actually eat a lot of gluten. Is that bad? It’s probably not bad. I don’t have any kind of gluten intolerance, although the Blood Type Diet (the rules of which I read once as a teenager and somehow never forgot) dictates that I should avoid wheat. Anyway, I decided to order the bowl anyway and on another whim, I also got a small Diet Coke (they are giant, and you can have refills [and lemon slices!], I think, although I didn’t even finish the first one), like some sort of American. Which I might soon be, because soon I will apply for my Green Card! But anyway, I sat at the window, which is always fun. It reminds me of my freelance coffee shop days, which were leisurely, and enabled me to sit around and stare at people, which I truly love. The bowl was giant. “This is two meals!” I thought, and then I basically at the whole thing. Rice, beans, corn, salsa, lettuce and the tofu. All delicious. Intense bang for buck, because you get a colourful, high-fibre, protein-rich, vegan and Kosher-ish lunch, after which you will not want to return to your office. You will want to have a nap somewhere. I want a nap somewhere. And I think tomorrow, I’ll just get a salad, from that dairy restaurant next to Schnitzel Express (a whole other post).

Hola from Midtown West! Tofu sofritas at Chipotle.