Angelica Kitchen

Off a busy street in the center of the East Village is a gem of a green eating experience. Starting with the basics: Angelica Kitchen uses organically grown ingredients that are often served within 48 hours of harvest.   Their website boasts a whopping “95% of the ingredients used to prepare our menu are grown ecologically and fairly traded.”  It’s apparent they’ve taken the time to do the research, and care about the way every little bean and sprout made it in the doors.

The dishes are seasonal, changing with what’s available in the region, and always highlighting the creativity of their culinary staff.  Seriously – even if you aren’t a fan of the diet, don’t be hung up on the words “vegetarian restaurant.”  With the amount of fine tuned culinary concoctions on the menu, you’ll hardly notice the meat is missing. Like herb-baked tofus, dragon bowls, tempeh reuben sandwiches, and specials that change daily.

And then there’s the educational portion of your visit. You may know what tofu or tempeh is, but what about seitan or kamut?  The menu is sprinkled generously with delicious healthy ingredients, and there’s no need to bombard your waiter with questions because the back of the menu has a very handsome glossary, which will spark your interest in trying these foods, rather than deter it.

The menu also comes with a delightfully drawn explanation of why they “happily accept only cash”: they can get your cash straight to the farmer/cook/bank without paying credit card fees.  Quite the easy way to vote with your pocketbook.

What else? Angelica uses renewable sources of energy to power the fare, composts and donates food leftover to reduce waste, and even steers clear of the bottle beverages.  Talk about some teas to die for – especially the Chai.

We can’t say enough good things about Angelica.  But maybe we’ll say one more: it’s BYOB without a corking fee.

Enjoy!
http://www.angelicakitchen.com/

Photos courtesy of Angelica Kitchen.