NYC Day 10: Stogo, Souen Noodle Restaurant and Lulas

I am writing this from the plane (although will have to click publish at the hotel) as we fly from New York to San Fran. I have loved New York so much and can't imagine San Fran and then Portland being able to compete. Jess and I keep joking that San Fran is going to suck and that we wish our flight was cancelled but I'm sure it is going to be great. New York really is amazing though. It's crazy I wasn't the biggest fan of London and I really thought New York would be similar but it's not. I can't even fully put my finger on what is different, but there is just this amazing energy in New York, it also doesn't hurt that there are 3 vegan dessert places in New York and vegan food everywhere. I didn't even get to try the gluten free (and vegan) cannelloni at a regular italian restaurant called John's of 12th, plenty of raw desserts and vegan treats. The graffiti, buildings, markets, accents are also super cool and it just kind of feels like anything is possible. Corny, right? It's inspiring and definitely my favourite city so far.

Today on our last day so I went to Stogo and had this piece of heaven, aka chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwich with Bourbon ginger ice cream which had a hemp base. Excuse the phone pics!

Chinese medicine says that ice cream (and cold things in general) are bad for colds so I figured that the ginger might kind of counteract it. The woman who I guess runs/owns the place is super friendly and joked with me that I could come back for free sample spoons since it was my last day. I was so so tempted! This little place kind of makes me want to work on starting a similar vegan ice cream place in Melbourne, which won't happen but it's nice to feel inspired.

For lunch, we tried to go to pukk (vegetarian thai place) but the waiter very honestly explained that the only gluten free option would be greens. Atlas was a similar situation. I think New York is super vegan friendly but not quite as gluten free friendly. So we went to Souen Noodle Restaurant. I had the mapo tofu minus the seitan and Toby had the ramen special lunch deal but with rice noodles instead of ramen. The noodles were a bit bland but Toby said that was exactly what he wanted and the mapo tofu was not spicy at all which suited me fine, I felt that it was the perfect healthy dish to sandwich between two ice cream desserts.



As part of the lunch deal, you could choose what side you wanted, toby chose the brown rice ball which was really subtle.

Here are his noodles:

And here is the mapo tofu (brown rice on the side not pictured):

I also managed to fit in one last visit to lulas right before we had to leave. I got a brownie a la mode which basically just means brownie (gf in my case) with one large scoop of ice cream. I had already decided that I was going to have the peanut butter flavour but they didn't had it. Both lulas and stogo seem to rotate flavours. So I settled on mint choc chip which was refreshing. I was pleased that the brownie was soft and gooey and served warm.



Jess and I sat and ate in a community garden near by. I love that there are these tiny little community gardens, all quite different and free and so cool on a hot summers day. This one was one of my favourites, although I have to admit I didn't get to visit quite as many as I wanted to.

Also while on the plane I ate more mini banana choc chip muffins and gluten free brownies from Babycakes. Yes 3 lots of desserts in one day from my 3 fave places in NYC.

10 days was not enough, I think I could have easily spent 3 weeks there, as there still so many places we didn't get to explore/see/eat but it's been a blast NYC!