Pala Pizza- NYC-Day 1

We have arrived in NYC!

I really feel like it was love at first sight, driving into town seeing the Brooklyn bridge, the Empire State Building and dusk in this crazy city. That may change but at the moment, the city skyline, the beautiful old apartments, the wide foot paths andn the beautiful summer weather. The vegan food ALREADY! I was so excited to see luna bars, vegan coconut milk based ice creams, chocolate almond milk, huge varieties of vegan salads etc in one tiny convenience store.

Maybe I just watched too much sleepless in seattle and affair to remember but the empire state building in bloody stunning at night and we have a view from our apartment. We found an affordable apartment through the airbnb and as we drove from the airport the taxi took us past Pala and I announced that we had to go there for our first meal.

Pala is a omni place which mainly sells pizza, pasta and salads. They have a vegan menu which included all of those things and they have gf  pizza and pasta. I really really wanted to get a pizza but my stomach was upset and I didn't want to risk forming a horrible association with gf vegan pizza. So I ordered the pesto fusilli and yellow beet salad. Do we even have yellow beets in Melbourne?

The pesto was perfectly cooked al dente, it's been a while since I had al dente pasta since we tend to over boil it at home and I can't normally order it in Melbourne. It was made from brown rice but I think it competed well with regular pasta in terms of it's texture and taste. The pesto is nut free, and was salty and bursting with flavour although was a tad oily.

This made the salad a perfect pairing, with it's ginger, the yellow beets didn't really taste like red beets, not sure if they are pickled or just taste different and the salad was covered in a generous covering of daiya cheese which has a strong butter type flavour.



 Toby also got a vegetarian sausage entree (not gf) which he said reminded him of the sausages from vegan brunch and my omni brother Matt and his girlfriend Jess loved their omni pizza and pasta. They loved the wholemeal pizza crust and agreed that it was excellent service too. Jess pointed out that it seemed to be a bit of a date place, with several couples appearing to be on their first (or perhaps second) dates.

It's such a cool looking place too, I can't believe we didn't get any photos. But we will be back to sample gf vegan pizza and I promise I will show you.

Pala Pizza
198 Allen St
Lower East Side
NY