New York City: Day 1

Well, it’s been a whirlwind trip to New York City. I left last Wednesday night on the red-eye and returned to Seattle late last night. The trip was lots of fun and I thought I would recap a little at a time so as not to overwhelm you, dear readers. Before leaving for NY, I printed up a list of all the vegan restaurants in New York and we referred to the list every time we were thinking about having a meal or a snack. We got to try so many amazingly good vegan offerings throughout the four short days I was there.

I did, in fact, spend almost the entire time eating delicious vegan food, but I also got to socialize with wonderful friends and my dad (another wonderful friend!). I arrived at 6 am on Thursday morning and made my way to Brooklyn where I was staying with my friend, Emma. After dropping my bag off at her apartment and giving her a hug before she ran off to work, I showered and headed into the city. I met a friend (Claire) at Le Pain Quotidien for breakfast. While the restaurant itself was certainly not vegan, and it is a chain, it was a most pleasant eating experience. They have some vegan options on their menu, and I ordered a lovely pot of earl grey tea and the steel-cut oatmeal prepared with soymilk and fresh berries:

Most delightful! After spending the morning sitting and chatting over breakfast with Claire, we parted ways and I headed uptown to Grand Central to meet my friend Gwen who was coming in from New Haven, CT for a visit. We walked from Grand Central to the hat-making shop (somewhere in midtown) where Gwen was going to try on the lace-covered top hat she had commissioned to be made:

After making some very particular suggestions to the hat-maker for changes she wanted to have made, we headed downtown for some lunch at Liquiteria

where Gwen and I each got an avocado wrap:

and I got a green juice (I was really needing a pick-me-up after the all-night plane ride!):

From there, we walked over to Lula’s Sweet Apothecary, only to find that it did not open until 3 pm. We both needed to charge our phones (so I could bring you photos of the rest of our adventures for the day) and so we wandered to a little coffee shop for a cup of tea and a chat while we waited for Lula’s to open and gave our phones some juice.

Lula’s did not disappoint. They have all-vegan ice cream and other frozen desserts. I had planned to taste a number of their offerings before choosing, but when I found out they had banana ice cream, I just ordered that (since it’s my favorite ice cream flavor). The ice cream was good, and certainly the flavor was spot-on. The consistency was slightly icy, but still good. I guess I’ve gotten used to the creamy creamy coconut ice cream consistency.

After Lula’s we headed to the garment district where Gwen needed to stop at a lace shop and a trimming shop to buy supplies for her latest lace tea gloves order. If you remember the post about Gwen’s lace gloves… The lace shop was completely overwhelming and extremely expensive. The lace Gwen fell in love with for the gloves she wanted to make was $149/ yard! I couldn’t believe it. I guess I’m very disconnected from this kind of fabric buying world what with my fabric buying at the Goodwill: $5 for 12 yards! Anyway, it was very interesting to see all of the different kinds of beautiful lace. The trimming shop was also quite overwhelming. This wall was just one of many covered from floor to ceiling with buttons:

The trip to the garment district was exhausting and I was surprised, particularly in the trimming shop, at how many trimmings were made out of animals. There were so many feather embellishments, bone buttons, and leather trimmings. I’m sure this is the case in most cities but because everything is magnified in New York City, it was particularly noticeable to see the pervasiveness of humans’ use of animals for fashion, food, and everyday items. Just being out on the streets and walking around, too, there was so much fur and leather clothing on people and in shop windows. So many people buying and wearing clothing made out of dead animals without thinking at all about the animals themselves.

After the garment district, we headed back to Brooklyn to meet up with Emma, who was off work by then. We met her at Bliss Cafe, a little vegetarian/vegan restaurant in Williamsburg, just a few blocks from Emma’s apartment. Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures of this meal because it was so dark in the restaurant. But this was easily one of the best meals I had in NY. I ordered the “Chili con Pan”, which was a giant bowl of three-bean chili with two pieces of cornbread sitting in the bowl and topped with some vegan sour cream and pico de gallo. The combination hit. the. spot. In fact, I loved it so much, I ordered a similar meal at Angelica Kitchen the next night. But that will wait for tomorrow, along with a recap of the Animal Studies conference I attended at NYU.