New York City – Part 6

After we tried by CHLOE (see Part 5), Gretchen and I continued our vegan restaurant hop by heading over to Van Leeuwen’s Artisan Ice Cream in the West Village:

They have a lot of vegan flavors, and Gretchen and I sampled all of them!

They were all really good, so it was hard to choose! I loved that the flavors containing gluten were marked with a G, so I knew which ones to avoid! The specials were also vegan, and we finally decided on salted caramel, dark chocolate, and cookie crumble strawberry jam. Here is Emily scooping them:

We decided to add vegan whipped cream!

Here is our sundae!

We all loved Van Leeuwen’s, and it is absolutely worth going out of your way to get it! There is a hint of coconut flavor from the coconut milk in the ice cream, but it is subtle and didn’t bother us. The ice cream has a smooth and creamy texture, and the flavors are lovely. The vegan whipped cream was wonderful too! We all gave Van Leeuwen’s two great big thumbs up!

Our next stop was Erin McKenna’s NYC. The entire bakery is vegan and gluten free, so I could get anything I wanted!

Here are the display case and the counter:

We got a vanilla cupcake and a box of doughnuts:

The doughnut flavors were cookies and cream, mocha, maple, and plain glazed:

Here are some close-ups of the cookies and cream doughnut:

This is the vanilla cupcake:

We tried a sample of a fresh doughnut and a cookie, and both were good. The doughnuts we bought were half price, so we think that they were day old, and they were a little dry. The flavors were good, though, and I think they would have been much better fresh. Even day old, though, they would have been fine with a glass of soy milk or a cup of coffee. The cupcake was fresh, but it just wasn’t my favorite. To start, I do not like coconut oil frosting. I thought the frosting needed more vanilla, but it wasn’t bad – I just don’t like this kind of frosting. The cake itself was too dense and also needed more vanilla. At $4.99 per cupcake, though, I just can’t recommend them. The benefit to this shop is that it is both 100% vegan and 100% gluten free, so you don’t have to worry about accidentally getting something you shouldn’t.

Finally, we went to Momofuku Nishi to get an Impossible Burger!

Here is what it looks like inside:

Here is the famous Impossible Burger!

The burger contains wheat, so I couldn’t try it! I did eat some fries after confirming that they are gluten free, and they were really good!

Here is the burger cut in half. It looks just like a rare beef burger:

Gretchen gave it a try! She thought that the texture and flavor were so much like a beef burger that it was a little unnerving. She prefers the Beyond Burger, but thinks the Impossible Burger is just like the real deal if that’s what you are looking for.

My mom stayed in the car because we couldn’t find parking. We took the other half of the burger out to her, and she loved it. She saved part of it, and we bought a package of Beyond Burgers on the way home so she could compare them. She prefers the texture and the flavor of the Impossible Burger, but also really likes the Beyond Burger. I ate the second Beyond Burger and I think they are really good, but too expensive to eat very often. My burgers are 1/4 of the price of the Beyond Burger and I think they are just as good!

Our vegan restaurant hop was loads of fun and it was really great to spend the day with Gretchen! I hope you enjoyed hearing about everything we tried and that our reviews are helpful!