Restaurant Review: Go Zen (near NYU, NYC)

Official site: http://www.gozenfamily.com/

Another day, another vegan place. Hung out with my vegan friends again so I dragged my self to another vegan place to torture myself. As with past vegan restaurants, I will express not only my opinion of the place, but that of my vegan friends.

In my opinion, this place is symptomatic of all vegan places; it was tasteless, bland, and a poor imitation of what food should taste like. What’s amazing to me is that the things I ordered are served in non-vegan places, things like crispy rolls and Kao Fu (marinated gluten) and this place just does it shittier. The original recipe called for no meat, yet because it was produced in a vegan place, the quality of taste drops immensely. I just don’t understand it. It’s like if it tastes good, then it’s not truly vegan. I’m starting to think that this blandness is the exact kind of taste that vegans look for.

In the opinion of my vegan friends, the place was great. They specifically like the sesame seitan.

Score: 2/10 Vegan food depresses me.

Restaurant Review: Franchia (Park Avenue, NYC)

Official site: http://www.franchia.com/

Came here with some vegan friends. My opinion is that of an omnivore, so bear with it.

Like most vegan places, the food here was overpriced, under portioned, and didn’t taste great. With that said, the vegan half of our party loved the food.

We ordered a lot of things: the scallion pancakes, the Peking buns, the vegan scallops, Franchia noodles, the pad thai, stuffed mushrooms, the fritters, the vegan caviar and truffle rolls, the chocolate tofu pudding, soy cheese cake and the blueberry coconut cake. To my taste, it was all pretty lousy. To my vegan friends, it was fantastic.

They also have an assortment of teas for people who like that. I think we had the citron, with some plum wine and mojitos. These were okay.

Score: 2.8/10 If you’re vegan, this place is great. Otherwise, there is no reason for anyone non-vegan to ever set foot in this quagmire of half-assed dishes and lousy food. I’ve eaten vegan food before, and I just wish they’d try to make the food appetizing. Maybe get someone with formal culinary training to take on the food. It’s almost as if they are aiming for bland food.

Restaurant Review: John’s of 12th Street (NYC)

Official site: http://www.johnsof12thstreet.com/

Needed a place to eat with my level 9000 vegan friend. Once again we go Italian because it just so happens to be the one kind of food that’s easy to make vegan and gluten free.

This place is real proud that it was on Guy Fieri’s Diners, Drive ins, and Dives tv show. It’s written right on the menu.

This is your classic messy, heavy, cheesy Italian place. We had the lasagna, veal parmigiana, and a pizza. I don’t recommend any of the above. If you come here, get a bowl of pasta. Everything else isn’t that great. Just heavy.

Service was fine.

The space is really darkly lit and other customers were loud. The other customers really made it a shitty experience, which isn’t the restaurant’s fault.

Score: 4/10

Restaurant Review: Two Boots

Details: Located at 201 W 11th St, New York, NY 10014, among other locations. Official site is http://twoboots.com/

Two Boots is a pizza chain with many store fronts around the city. It’s decent pizza. They have numerous kinds of specialty pizza. It was all decent.

The main reason I came here was because a friend is a level eight vegan and they felt that the vegan pizza at Two Boots was acceptable. So really, that is the only reason to come here. That and maybe convenience.

Score: 4/10