WINNER! Eat Out Awards 2008 & 2009

Best Vegetarian Restaurant: Blossom

OTHER NOMINEES: Candle 79, Broadway East, Counter, Dirt Candy, Caravan Of Dreams.
The tag line for Blossom—“Gourmet organic vegan cuisine”—is enough to set off anyone’s pretension meter, especially with $20 entrées (“Twenty bucks for vegetables?” asked one diner recently). But there’s a reason this candlelit den has won two years in a row: It’s that good. A ravioli-with-cashew-cream appetizer proves to be a layered surprise—first the cream (mmm) then the pine-nut filling (mmm!), while the proteins wow: The crispy Thai tofu features lightly fried soy lavished in a tomato-coconut sauce. Twenty bucks for vegetables? Yes, please. BLOSSOM 187 Ninth Ave between 21st and 22nd Sts (212-627-1144) TONY

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

REVIEWS

2006 – For cautious carnivores, Blossom offers one big surprise: All the eggless pastas and mock meats actually taste pretty good. For vegans, it’s a candlelit godsend. Guiltily dreaming of veal scaloppine? Try the pan-seared seitan cutlets, tender wheat gluten served with basil mashed potatoes, swiss chard, a white-wine caper sauce and artichokes. Vegetarians have indeed found a great date place. TONY

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

2007 – There’s a reason feijoada—a Brazilian beef stew—contains meat: It’s a beef stew. So when a vegan place like Blossom offers a “lighter version,” made with smoky tempeh, black beans, chayote and sweet potatoes, you’re allowed to be skeptical. But those animal-friendly ingredients make the hearty dish taste that much better. Upscale while keeping its crunchy cred, the Chelsea restaurant does protein right: Try the satay (with seitan), the scaloppine (more seitan, with white-wine caper sauce) or the dancing curry (tofu and veggies, served with popcorny forbidden black rice). You can’t go wrong—but you already knew that. TONY

Autumn sweet-potato rolls with coconut and jicama.

2008 – Amid the recent chatter of an Upper West Side dining boom, a portion of the excitement has been reserved for the arrival (finally!) of the creative vegan (and kosher) sister spot to Chelsea’s Blossom, CAFE BLOSSOM. Striving for a sleek, hip vibe—low lighting, high-gloss wooden floors, flickering votive candles—the atmosphere falls a bit short, however, Blossom’s got its priorities straight—the food is the star. The eclectic menu, like that of its downtown originator, is diverse and exciting, with plenty for meat-free risk takers and safe-soy scarfers alike. A hearty (but not heavy) black-eyed-pea cake appetizer, is built with peas and potatoes and topped with zingy chipotle aioli, while another starter—autumn sweet-potato rolls—was a raw-food stunner. The fat pinwheels had strips of meaty coconut, jicama, red pepper and carrots rolled into an orange slice of sweet potato, creating a burst of flavor that lingered in my taste memory for days. Entrées were equally successful: Lemony, caper-studded seitan scaloppine was lip-smacking, even to my seitan-hating dining partner, while a harvest casserole was a toothsome serving of tomato-and-tofu mash and layered winter veggies. A chocolate layer cake hit the perfect balance of richness and sweetness. Sinful cake and virtuous meals done right? Now that’s what we call well-rounded. TONY