My day without coffee ended up going pretty well (although I did have a cup of english breakfast tea before lunch). I didn’t notice any major changes in how I felt, so I’m not sure I’m going to give up coffee completely. I think I might try and limit it to a very small cup in the morning.
Afternoon snacks were identical to Tuesday: salt and pepper pistachios and chocolate covered cranberries. Yum!
Finally, the work day came to a close and I headed up to the Upper East Side for a yummy dinner.
After hearing about all the creative and delicious dishes at Candle 79, I knew I had to try it for myself as soon as possible. A few years ago I had dinner at the affiliated Candle Cafe, but I always considered Candle 79 the mecca of vegetarian restaurants. Everything at Candle is vegan and a lot of care is taken in making sure the ingredients are locally sourced and in-season. I loved the cozy, two-story restaurant. Wish I could dine here every week!
I met Katie at the restaurant for our 7pm reservations and since she is friendly with the management, we were given the star treatment! We started off with a little appetizer of yellow heirloom tomato topped with a green (cilantro?) sauce. The tomato looked like sushi at first, but I can guarantee that it was definitely just a very juicy tomato.
Sorry for the blur – when I’m hungry, my patience for photography flies out the window.
After a long deliberation over the menu choices, I settled on the special for the day (are you ready for this??): slices of grilled tempeh (fermented soy beans)Â stuffed with spinach and potato on a bed of green beans and slivered almonds. And then it was topped off with green apple matchsticks, pomegranate seeds, and a sweet potato puree sauce. Ahh! It was almost too beautiful to eat. But luckily I DID dig in and it was fabulous – I loved the Autumn themed ingredients (pomegranate, apples, sweet potato). I also really enjoyed the tempeh. I rarely make tempeh or seitan at home, so it was a nice treat to have someone else prepare it for me.
Katie ordered the seitan piccata and gave me a bite – I loved the savory caper sauce! And the texture of seitan (textured wheat gluten) is amazingly similar to chicken…
I’ve heard very good things about the desserts at Candle 79 (and we all know what a huge sweet tooth I have…), so obviously I had to try one. Katie and I split the summer berry crumble: fresh berries, strawberry sauce, almond shortbread crumble, topped with lemon chamomile ice cream.
Last night was the perfect way to say goodbye to summer and celebrate the beginning of fall. On my walk home from dinner, the air definitely had a chill in it – I think jacket and scarf weather has arrived!
