Quintessence / Central Park

Last Saturday, we finally got around to trying Quintessence! Located in East Village, it’s a cozy place with exposed brick interiors and peaceful background music. Everything they serve is 100% organic, vegan, and raw.

I ordered the Fofu Benedict ($16), which had sprouted kamut bread topped with walnut herb “sausage”, avocado, fofu mock hollandaise sauce and caramelized onions. Yes, you read that correctly… not tofu, but fofu! Quintessence serves a faux tofu made of cashew nut milk and Irish moss powder (basically a vegan gelatin). The consistency of the fofu was similar to egg whites, and the mock hollandaise sauce tasted like real hollandaise sauce, but was much lighter. The walnut herb “sausage” had a remarkably meat-like texture… not what I was expecting at all. The kamut bread was a bit too tough and chewy for me. Loved the green dressing on the salad. Eggs Benedict is one of my favorite dishes, and this was a solid vegan, raw version of it. I want more!

John usually goes for rancheros dishes when we go out for brunch. He ordered the Fofu Rancheros ($16) with soft corn tortillas topped with fofu, “refried beans”, mole sauce, guacamole and a dollop of “sour cream”. After brunch, we rode the subway to the Upper East Side. This was the first time I’ve gone north of 40th Street since we moved to Jersey City. We spent some time wandering through Central Park before ducking into the The Met for a break from the cold.