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Coconut Soft Serve & Caramel Sauce

Yesterday, we found the coolest place:

kyotofu

That’s coconut soft-serve, above, and it was absolutely fabulous!

Nestled into the Hell’s Kitchen area, Kyotofu is a modern Japanese restaurant and dessert bar with exquisitely-presented food. Although the establishment isn’t vegetarian, some of its offerings are completely vegan, such as two seasonally-rotating flavors of soft-serve ice cream.

We were lucky enough to go on a day when the flavors were coconut and Thai chili chocolate.

kyotofu vegan

Yes, Thai chili chocolate.

The first spoonful simply tasted like chocolate (really delicious chocolate). But watch out!

It has quite a kick, so you’d better be prepared with water. Above is one of Kyotofu’s gorgeous sundaes: fresh berries, chocolate cookie crumbles, green tea mochi, and the most delectable caramel sauce I have ever tasted. (I want to try and recreate the caramel—which has a special ingredient—as soon as I get back to Texas.)

After snack, we explored The Westerly Market. Jessica is my health-food-shopping partner in crime, and I have to take advantage… because when S comes he won’t want to do any of this!

vegan grocery store

If only I lived closer, I would’ve taken home one of their many raw pies or cakes: Tiramisu, Strawberry Cheesecake, Carrot Cake, Chocolate Cream Pie…

westerly

Instead, I went with something more portable: chocolate!

(We also explored a few other shops, including a fun little four-story place called “Lee’s Art Shop,” which sold gifts, lights, art supplies, and toys.)

Dinner was at Josies, a charming vegetarian-friendly restaurant on the Upper West Side:

josies vegetarian

I was happy to find that the vegan lentil loaf I’d so loved on my previous visit hadn’t changed at all. The loaf features organic lentils, mushroom, sweet potato, and tahini, and it was just as flavorful, soft, and comforting as I remembered from last summer.

What’s the weirdest ice cream flavor you’ve ever seen?

There’s a gelato place near me that sells Black Pepper, as well as Violet and Chocolate Jalapeño. And in California, they have a summer garlic festival with garlic ice cream! Awhile back, someone sent me a link to the top 100 weirdest ice cream flavors ever, which listed things like Squid Ink, Chicken Wing, and Soy Sauce Ice Cream! Oh, and Viagra ice cream. 😕

Link of the Day:

sugar cookie ice cream

Sugar Cookie Ice Cream

Published on July 20, 2012

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82 Comments

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  1. Christine says

    And lemon ice cream is the weirdest I’ve seen, not too strange, but I just can’t picture it tasting very good.

  2. jessie says

    it’s so cool you went to Westerley’s! I work about a block from there and sometimes pick up yummy things for lunch there! I love it.

  3. Teresa says

    Wow, thanks for sharing about a unknown to me place in my own city! That’s the beauty of NYC, there’s always a new place to try :). I wish I’ve had strange ice creams, but most of the ones I’ve tried are rather typical. 2 of my favorite favors are anything coffee/ mocha/ espresso/etc, and cherry amaretto. I also prefer coconut based ice creams. So far my favorite ice cream in the city is Lulas apothecary- wow, what a treat!

    I’m sure you’re super booked for your time here in NY, but if you wanted to meet up, please let me know! I’ve been following your blog from literally day number 1, so it would be great to “meet,” you, but obviously I understand that you probably don’t have any free time. Either way, I hope you have a great trip and let me know if you want any recommendations!

  4. Becky says

    There’s a great ice cream store in Meadville, PA (near where we vacation each summer) that makes all of their wonderful, and sometimes crazy favors on site. The other day I tasted their sweet potato casserole ice cream. It was surprisingly delicious, but a taste was enough for me – I couldn’t commit to the full scoop. Hum, maybe you could come up with some tasty sweet potato casserole dessert!

  5. BroccoliHut says

    This probably doesn’t exactly count as an ice cream flavor, but I recently visited a popular popsicle place in my hometown, and they had a pineapple jalapeno flavor! It was actually kind of good!

  6. Kate says

    Oh man, all of these posts from NYC are absolutely contributing to my wanderlust. I’m so excited to start planning a trip there, and am particularly comforted to know where some of the GOOD vegeterian/GF/healthy-eating places are!

    As for weird ice cream… I live across the street from the best gelato parlour in our city. They have 50 flavours at any one time, and the flavours rotate about twice a day. There’s a new flavour almost every day, and I would know… ’cause that’s how often I’m there! (So sad…).

    The strangest flavours I’ve seen (and my thoughts, ’cause I’ve tried them all):

    Wasabi (weirdly good — it would be AWESOME on steak if I were a steak eater)
    Caramelized onion (so AMAZING!)
    Dijon mustard (was really really terrible. I love dijon mustard and eat it with a spoon, but this one was really inedible).
    Saffron (awesome).
    Butter (so smooth and amazing).
    Mascarpone (traditionally italian, and absolutely divine. SO good with figs).
    Blue cheese (I couldn’t get over *frozen* blue cheese. It probably would have been good with steak).
    Garlic (pretty damn awesome).
    Garlic and honey (they bring this out during cold and flu season. It’s really soothing!).
    Cauliflower (really nice texture, actually!)
    Ham and cheese (really, REALLY gross. I didn’t go back for months after that one!).

    They’ve got lots of really amazing flavours, too! My top 5:

    5. Chocolate peanut-butter (of course).
    4. Stracciatella (traditional italian vanilla with chocolate flakes).
    3. Espresso flake (espresso gelato with chocolate flakes)
    2. Skrock (NOT skor, like I thought! They use almond, hazelnut, pistachio, and macadamia pastes to make a strangely textured but amazing toffee-flavoured gelato).
    1. Vanilla black-currant. (They take super creamy vanilla gelato and swirl in a really concentrated black currant sorbet. I was surprised because I usually can’t handle the black currant taste, but it’s a perfect pairing).

    Oh, and the pistachio and green tea gelatos are also amazing.

    Hmm. I think I should go for a walk… across the street!

  7. Katharina says

    Upper West Side! That’s my neighborhood 😀 I walk by Josie’s and am always curious about it. Also, love Peacefood Cafe AND Lula’s (I love their toppings options with the ginger cookies yummy)! Glad to see you’re thoroughly enjoying the city!!!

    XOXO

  8. Ilana says

    Katie! you were in my hood. my yoga studio is in bells kitchen ad westerly feeds me daily. they have the besttttt stufffff.

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