On our recent trip to New York I splurged off my routine eating to experience the best sandwich in the city as well as the best cheesecake known to man. The rest of the trip, however, was the usual high quality real food that I regularly eat. When we planned our New York trip we chose the apartment we rented (through Air BnB) so that it was strategically placed between our favorite restaurants:
- Don Antonio’s for the BESTEST gluten free pizza ever (not entirely “real food” but I learned their crust is simply four ingredients and the cheese is freshly made daily). It’s so amazing I can’t even describe it.
- Bare Burger for a lip-smacking grass fed burger experience every time.
- Blue Dog Kitchen Cafe (on 50th) which I’m writing about today.
Blue Dog Cafe is actually a place I stumbled upon while walking to Don Antonio’s one day, and I was excited to find it. It doesn’t fit every criteria I have for super healthy eating, but they do try, and when I’m traveling I find that I do have to loosen the reigns just a tiny bit. Still, that being said, Blue Dog Cafe was a great place that we enjoyed. They offered everything from fresh cold pressed juices to farm fresh omelets, sweet potato mashed potatoes, organic coffee and teas, and more.
The first thing I had at Blue Dog Cafe was an herbal tea and I was extremely delighted to learn that I could ask for a side of fresh pressed ginger juice to stir in. This tea lover loved that option.Very cool. I also enjoyed one of their fresh pressed immunity boosting juices which had apple (though not my favorite since I don’t like sugary fruit juice), lemon, cayenne, double ginger, and an immunity elixir. I ended up choosing it a few times, in spite of the apple, because I was eager to drink the other ingredients. It, of course, was yummy.
One of the reasons we choose to rent an apartment when we travel is because it allows me to make some foods that I’m used to, such as pasture raised eggs in grass fed butter. Now, I’ll be honest, one of the last things I want to do while traveling is to cook, but I’m not quite willing to eat every meal out if I can help it. I feel better about relaxing the reigns on my food choices for some of the meals out if I know that I’m also still eating super high quality foods, too. One of my gripes with eating out is that most things are cooked in canola oil (or some other crap seed oil) and I try to avoid those things like the plague, but, sigh, if I can’t eat all meals at home or I want a break from cooking, some things just gotta give. (I have had restaurants happy to cook things in butter when I asked.) I was pleased to find this breakfast option at Blue Dog which was a farm fresh omelet that was never overcooked (though I honestly didn’t inquire as to the oil used). They filled it with spinach, tomatoes, and goat cheese. The sides that came with it were toast (I opted out) plus mashed sweet potatoes and a green salad. It was really good value and very good. One of my favorite meals at Blue Dog was the burger featured at the top. I love a fried egg on a burger and this one didn’t disappoint. (Well, ok, it did for the fact that it wasn’t grass fed, but I think it was hormone/yadda yadda yadda free). I ordered it without the bun to make it gluten free. They had delicious herbs and seasonings in the burger. Stay tuned for posts on my two favorite New York restaurants: Don Antonio and Bare Burger.