Candle 79 NYC Restaurant Review

I'm only going to say it once, then I'm going to let it go. When you make a reservation at Candle 79, ask for a table by the window or a booth. If it's busy or last minute, then sure, the section upstairs in the back is OK, I mean it's still the same awesome food, but the ambiance can be a little underwhelming. This is the second time I've had a reservation and got stuck at the crappy table. Our waitress was awesome, and gave us dessert on the house, so that made it better. Especially since it was amazing vegan cannoli, but I'll get to that later.

Here's the (sorry, flash) photos. Cocktails, wine, apps, dinner, dessert, tea and espresso. I got the specials and the ninja got the most normal stuff on the menu. He loved it.Mmm cocktails...They both have sake. The one on the left has spiced something, and the one on the right is the French 79 and has champagne. The point of cocktails is that you don't remember what's in them. Yummy.

Eh, here it is off the menu...

The Lexington: orange-ginger spiced sake, port reduction, champagne, lemon, agave
French 79: sake, apricot nectar, lemon, black currant, agave, champagne float

With the cocktails we got a little jalapeno cornbread. Now for the apps, I got the special which was an artichoke risotto. This was really nice. Creamy and full of flavor. The chips in top are zucchini. The Ninja had the mushroom ravioli. This was really lovely. The little bits on top were kind of bacony and the sauce was rich and creamy. In fact when he asked me if I wanted to try it he said, "oh, you can't have this, it's got cream in it," and I said "um, duh, we're at a vegan restaurant, I can eat ANYTHING!" Yay!

Menu description:

BUTTERNUT SQUASH & WILD MUSHROOM-SPINACH RAVIOLI: cashew ricotta, garlic cashew cream, tomato sauce, truffle oil, sautéed broccoli rabe, crispy capers

The wine was a Chilean malbec/cab. Nice. Ah the seitan piccata. Signature dish. The seitan was perfect. Nice density, lightly fried to perfection. I've made this dish from the Candle Cafe cookbook and I really liked it. Now that the ninja knows he likes it, I'll have to try it again. Usually he turns his nose up at my fake meaty things, but he's been talking about how much he liked this all week. At the restaurant he even turned around and recommended it to the people at the table next to us who were having trouble deciding. I think that's a big thumbs up.

Menu description:
SEITAN PICCATA: creamed spinach, grilled potato cake, oyster mushrooms, lemon-caper sauce I got the seitan special, which was beautifully fried seitan with a portabella mushroom and roasted vegetables in a mild chipotle sauce. This was also really good. There were two pieces of seitan and I couldn't quite finish both but I still almost took the last little piece home it was so good. Holy cannoli, batman. I do miss cannoli. Not with this around. This was fantastic. The ice cream was coconut chocolate chip.
CANNOLI: vanilla cream filling, vanilla chocolate chip ice cream, chocolate drizzle

Kudos to the ninja for being a good sport. Especially since this turned out to be his birthday dinner and all. So Candle 79 is a safe bet if you visit NYC and want to take your omni friends out to dinner to show them the true excellence of vegan food.