The Vegan Guide to New York City

While the book could certainly be better, it's a good resource for vegans, vegetarians, and pro-veg people in or visiting NYC. The upside is you can keep this little book in your purse or bag and have it with you whenever you go out. The downside is, like anything published on paper, it's not a living document that changes as the real world changes. It's best to get up-to-date information about veg*n restaurants from the web, though this book is very useful if/when you don't have internet access.

I visit New York City every summer and always pick up the latest copy of the guide from the St. Marks Bookstore. It's a small book that is easy to carry when searching for one of the choices listed within. I have found it to be accurate and the guide lists only the newest restaurants and de-lists the ones from last year's version that are no longer in business.

I have been buying Rynn Berry's Vegan Guide since before I was a vegan; I own at least five previous editions of it, and it has grown - from a 50-page pamphlet to nearly 100 pages - with each successive edition. I call it incomparable because it's so far the only guide that concentrates exclusively on vegan restaurants and products. Of course, the number, quality, and variety of vegan offerings in New York City has grown and continues to grow; Rynn was unable to include by press time certain vegetarian restaurants in this latest edition. It is arranged according to geographic area - naturally concentrating on Manhattan, which has the most restaurants of all the boroughs, never mind vegetarian restaurants. He also includes listings for restaurants in Brooklyn and Queens, although his "cutoff" is that he won't list restaurants that serve any meat or fish. Two notable omissions according to this rule are Souen, the venerable macrobiotic restaurant in Greenwich Village, and Chin Chin Palace in Staten Island, a conventional Chinese restaurant which nonetheless has a full page in its menu of excellent vegan dishes. There are, at this writing, only listings for Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens in the Guide, but that could very well change for the next edition. The size (5.5 x 7.25) of the book makes it easy to carry along, which I failed to do on those instances I needed to know the address of the Candle Cafe (glowingly reviewed in the Vegan Guide); fortunately I fiinally got there. In this latest edition, there is more attention than ever paid to vegan products (bodycare, clothes, shoes); I saw an article yesterday stating that veganism was now a $2.8 billion-dollar market - no surprise there. People are slowly realizing that eating flesh is an increasingly risky proposition; plus, with designers like Stella McCartney and boutiques like MooShoes, it's trendier than ever to be a vegan. I fully expect the size of the next edition to grow, and since all listings are updated whenever necessary - every edition is as up-to-date as it can be by press time. Certain restaurants have been removed from the Guide if they were included in early editions and became too "egregiously" non-vegetarian; in my neighborhood - the East Village - almost every restaurant wants to describe itself as "vegan-friendly," and I guess that if you serve plain tossed salad, you can be considered vegan-friendly, too. I continue to buy this book every year because it always contains surprises for me, and it's a valuable reference tool. A lot of people buy it as a gift for their vegan friends, stating that "they're afraid to come to New York because they won't know where to eat." What could be more fun than a vegan eating tour? Count me in!

The Vegan Guide to New York City is a slender volume packed with information on vegan and vegan-friendly eating establishments throughout NYC, and is regularly updated.Each area of the city is taken seperately, with eateries rated according to quality and cost, and clearly labelled as vegan, vegetarian, or vegan-friendly. The book details restaurants, diners, take-outs, and even food-carts, and is the clearest guide to eating vegan in NYC that I have found. At the back of the book is a short index of vegan shops in the city.Well worth the price, and well worth taking on every trip to the city. For vegans, it is indispensible.