Wednesday, December 27, 2017

Peacefood Cafe Uptown- Then & Now

Haven't been to the Peacefood Cafe in a while, so I hit up the uptown location when I was in the area recently. Um, what the hell happened? First of all, this place use to be bustling. It was practically empty on a Friday night. I'm not complaining about that; it was good for us. Or, was it?

We started out by ordering an old favorite: chickpea fries "an award-winning recipe with a hint of Indian spices, served with our house dipping sauce." These hardy and flavorful spiced fries are famous for being served in jenga formation.

THEN

On this recent visit, however, they were instead served to us as though they'd insultingly been thrown onto a plate from across the room. They did not taste the same either- likely because the proportions were compromised with the smaller fries. Also, the dipping sauce was in a paper cup such that you might find in a dentist's office to rinse out your mouth: totally unappealing.

NOW

For dinner, I wanted to order the PFC unchicken basket of fried breaded plant protein tenders with the option of chipotle sauce. Once upon a time, you could order this considerably sized dish with half the chicken, subbing their delicious potato salad for the the other half. Peacefood downtown has never allowed you to make this adjustment and, now, neither does uptown. With such a small menu to begin with, this seems like an odd place to draw a line.

So, I begrudgingly went with the tempeh avocado sandwich: baked marinated tempeh, creamy avocado, pickled radishes, shredded carrots, and cilantro served on toasted whole spelt rye sourdough bread. This sandwich has always been unapologetic hippie food, but once upon a time it was hardy and decently sized. 

THEN


On this visit it was considerably smaller and served rather sloppily- although slightly less obnoxiously than the fries. The bread was heavily toasted, which made me wonder if it was stale, and the tempeh had no flavor whatsoever. It's hard to believe it won "best sandwich" as recently as the 2010 vegan guide when, all these years later, it just seems basic and unimaginative- yet interestingly at a pricepoint that rivals the likes of Cinnamon Snail's behemoth, flavor bombs.

NOW

Although not necessarily conscious, I think I originally stopped going to Peacefood because their menu never changed; even their "specials" have remained largely constant. Now I see there are more reasons to avoid. A shame, really; this once popular spot has a niche, so long as their food and service remains thoughtful- which it obviously hasn't. Our waiter never even checked in to see how the food came out or if we needed anything else over the course of our meal. He literally just never came near our table at all- we had to track him down in order to procure the check.

To add to the disappointment, on my way out, I noticed that the dessert case- once boasting one of the most impressively sized and varied offering of vegan desserts in the city, had nary half of what they once had on offer and not a single thing that appealed to me. Mind-boggling.

Anyone else been there recently and can tell me my recent experience was a drastic departure from what's normally going down?

4 comments:

  1. Why do restaurants do this to us?! Ack! Changing the perfectly good to a deflating disappointment.

    Happy New Year!!

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    1. Happy new year to you as well; hope it's a great one!!

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  2. i’ve long been disillusioned with peacefood, and that is sad. I remember when Peacefood first opened, and what a delight it was, especially to have it on the upper West side. I never liked the chickpea fries, for one thing. But apart from that, I always found the service at the original location to be very sub-optimal, with rude or inattentive servers, lots of noise, and just an annoying hipster attitude among the staff. I never understood how that was a good thing in a restaurant. Only in New York, I guess. And as for the downtown location, I can’t allow myself to go there. The noise level in there is frightening. I just can’t bear it, and I won’t. The food is incidental at that point. for some reason, whenever I go to Peacefood—which is very infrequently these days—I always order the Caesar salad and a savory biscuit. The fact that that’s the only thing I want to get there troubles me, and yet that’s what I get.

    I realize this is not a ringing endorsement of what should be a nice staple vegan restaurant, but the competition is steep in New York City, and I don’t have to put up with the miserable dining experience.

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    1. Agreed! Long are the days when you had to support someplace just because they were vegan.

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