Dirt Candy

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If only your mother had chef Amanda Cohen to guide her, she just might have gotten you to eat your vegetables as a kid: Instead of deceptively disguising veggies a la Jessica Seinfeld, the Pure Food and Wine alum, who also helped launch singer Moby’s Teany café, showcases the natural flavors of what she refers to as “dirt candy”—nature’s candy from the ground—at this cozy vegetable-focused restaurant. Though the menu may be vegetarian, don’t expect any meat mimicry on your plate. The only tricks these greens do is blur the line between sweet and savory with dishes like jalapeno hush puppies served with maple butter, kimchi doughnuts and goat cheese flan—and that’s the main course. Desserts such as popcorn pudding and ricotta fritters with lemon olive oil ice cream come courtesy of pastry chef Debbie Lee, who honed this skill at P*ong. Any befuddlement can be sorted out amid a backdrop of recycled linoleum and natural Kirei wood walls.

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East Village restaurants, New York restaurants, Health restaurants, Vegetarian restaurants