With a 100% vegetarian menu and good recommendations, it is clear that Paulo and I would not miss seeing Hangawi on our last trip to New York.
The restaurant already won me over right away, because the atmosphere was super cozy and with that half light that brings all the charm to the dinner, you know? We opted for the tasting menu and, look, we recommend it to everyone!
The first dish was a wild ginger soup with tofu balls and the most curious thing was that it was served in a “dish” that had a fire in the center. Although very light and with little seasoning, this was a great option to open dinner – especially since we traveled in the winter and it was very warm!
The second starter was a more refreshing salad with ginger powder, mushrooms, arugula, beetroot … It went really well after the soup and I think you could tell they like ginger, right?
Then the two appetizers came. The first, and tastiest, was a special Christmas appetizer board (Holiday appetizer platter) with stuffed persimmon, eggplant kimchi, crispy lotus leaf and a skewer with todok (root) with rice ball and a very spicy sauce and delicious! This was certainly one of the highlights of the night. In addition to great spices, everything here had a different texture, you know?
The second appetizer is called combination pancakes which are three “paquequinhas”: one of parilla (leaf), one of beans and another of mushroom kimchi. It was delicious, but I confess I enjoyed the first one more.
On the menu we had two options of main course and of course each ordered one so that we could experience all these wonders. Paulo’s choice was tofu with broccoli and a garlic sauce. His dish came with some side dishes like kimchi, todok, chard … It was so good that he simply scraped the dish.
I went for sautéed maitake mushrooms and a plasticine (vermicelli) with dumplings. So far I haven’t been able to define what I liked most about the dish: if it was the seasoning, the crunchy, the dough … Everything was divine!
Aah, both dishes came with a multi-grain rice served on the lotus leaf as an accompaniment that was also amazing!
Last but not least, the dessert was a soy cheesecake that I swore I wouldn’t like. Obviously, I was wrong because despite being quite different from a traditional New York cheesecake, it was delicious and not too sweet.
To compensate for the “lack” of sugar, the dessert was served together with tea of berries, with curry and shissandra – a Chinese medicinal plant that is delicious.
This is one of those restaurants that vegetarians or don’t need to know! There was nothing “more or less” there, seriously! It is worth getting a little out of the traditional and discovering a different place full of surprises in the middle of Manhattan, right?
To find out more about our full experience there, just watch the vlog I left below ?
