Blossom

I'm always curious about a new vegan restaurant, but I'm less than enamored of Gobo and Zen Palate. Eternally hopeful, I enlisted the palate of a vegetarian friend and we made a visit to Blossom last night.

The wine list was expensive; I didn't notice a glass for under $10. We decided to conserve our cash for the edibles, which looked promising. The appetizer menu included a "South Asian lumpia" and phyllo-wrapped vegetables with tomato confit. My friend ordered the satay, which consisted of a tumble of sesame noodles topped with two skewers of grilled seitan in lieu of meat. Although the flavor of the grill was not apparent, the texture of the seitan was similar to that of meat, if a bit chewier.

As there was obviously no cheese in the salads, the chef had been creative with tempeh and tofu to approximate its salty, pungent flavor. In my friend's salad of field greens, grilled pears and candied walnuts, the crispy tofu cubes served this purpose. My salad was a plate of baby spinach leaves coated with plenty of horseradish dressing, red onions, tempeh "croutons," pumpkin seeds, and sliced wild mushrooms.

I had thought about ordering the pumpkin gnocchi with melted leeks for my entree, but instead went with the seitan "medallions" in a caper sauce with herbed soft polenta and broccoli rabe. The broccoli rabe was very garlicky and tasty, but the polenta was bland and not particularly herby. (I guess I'm one of those people who thinks that polenta needs butter and cheese.) The seitan adequately absorbed the light caper sauce (by itself, seitan is rather tasteless, being comprised of wheat gluten).

Although we had no room for dessert, I was sufficiently tempted by the dessert menu to visit Blossom again. (Pineapple crepes with coconut milk infusion, chocolate ganache torte, yum!)

Blossom: 187 9th Ave., (212) 627-1144.