Travel Blog: Day 2 of our Huntington, NY trip – Full day of vegan eating in Downtown Huntington

It’s Day 2 of our Huntington, New York trip, meaning we get to spend a full day going out to eat in Downtown Huntington.

(Check out my Day 1 and Day 3 blogs for more restaurants serving up vegan dishes)

Here are the places that we’ve been able to find that accommodate both my husband’s carnivorous appetite and my vegan diet.

Breakfast: At the hotel

We are both early morning people and have quickly adjusted to the 3-hour time difference by taking long naps the day before.

So we wake up a little too early (5am) for things to be open in Downtown Huntington.

Luckily, the Hampton Inn Hotel on Main Street that we are staying at serves a complimentary, light breakfast starting at 6am, so we head over there for some early morning grub.

He has a light breakfast with coffee and 2 bananas. I have a somewhat light breakfast (knowing that we will eat a fuller breakfast later at a local restaurant) by having some fruit and a protein oatmeal bowl.

The oatmeal was provided by the hotel. The vegan protein powder I got at the nearby Value Drugs in their supplements section.

These came in individual, single-serving packages, which was perfect for what I needed on our short trip.

With the protein oatmeal bowl, I manage to start my day with about 35 grams of vegan protein.

Lunch: Hatch

We started getting hungry again at around 11am, so we walked down the street of our hotel to Hatch on Main St.

Looking at the menu, they only list one vegan option, and that option is something I already ate–oatmeal.

I didn’t want to eat oatmeal again, especially since I already ate it for free.

The next closest thing I found that looked vegan was their Hatch Power Bowl which has quinoa and other veggies. It looked like a standard vegan dish, until it mentioned the cage-free eggs at the end of the description.

With a name like “Hatch“, it’s not surprising that they threw in a couple of eggs in this dish. But I asked the waitress if the bowl is vegan without the eggs, and she said “Yes”, so I ordered it, with the eggs on the side to give to my husband (I didn’t want to let the eggs that we were paying for go to waste!)

This is something pretty standard I do when going out to eat. Usually there aren’t going to be a lot of vegan options on restaurant menus, or things that are explicitly marked as “vegan”, so the key is to find something that looks pretty close to vegan, and then asking the restaurant if they can make sure the dish can be or is made without dairy, eggs or meat.

And if I am going out with a meat eater (which I usually am, my husband), I’ll ask for whatever meat or eggs that the dish may include to be served on the side, and give that to him.

So this is how my Hatch Power Bowl came out:

The quinoa, mushrooms, tomatoes, and spinach tasted pretty standard. Nothing special about them. The only seasoning on those items was some oregano on the tomatoes with a light sprinkle of “everything bagel” seasoning on everything else.

The most bomb thing in this bowl was the eggplant caponata. I really wished there was more of this, since they added just a small approximately 1/8 cup serving. Hatch adds raisins to their caponata, which is a typical variation that people add to caponata, but this gave the caponata a surprisingly sweet and tangy taste. Not something that I expected from something that looks and typically tastes heavily like a tomato sauce.

Overall, this dish was pretty good, and of course, the husband appreciated the extra poached eggs they served on the side for him. I was just happy to find something healthy with quinoa and vegetables that I could eat at a place who’s name describes what happens when a chicken is born.

Dinner: Burgerology

The husband felt like having burgers for dinner so we naturally gravitated toward the place that had “Burger” in its name: Burgerology.

Luckily Burgerology sells Beyond vegan burger patties, so I ordered their Garden Salad (lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes) with a Beyond patty on top for additional protein (~20 grams of vegan protein).

Burgerology‘s garden salad actually includes feta cheese and olives (despite their menu not listing them). I just scraped the cheese off for my husband to eat to make it vegan, and let him have the olives too (since I don’t like olives).

What was left was still a pretty decently sized and flavored salad. The Beyond patty was chargrilled really well and added some fat and saltiness to season the salad (which I ordered plain, dressing on the side).

The portion of the lettuce, tomato and cucumber itself was quite generous so I was stuffed afterwards…but not too stuffed for dessert.

Dessert

With my husband being obsessed with ice cream, we stopped by Ben & Jerry’s for dessert.

Ben & Jerry’s has been offering vegan/”non-dairy” ice cream for a while, and the location in Huntington, NY was not an exception. They offered 3, non-dairy/vegan flavors: Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, Change the Whirled, and Strawberry Marshmallow.

I ordered the Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough and it was pretty good. I got the kid-sized scoop (in the small blue cup), but it was still a lot and pretty comparable to the regular small size that my husband got.

Ben & Jerry’s non-dairy ice cream is made with Almond Milk, but of course you don’t taste any of it in the ice cream itself.

Despite being vegan, the texture of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream was pretty standard to that of normal ice cream.

But honestly, after having the made-to-order ice cream at Alkemy last night, I was not impressed. I much prefer the soft, creamy texture of Alkemy’s ice cream over Ben & Jerry’s non-dairy ice cream.

The takeaway

Overall, it was a pretty good solid day of eating. Following a high-protein vegan diet, I was able to ensure there was some protein in every meal (30 grams for breakfast, about 10 grams for lunch, and 20 grams for dinner), even if it’s not the 90 grams that I typically aim for.

But with not many restaurants here in Huntington explicitly offering “vegan” menu items, I’m definitely reminded the importance of asking to ensure that no dairy or eggs are included in the dishes that I custom order to satisfy my vegan diet.