Credit: Michele Zezima

Author and activist Mickey Z. will be the key-note speaker at this Sunday’s Veggie Pride Parade. The parade begins at 11am in the West Village; he’ll take the stage at 1pm in Union Square, where the parade ends. There will be additional speakers sharing the stage to educate the masses about the benefits of a veg diet but my vote goes to Mickey for being the most bad ass of the lot.

Mickey’s books include The Murdering of My Years: Artists and Activists Making Ends Meet, 50 American Revolutions You’re Not Supposed to Know: Reclaiming American Patriotism, and Self Defense for Radicals: A to Z Guide for Subversive Struggle–and he’s published by some of the edgiest indie publishers around, such as Soft Skull Press, Disinformation Company, and PM Press. Oh, and Newsday called Mickey Z. a “professional iconoclast” and Time Out New York has referred to him as a “political provocateur.”

SuperVegan: Well hello there Mr. Fancy Pants. How did you end up being the key-note speaker at this year’s parade?

Mickey Z.: Wow, that’s funny because I’m the furthest thing from fancy pants. I tend to wear my clothes until they fall off me. Anyway, I’ve known parade founder Pamela Rice for many years and she invited me to speak at the 2009 event. I ended up going on very late and reaching a much smaller crowd but Pamela said I still “stole the show.” This year, well… I guess I got bumped all the way to the front of the line.

SV: How do you find the time and the inspiration to keep churning out writing, speaking and blogging projects for your Cool Observer blog, VegNews, Discovery’s Planet Green, ZNet, CounterPunch, and other outlets?

MZ: In terms of time, I’ve always had lots of support from my partner Michele. On top of that, I write quickly and efficiently. If I sense a spare 10-15 minutes looming, I’m on it. Creatively speaking, what can I say? In all my years of writing, I’ve never encountered anything even approaching writer’s block. As for inspiration, when things are this fucked up, I simply must do something to try to provoke change.

SV: You are a brave man for tackling Foodswings’ “Handwich.” What did you think of it? Do you think it’s a positive or negative sign that even the most appalling meat concoctions are veganized? Meaning, are we helping the cause by offering fried treats in response to KFC and other fast food or potentially harming it by removing the “do it for your health” part of the argument for a veg diet? Or perhaps you possess a more “it takes all kinds” approach?

MZ: The Handwich was positively orgasmic and I kinda like the idea of openly mocking death joints like KFC. Of course, you wouldn’t wanna live on vegan comfort food but I eat simply (lots of salads) and maintain portion control, and I workout every day so… I’m cool with the occasional binge.

SV: You’re a personal trainer and martial artist and have noted in a previous interview that Bruce Lee inspired you. Do you have any issue with my referring to you as a “vegan warrior” from here on out then?

MZ: (I think I just heard someone from Homeland Security shout, “A-ha.”)
“Vegan warrior” is definitely cool, but I also like “The Warrior from Astoria.” It would be cool to hear a boxing announcer say it.

SV: You write a lot about lefty issues and politics. What I really appreciate is that you bring together animal advocacy, environmentalism and progressive politics, which is refreshing. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been disappointed by “progressives” who indignantly cling to a diet that causes so much harm–to the planet, slaughterhouse workers, small independent farmers and animals–as if they have covered their asses by being lefty already so why should they have to evolve when it comes to their diet too. Do you also run into this attitude and if so, what’s your favorite response?

MZ: The Left is at least a decade behind on the environment and maybe 3-4 decades behind on issues pertaining to diet, health, and animal rights. It’s pathetic. They’ll spend the next 6 months analyzing every aspect of George W. Obama’s Supreme Court pick and meanwhile, 100 plant and animal species will go extinct every day. Here’s something I said at the Left Forum, back in March:

Like the bull in a bullfight, the Left focuses on the elusive red cape instead of the matador…distracted from the real targets. But, fear not, some bulls see through the red cape bullshit and quite justifiably introduce the matador to the business end of their mighty horns. Of course, as things stand now, those bulls are promptly killed while the matador is mourned as a brave hero. But ask yourself this: If every single bull in every single bullfight were to gore every single matador, how long would it be before bullfights were a thing of the past?

SV: What’s your next book going to be about?

MZ: My third novel is due out later this year from Raw Dog Screaming Press. It’s called Darker Shade of Green and tells the story of a homeless prophet who inspires a young man and his cohorts to engage in a campaign of ecotage.

This post was written at Boneshakers.

It’s been a while since I last bragged about adding restaurants to our awesome NYC Vegan Restaurant Guide, so I figured a post doing just that was due.

Brooklyn

• Sunac Natural Food
• Willburg Cafe
• Am-Thai Chili Basil Kitchen
• Tao Palate (Spawn of Wild Ginger!)
• Vegetarian Ginger
• Boneshakers (Awesome Vegan-friendly Cafe!)
• Kush Cafe
• Caserta Vecchia (Cheesy Brick Oven Vegan Pizza!)
• Tofu on 7th
• New Green House

Manhattan

• The Cafe at 5C
• Lula’s Sweet Apothecary (Wipes drool!)
• Community Food & Juice
• Dirt Candy (Vegetables cooked up fancy by ex-Pure Food & Wine chef.)
• Tawaa
• Dumpling Man
• Sympathy for the Kettle
• Moshe’s Falafel
• Luxee
• Neighburrito
• T Salon at Chelsea Market
• Sal Anthony’s City Gardener (Check it out raw foodies!)
• Soy & Sake (Bootleg Red Bamboo)

Queens

• Linda’s Organic Kitchen & Market
• Peking Duck Forest
• Queens Health Emporium
• Fresh Start Health Food Market and Organic Eatery

Bronx

• Green Light Cuisine

If you wanna know about a restaurant that’s been added to the guide before I get around to bragging, please subscribe to (or check often) the recently added restaurants page.

Click here to see it in action.

We’ve got new features!*

You can now keep up with new restaurants as we add them to our amazing NYC vegan restaurant guide. Just click here to see the latest restaurants, subscribe by RSS feed, or get email alerts. You’ll never miss a new vegan restaurant again! (You can help us keep this up-to-date by alerting us to new restaurants at tips@supervegan.com.)

We’ve also been having fun with our restaurant reviews system–now you can see the top rated restaurants in each borough of New York City. Check out the top restaurants in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island. (Those last two are looking a bit anemic; leave some reviews for your Bronx and Staten Island favorites, people. There’s got to be something out there worth eating.)

If you don’t like the results, find your favorite restaurant and leave a review!** Your rating will be instantly incorporated into our ranking system.

* Okay, some of you probably noticed that we’ve actually had these for a while. We just took two months to announce them. Oh yeah, things move quickly here in SuperVegan land.

** This advice does not apply if it’s your own restaurant.

I’m so happy to be nearly done with this backlog!

This morning I made many more additions to our NYC Vegan Restaurant Guide based on user recommendations and places we discovered via TimeOut New York. Huge thanks to Andreas, Brooklyn Vegan, Cathy, Colin, Colleen, Jackie, Josh, Juliana, Sarah, and Zoe for their suggestions.

Thanks also to Rion at The Green Bean Cafe for bringing this newish, nearly all-vegan veg place to our attention. I was drooling while creating the entry. I can’t wait to check it out and once I do I’ll leave a review. Please check out the list of new additions and leave a review if you’ve been to any of these places.

Queens

Brooklyn

Manhattan

Sock monkeys are the Blockheads mascots!

Yesterday evening and this morning I made even more additions and updates to our NYC Vegan Restaurant Guide. I’m glad to report that (I think) I’ve added and updated all of the places that our wonderful tipsters have emailed to us. Many thanks to Cathy on the Upper West Side, Zach in Chinatown, Paula in Astoria, Debya in Brooklyn, and musician Andrew Philip Tipton in Staten Island.

Please leave reviews! Haven’t been to any of the new places? Leave a review of another place. Here’s a huge alphabetized list.

Staten Island

Queens

Brooklyn

Manhattan

Random Updates

I’m in the process of updating our superfantastic NYC Vegan Restaurant Guide. Thanks to Lollion for the robust list of Sunnyside/ Woodside/ Jackson Heights eateries! Thanks also to our friends Summer and Deidre; readers Anya, Zach, and Tiffany; and chef Cody at Papacitos Brooklyn!

We’ll continue with the resty guide updates, so if you don’t see the restaurant you tipped us off to, don’t worry, it’s on our to-do list. In the meanwhile, pretty please help keep me motivated on doing this lame data entry chore by leaving reviews of any new or old restaurants.

Queens

Brooklyn

Manhattan

I’ve updated the hours for Babycakes and Bushbaby.

I’ve also updated the listings for Vinnie’s Pizza, Cafe Blossom, Candle Cafe, and Viva Herbal Pizzaria to reflect that they now serve Chicago Soydairy’s Teese vegan cheese.

I can’t wait to add Tao Palate to our directory. Word on the street is that the sign on the yet-to-open eatery reads “Pan-Asian Vegan Cuisine.” Yippie! Located in the Prospect Heights/ Park Slope bordering space that recently housed Chocolate Monkey, it could possibly give Vegetarian Palate some healthy competition. Anyone know anything about this place or its owners?

Animal advocates across the nation will be partying this Sunday, July 27th in support of California’s Proposition 2 – The Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act which will reduce the suffering of 20 million abused animals trapped in cages inside California’s factory farms.

The parties will help raise much needed funds to help get out the YES Vote for Farm Animals on California’s Proposition 2 to counter deep-pocket factory farmers who have already raised millions of dollars and almost half a million dollars this month alone to continue the cruel and inhumane factory farming practices such as veal crates, gestation crates, and battery cages.

Find a party near you or visit the following NYC ones hosted by dedicated local activists Christine Mott in Manhattan’s Financial District and Ruth Santana in Astoria, Queens.

Nora Kramer who worked full-time (and over-time!) on the ground in California’s Bay Area will be joining the Manhattan party to give a first hand account of what’s going on in California. She was the Bay Area regional coordinator for Californians for Humane Farms campaign. Come hear Nora’s inspiring account and how New Yorkers can help animals and our friends and colleagues in California!

Here are more ways you can help. And yes, you can still make a donation if you can’t make it to a party.

Perelandra may see a lot of me soon, depending how this jury duty thing pans out.

It’s been a while since the last big update to our NYC Vegan Restaurant Guide. Remember: if you’ve been a customer at any of these places, help out your fellow vegans by leaving a review!

Park Slope gets a few veg-friendly omni places: Bogota Latin Bistro, Flatbush Farm, and Hunan Delight (your go-to place for fake meat when you’re sick of Vegetarian Palate, especially now that Red Hot has closed).

Elsewhere in Brooklyn, Frank White brings great coffee, vegan sandwiches and baked good, and more than a little style to the no-man’s-land between Clinton Hill and Prospect Heights. Urban Spring brings pricey fancy organicness to Fort Greene. Brooklyn Label brings vegan-friendly brunch to Greenpoint. Downtown Brooklyn’s Perelandra is a grocery store, but they also have a lot of great prepared food (including a vegan McMuffin!).

In Mahnattan, Bluestockings is great a bookstore and event space, but don’t forget they also have coffee and vegan baked goods, as does Hopscotch Cafe on Tompkins Square. Moving further uptown, the Sri Lankan Nirvana Cafe in Gramercy is recommended by multiple SuperVegan readers. We were excited about Zen Burger, but it’s kind of unbelievably un-vegan for a vegetarian burger joint.

What about Queens? Internationalist Mundo Cafe & Restaurant is somehow the first place we’ve ever listed in Astoria.

Huge thanks to readers Tiffany, Isa, Allison, Brooklyn Vegan, Janet, DaSleaza, and Mikaila for alerting us to some of these places. We’ve got at least a dozen more restaurants that we’re working on adding, so expect another update like this soon. As always, if you know of a place that should be in the guide, let us know!

Don’t forget that you can browse our listings by neighborhood and by cuisine.

Tiffin Wallah – Indian cuisine in a hipper-than-most decor

Ok, just a week since our last update, but here’s more! Check out the following latest additions to SuperVegan’s NYC Vegan Restaurant Guide!

• The latest all-vegetarian addition to Curry Hill, Tiffin Wallah brings $6 lunch buffets, fancy thali combos and a hipper-than-most decor to Lexington Avenue.
• RIP to the original Veggie Castle, but its Queens offshoot in South Richmond Hill is still alive and well. Head on to Veggie Castle II – unfortunately, it’s not housed in a former White Castle building.
• Perhaps the only sign that Staten Island really doesn’t suck as much as everyone in the world thinks it does, Chin Chin Palace dishes up an extensive menu of mock veggie meats and seafood AND was featured in The Staten Island Advance.
• NetCafe has an integrated coffeehouse featuring vegan cakes and pastries from Sensible Edibles and vegan crepes. Of course, they also have soy milk for your drinks.
• So you’re in Chinatown and there are idiots with you who refuse to go to an awesome all-veg dim sum place like Buddha Bodai or House of Vegetarian. Well, fear not, Dim Sum Go Go features a menu with great selections of delectable veggie delights like snow pea leaf dumplings and cilantro and scallion rice rolls.

In other news, Zen Burger informs us that their new opening date is next week, Thursday, January 3rd.

Photo by Isa Chandra Moskowitz, who agrees Wheeler’s is the bomb.

Well, potentially. They’re talking to a big long list of local restaurants. Hopefully all these places (and more) will decide to carry the stuff. Wheeler’s is the best vegan ice cream I’ve ever tasted.

Wheeler’s is now available at Bob’s Southern Bistro in Boston, and they’re working on distribution elsewhere in Beantown as well as in Providence (yay Julian’s!), and Vermont.

If you know anyone responsible for buying at any restaurants, do yourself (and the rest of us) a huge favor and ask them to carry Wheeler’s Black Label Ice Cream!

Soon to be Trader Joe’s Brooklyn.

The Trader Joe’s in Queens has a sign up announcing its grand opening this Friday, October 26. (Thanks to alwaysroom4gelo for the info.) It’ll be at 90-30 Metropolitan Avenue, on the border of Rego Park and Forest Hills. You have to get there by bus (or drive), and it’ll be open from 9am to 9pm.

No word yet on an opening date for Trader Joe’s Brooklyn, but here’s where it’s going to be.

Future Trader Joe’s at 90-30 Metropolitan Avenue

Brooklyn isn’t the only borough getting a new outpost of that relatively vegan-friendly West Coast purveyor of loss-leading organic bananas and avocados: Trader Joe’s is also coming to Rego Park, Queens. None of us SuperVegans live in Queens, where the blog per capita rate is far below that of Brooklyn, so TJ’s November ’06 announcement seems to have slipped through the cracks. Seems the grocer has their best spokeswoman, Alison Mochizuki, on the case, too: though first slated to open in March, the store is now tentatively set to open for business in late September. When asked what the delay was, Mochizuki replied, “No reason.”

That’s almost enough to inspire me to pursue a career in public relations.

Rockin’ the orange at Exotic Superfoods.

As we recently bragged, we just added a bunch more Brooklyn restaurants to our NYC vegan restaurant guide. Since some people apparently venture out of Brooklyn on occasion, we added these non-Brooklyn places too:

Queens: Exotic Superfoods is a raw foods restaurant and store in Fresh Meadows. Rice Avenue in Jackson Heights offers up veg-friendly Thai food.

Manhattan: We added a couple of dirt-cheap Punjabi taxi driver places – Grab & Go Dil-E (Heart of) Punjab Deli in Chelsea and Punjabi in the East Village. Across the street from Punjabi, you’ll find vegan hot dogs and cookies at the Sunshine Theater’s concession stand.

24 Carrots Organic Juice Bar on the Upper West Side carries desserts from Babycakes and raw food from Raw Soul. There’s a new Zen Palate in the Financial District. Midtown’s Kyotofu is a dessert bar where everything is based around tofu, which is such an awesome idea (be careful; this doesn’t mean everything is vegan).

You can eat fancy Caribbean fare at The Blue Mahoe on 14th Street, and find some very hip and trendy falafel (I mean that in a nice way) at Taïm in the West Village. Nearby, you’ll find two Cafe Angeliques, one on on Grove Street and the other on Bleeker. Both offer vegan sandwiches, muffins and cookies along with usual coffeehouse fare.

Every time I turn around in a tony Manhattan neighborhood, it seems a new Le Pain Quotidien has popped up like some kind of pernicious Belgian mushroom. I love these places, though. The three newest branches are at 11th and Broadway, 68th and First Avenue and on Seventh Avenue in Chelsea. Here’s our map of all 13 NYC branches.

And finally, for fans of dosa-nouveau, we’ve added the two downstate locations of the Hampton Chutney Company, in Soho and on the Upper West Side. (Every so often, people ask us what city SuperVegan will tackle next: Boston? San Francisco? LA? But the correct answer is the Hamptons.)

Go eat! Then come back to SuperVegan and leave some reviews!