1 teaspoon love: Westville (NYC): A Vegetable Lover's Paradise in the West Village

Westville's interior: simple and cozy

My last trip to New York City was in August, but I was just too darn busy (grrr classes, thesis, GRE, graduate school applications...go away!) to post these pictures earlier. One of the carefree summer afternoons I was there we had lunch at Westville to celebrate Yasmina's birthday. I cannot stress enough how much I enjoyed my dining experience.

the always lovely Yasmina, patiently waiting for me to stop snapping photos and order already

First of all, the menu is great. It's long and varied and creative. Second of all, it's small. This annoys some people, but I don't particularly enjoy eating in restaurants the size of Walmart. I prefer a smaller, more cozy space in which you really feel like you and the other diners are sharing an experience. But my favorite thing about Westville was how vegetable-heavy the menu was! I freaking love vegetables and I don't always feel like having meat or seafood with them. Westville's menu really let fabulous vegetables shine on their own without masking their flavor with excessive craziness.

Westville's menu includes a long list of smaller, mostly vegetarian dishes that are meant to share. Yasmina and I decided to share four: sweet potato fries, ginger & garlic snap peas, roasted beets with goat cheese, and a black bean salad. I can honestly say every single one of them was DELICIOUS. After sampling all of these simple, fresh dishes, I was still hungry and ordered the crab cakes, which I was pleasantly surprised to find were not loaded with tons of nonsense fillers. Now incase you didn't know: I'm from Maryland (i.e. I take my crab cakes very seriously). Westville crab cakes were great because they were mostly crab meat but had just enough finely diced extra excitement (my guess would be green onion and red pepper?) to keep them interesting. When Lanny joined us, he had some sort of steak sandwich which he enjoyed. If you're in the West Village and looking for a delicious, simple, fresh meal (especially if you LOVE vegetables!), I cannot recommend Westville enough.