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The Village Voice has singled us out as one of their ten favorite vegetarian restaurants in the city before, and they’ve previously put us in the spotlight for having the best grits in town, too. But today marks the first time we’ve been officially voted “Best Vegetarian Restaurant” in New York City by the Village Voice, and I couldn’t be happier. I know you’re not supposed to care about awards and praise, but sometimes it really means a lot. Dirt Candy is a very small restaurant, with a very small staff, and all of us are here every day. We bust our butts to deliver consistent, creative and fun food and, in some tiny way, all of us really want to change the way people think about vegetables. So it’s nice to get a pat on the back like this. Thanks, Village Voice! All seven of us love you, too!

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This year, Dirt Candy again becomes one of only three vegetarian restaurants in the city to get Bib Gourmand status from the Michelin Guide. It’s a real honor and I’m very proud to get this. Bib Gourmand status is awarded to restaurants that offer great food, but that aren’t on the starred dining track. The first year we got Bib Gourmand I prickled a little at this — whaddaya mean we don’t give the starred dining experience?!? But then I realized that what this meant was that the food was good but that to their minds we’re not competing with those places that have white tablecloths, a sommelier and a super-expensive multi-course tasting menu. The Bib Gourmand basically means that Michelin considers your food above average, but you’re the chillaxed alternative to the uptight, uptown fancy pants places that want to go head-to-head with Eleven Madison Park and Per Se. So: good food, a fun experience, affordable prices and a relaxed, party down atmosphere? I’m proud for that to be what comes to mind when people think of Dirt Candy.

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“Dirt Candy, you relax me.”

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Also on the list are Fatty Crab, DBGB Kitchen & Bar, Momofuku Ssäm Bar and a whole bunch of other restaurants. You can check out the entire Bib Gourmand line-up here.

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I’m as ambivalent about the word “foodies” as the next chef (I love people who are excited about food, but I feel weird that we need a special label for them) but one place I like seeing it all the time is on Open Table’s Fit For Foodies rankings. Their users rate restaurants across the country and one of the categories is whether it’s “fit for foodies” or not. Once a year they total up all the results and list the 50 restaurants which received the most votes as “fit for foodies” in the country. San Francisco rocks it this year with 14 restaurants in the top 50. Chicago comes in second with 6 wins. And New York City comes in third (bronze – yuck!) with 5 restaurants in the Top 50. They are:

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Aldea (George Mendes)

Annisa (Anita Lo)

Blue Hill (Dan Barber)

WD-50 (Wylie Dufresne)

Dirt Candy (Amanda Cohen)

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Here’s the full list.

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Thanks to everyone who voted. I’m extremely proud to be included on a list that prestigious, and it means a lot to me that this is based on votes from people who actually ate here. I really do think Dirt Candy is a special place, and my tiny staff* and I try hard to make sure that when people eat at Dirt Candy they have the best experience possible. It’s nice to know that it’s working.

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* – I don’t mean that they are leprechauns, I just mean that there are very few of them.

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Every now and then one of these “Restaurants are getting tiny!” articles appear and the latest one is in the Wall Street Journal. They do mention Dirt Candy as they talk about restaurants that clock in at under 60 seats and 1,000 square feet, which means that they know what they’re talking about because Dirt Candy is only slightly large than three adult males standing side-by-side. But I read their stories of 800 square foot restaurants with 55 seats, and 700 square foot restaurants with 20 seats and I think, “Amateurs.” Because Dirt Candy? 650 square feet and 18 seats. Which means that I…win?

Actual size of the Dirt Candy kitchen.

Just when I thought I was prepared for the summer and couldn’t possibly be surprised by anything, Dirt Candy takes premature revenge. Yesterday morning I woke up, the birds were singing, the sun was shining, my insurance premiums were paid up, I checked my email and saw….

From the producers of Kitchen Nightmares & Celebrity Fit Club  COMES A NEW LIFE CHANGING WEIGHT LOSS DOCU-SERIES FOR ANYONE IN THE

CULINARY OR FOOD WORLD!

YOU DON’T HAVE TO LEAVE YOUR JOB OR LIFE, WE ARE COMING TO YOU!

If you are 75+ POUNDS OVERWEIGHT or potentially unhealthy & have a job in the food industry, this is your chance to turn your life around!

Why couldn’t it be 60 pounds overweight? Why couldn’t it be 50? I mean, from some angles I can see that someone might think I’m 40 pounds overweight, but “75+ pounds”?!? Thanks for telling me I’m fat, TV. Somehow, I’m sure that this is Dirt Candy’s way of making me feel bad before I go on vacation.

“I am not 75+ pounds overweight. Maybe 40. Max.”

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Super summer bummer! I just noticed that my ranking on Open Table as “Fit for Foodies” has been removed. But it’s not some insidious plot or a sign of slipping standards. Open Table rankings operate in real time according to the reviews that are there and those reviews are updated approximately every 90 days. So if you have some bad reviews, they eventually slip further and further down in time and finally vanish off Open Table altogether so that when you read reviews you’re only getting the latest ones made in the last three months. What’s happened with my Open Table reviews is that no one’s left one for a while, so currently it’s as if I have no reviews on Open Table, which makes me feel sort of naked.

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If only these kittens had Open Table reviews….

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Don’t worry – I’m not asking anyone to go post reviews for Dirt Candy; you can’t write a review unless you’ve booked a reservation through Open Table. It’s just another semi-interesting look at the way these things work. Emphasis on “semi.” Even stranger, I notice that there aren’t very many recent online reviews for Dirt Candy at all. Have I reached some sort of strange unreviewable status? Is online reviewing over? Did someone break the internet?

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If you do eat at Dirt Candy, please feel free to post an Open Table review. Even the bad ones are genuinely fun to read. I got hours of enjoyment out of the person who complained that they had a three course meal and it took them one and a half hours. Way too long in their book! We’re like a restaurant run by snails!

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Sorry for the radio silence in these parts. Next week will see a lot more posting and an explanation of why it’s been so quiet on the blog and why that will change.

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But in the meantime, Dirt Candy is going to be on the “Restaurants” episode of Food(ography) that premieres at 9pm on the Cooking Channel on Sunday, April 17.

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Host Mo Rocca…looking sexy.

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Here’s the write-up and the day’s schedule
(it’ll air again at 1AM).

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Last week, for some unknown reason, a grown man left his wife and children in Seattle and came to intern at Dirt Candy for three days. Normally, this would be the warning sign of an impending nervous breakdown, but in this case it was totally normal. Michael Natkin writes my favorite vegetarian blog, Herbivoracious, he has a book coming out, he’s staged at a lot of restaurants and so when he contacted me wanting to stage at Dirt Candy I was more than a little flattered.

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The thing I like about Herbivoracious is that Michael makes real, restaurant-quality food at home. He’s not aiming to make a simplified home cook recipe, he doesn’t cut corners, and he doesn’t dumb down what he’s attempting. He’s using new technology, and really busting his hump to try to pull off high-end vegetarian cooking at home – the kind of stuff a restaurant would put out without feeling any need to apologize for. It’s hard work, and it’s probably really difficult to do over and over again in a home kitchen, but every week he pulls off a recipe that I would have previously assumed was overly ambitious and too hard for someone working from home.

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Michael staged here for three days and wrote up his experiences on Herbivoracious and it’s the best description of what an average day is like at Dirt Candy that I’ve ever read. I was sad to see Michael go. He was a great intern because he’s staged at enough restaurants to know how to evaluate the work that needs to be done and he knows how to start doing it. Free and competent? It was a winning combination.

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But what really gives him a place in my own personal heaven is that he speaks up about responsible reservation-making:

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“Dirt Candy seats just twenty people, and usually does three full turns every night, so at most sixty diners can eat. A six-top that no-shows and isn’t replaced by walk-ins is 10% of the business! Chef Amanda answers the phones herself, re-confirms every reservation, and manages the timing so that no-one ever has to wait for their table. They can’t. There isn’t any place they could possibly stand. Keep this in mind the next time you make or break a reservation (at Dirty Candy or anywhere else)…”

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Michael’s piece is a must-read if you’re interested in what it’s like to be in the Dirt Candy kitchen.

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Read Michael Natkin’s experience at Dirt Candy in all its glory.

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This week’s New York Magazine is their “Best of” issue and they did a round up of the best vegetables in town. Along with Dovetail, ABC Kitchen, Torrisi and a few more, Dirt Candy wins “Best Carrots” for our barbecued carrot buns. They say:

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“The vegetarian answer to Momofuku pork buns: dough tinted with carrot juice, a barbecued-carrot filling, and a carrot-hoisin dipping sauce.”

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Yay! It’s been a tough winter and this is a really nice way to start the week. The full list of “Best Veggie” selections can be found here.

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“Hm, I will have to check these carrots out.”

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Last week, the company that runs Privy (which is not a toilet located inside a small shed, in this case, but the name of a high end style guide) got in touch and asked for some photos of Dirt Candy to use on a feature they had coming up. I sent them photos, and it was all totally normal. This morning, I saw that the piece had gone up and rather than use the photos I sent, they used a picture of family meals from the Dirt Candy blog. This is the best thing to happen all morning!

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So please, come on down to Dirt Candy and have a giant pan of of chickpeas and fried tofu with an enormous serving spoon and some paperwork strewn around your table. Be warned, however, the stapler is a supplement and it is Market Priced.

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Also, I am feeling really guilty because Privy’s “ideal meal” at Dirt Candy is Spinach Soup (which has been off the menu for over a year), Lemon Sage Gnocchi with Brussels Sprouts which has never been on the menu (I think it was on a press release that went out over two years ago before I was open), and popcorn pudding which, thank god, is actually on the menu. At least their ideal meal won’t be a total loss if they ever come back!

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