Monday was my last day of winter break before spring Semester started up again. My friend Caty had off work so we planned a late lunch date to orchard grocer to celebrate MLK day.

Orchard Grocer is an all-vegan deli on the Lower East Side, stocked with vegan spreads, sauces, faux meats, cheeses, snack foods, and candies. They also have a deli counter where you can order some vegan sandwiches and soft serve.

I’ve been meaning to go for a while, so I was excited for our plans to visit. It did not disappoint!

We both tried ‘The Edith’ sandwich, which was a play on traditional bagels and lox with House-made vegan cream cheese, capers, and pickled smoky carrot strips in place of fish as ‘lox.’

The sandwich looked oddly like ‘real’ bagels and lox. The carrot lox was interesting. carrots were sliced thinly, and were slightly tangy yet smoky, and were just a bit oily to mimic the cattiness found in salmon. I’m not a huge fan of smokey flavor, but I understand the effect they were going for to emulate smoked fish. That said, it was not overly smokey.

Personally, I thought the amount of carrot lox on the sandwich was overwhelming and took some off and ate it separately before eating the rest of my bagel and cream cheese with a hint of carrot lox on top. My friend agreed.

The bagel and cream cheese was on point, and I really enjoyed being able to try a New York classic that I’d never had before. That said, next time I definitely want to try the buffalo tofu sandwich on the menu, which sounds more up my tastebud’s ally. Still really enjoyed what I got though!

The real superstar of the whole trip was the soft serve. Orchard Grocer serves vegan soft serve in rotating flavors, and this weekend they had chocolate and peanut butter.

Now, if you know me, you know soft serve holds a very special place in my heart. And while finding vegan hard-packed ice cream really isn’t hard for me (helllooooo Van Leeuwen), it’s a bit more difficult to get vegan soft serve. So I was pumped.

This soft serve was some of the best I’ve had, vegan or not. It was rich, creamy, and super peanut buttery. The chocolate swirl was a nice complement. And of course, texture junky that I am, I added chocolate chips. It was $5.51 with the adding topping, which for from-scratch soft serve isn’t too shabby. I could eat this every day, easily.

Overall, Orchard Grocer was a fun experience. I will be back to try other sammies and for more soft serve, of course!

And for more street art #inspo on the LES!

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