Unfortunately, not many mainstream restaurants have spiralized pastas on their menu.. According to my research in NYC so far, the only restaurants that serve spiralized dishes are generally the vegan/vegetarian ones. Once I started this blog, I vowed to uncover every spiralized dish in the greater NYC area. Feel free to send me leads if you hear a certain establishment serves these revolutionary noodles – I’ll visit and review!
While I was stalking on Instagram (muahaha), I noticed a girl hashtagged #zucchinipasta. Being creepy, I commented on her photo and asked her where she was. Her response? Gustorganics!
Gustorganics (located on 6th Ave between W 14th and W 13th St in NYC) is 100% organic, GMO-free spot – they even have a “key” on their menu which denotes whether each dish is vegan, vegetarian and/or gluten-free… how kind. I’m not going to review the restaurant itself, just the zucchini noodle dish. Let’s get into it….
Raw Zucchini Noodles at Gustorganics
First thought: $17.00 for a bowl of zucchini noodles?! Then I thought… oh, it’s NYC. I knew that this was going to be a light dish, considering it says so on the menu and it’s raw. Nonetheless, I was excited to try someone else’s rendition of zucchini noodles!
Verdict? I was generally disappointed. While the noodles were certainly “light,” they definitely were not “filling.” The dish was large enough, but there weren’t many fresh tomatoes (maybe a small handful) and the pine nuts fall to the bottom of the dish, so you don’t end up eating them anyway. There wasn’t much to the dish – perhaps they good have thrown in some more veggies to truly make this dish “filling.”
On the plus side, the spinach pesto was refreshing – it had a lemony zang which is nice for the summertime especially. I love zucchini noodles raw- unlike cooked noodles, they have that healthy crunch! I would definitely have this as an appetizer or as a mid-day pick-me-up, but all in all, it isn’t worth $17.00 – I could make that for $3 with mainly pantry ingredients!
Of course, this zucchini noodle dish isn’t the restaurant’s main attraction, but still – first impressions are everything, and I would hate someone to get turned off by zucchini noodles due to a ‘bad’ experience! There is hope for these little spirals, and I’m up for the challenge to bring them to the forefront!
Where to next…… ?