Over the summer we had plenty of weekends where we were out of town, exploring new places around the East Coast, but now that cooler weather is settling in we’re sticking closer to home – and that means we’re checking out all kinds of new and interesting foods around New York!  Today we’d like to present to you a few places we’ve discovered recently that serve up some quick, tasty meals.  We stopped by all these spots for easy weekend lunches, but you can really check them out at any time.  Here’s our recommendations, but just be warned that there’s one image of meat in this post.

The first place we liked was Pad Thaimee, which is the takeout arm of Chef Hong Thaimee’s cluster of restaurants (she also has the sit-down spot Thaimee Love and the upcoming Thaimee Blossom).  Pad Thaimee only has five things on its menu, but you can customize each dish with your choice of protein – so Cyril got this pad thai with tofu, made with rice noodles, turnips, cabbage, chives, and bean sprouts.

And Miriam had the nicely spicy pad kee mao, also with tofu – it’s flavored with garlic, chili jam, lime leaves, basil, and Chef Thaimee’s in-house sauce.

Next up, and only a mile away, is a new spot in the East Village called 7th Street Burger.  As you might be able to guess, it’s nothing but burgers (plus fries) on the menu, but they make this American staple unique by serving their patties up as smash burgers – meaning, they get crushed down on the grill as they cook, letting them brown evenly and retain their inner flavor.  Believe it or not, this is a technique that not’s confined to regular beef burgers:  at 7th Street Burger, you can get an Impossible Burger cooked this way, topped with the standard American cheese, pickles, and their own secret sauce.

And here’s the regular double cheeseburger, for Cyril.

Plus we also split a side of fries.

But if you’re looking for something entirely vegetarian – vegan, even – you can head over to Bushwick and check out Grilled!, a tiny spot with a window and a few sidewalk tables.  There they serve up an impressively wide range of food that’s 100% plant based.  We decided to try two things there:  first, one of their newest items, a fried faux-chicken sandwich topped with their dairy-free special sauce and pickles …

… and also the arepa burger, made with a Beyond Meat patty, slices of vegan ham and provolone, and house sauce, all sandwiched between two arepas.

So there you go:  three different options for a tasty lunch in this city, all of which serve up some great vegetarian choices.  You’ve got one place that’s nothing but burgers and fries, one place with a more expansive but entirely vegan menu, and one spot for a few popular takeout Thai dishes.  That’s a lot of different things to try!  And it’s a good representation of the many types of food you can find in New York:  simple burgers, a wealth of vegan options, or some delicious cuisine from halfway around the world.