Reviewed 3/22/09

I’m back from the blogger brunch — what a fun group of girls (and boy)! We met at Counter, an East Village vegetarian restaurant. While the service left quite a bit to be desired — at least five orders got messed up, and poor Dori didn’t get her food until after pretty much everyone else had finished eating! — the company was wonderful and my meal at least tasted delicious. My people-photography skills are lacking, but here’s what I was able to get.

Left to right: Danielle, Ashley, Melissa, Gena (the Raw Foodist and soon-to-be-blogger), Mark, Heather, and Shane

Left to right: part of Amelia‘s eye, Vani, Olga, Amie, reader Ashley, me

Not pictured but also there: Dori, Missy, and Emily

I ordered the Moroccan Tagine: poached eggs in a rich tomato-pepper stew & grilled flatbread. The flatbreads came haphazardly tossed on a separate plate, so I arranged them around my stew dish for better visual effect:

This. was. SO. GOOD. If you ever go to Counter (which I’m not sure I’d recommend after experiencing their lousy service, even taking into account that there were 16 of us), you must order this dish.

The stew was spicy and flavorful and thick, and the flatbreads complemented it perfectly. (I also ate one of the flatbreads with a smear of strawberry butter because I could not pass that up when I saw it!)

I inhaled my food because it was yummmmmy and I was hungry (the accidental 10.5 miles was starting to catch up with me), but everyone else was still eating and I was jealous. I checked out the spread and noticed a meal down at the other end that I couldn’t quite identify:

It almost looked like a big hunk of steak, but I thought that was highly unlikely with us being at a vegetarian restaurant and all. I called down to Danielle to see what she had ordered. FRENCH TOAST!! She offered me a bite, and my spoon and I were down at her plate in under 5 seconds 😀

Then, Danielle offered me the REST of her plate because she was FULL. How could I refuse??

It tasted like it looked: DELICIOUS. Warm, dense, gooey, maple-y, banana-y. From the menu: a delicious vegan twist on classic French toast with banana flambe. Yummmmmmmmmmmm.

(I’m pretty sure I smeared strawberry butter all over this guy, too )

Thanks again, Danielle! That French toast definitely bumped me up into the “satiated” category!

So overall, my experience at the restaurant was positive because I luckily picked the one perfect item on the menu (and got to taste a second almost-perfect item). As I mentioned, however, service was lousy, and not everyone was happy! Follow these links to check what the others had to say:

• Dori at Dori’s Shiny Blog
• Danielle at A Year of Healthy Eating
• Ashley at Sweet & Natural
• Melissa at Fitness NYC
• Heather & Mark at HangryPants
• Vani at Fit for Free
• Olga at Healthing It
• Missy at Missy Maintains
• Emily at Super Caloric Chalk Dust

If you’ve written a review of Counter and I missed it, please let me know so I can add you to the list!