A Foodie's Journey through Burlington: New Moon Cafe

As a new student at UVM this year, I have quickly fallen in love with the city of Burlington, VT, and the surrounding mountains, forests, and lovely Lake Champlain. As a foodie, I have quickly discovered the staggering amount of incredible restaurants and cafes Burlington and the surrounding area has to offer. As a lover of bucket-lists, I decided to take on the challenge of eating at every restaurant in Burlington before I graduate in 2022.

After deciding on this, a couple google searches later gave me a rough estimate of over ONE HUNDRED restaurants! This, I realize, is a daunting task, especially for a college student on a budget. Nevertheless, I will endeavor to complete this personal challenge and hopefully get some good meals out of it as well.

The parameters are simple, the restaurant or cafe merely has to be in the city limits of Burlington, though I may expand to the nearby town of Winooski occasionally, because there's some good places over there. The restaurants on my list cannot be a chain or in a hotel, and since I am vegetarian, the restaurant has to have something that I can actually eat.

Unintentionally, I've already started this challenge when I began eating out at restaurants at the beginning of the school year. Only now have I decided to blog about it, both as a self motivator and also a record of all the sweet spots one can go to downtown.

To start off this journey, I'll begin with a hip little cafe downtown that is quickly becoming one of my favorite spots to study on the weekend. New Moon Cafe has a fun and 'hipster; atmosphere with wide front windows to let the light in, wooden tables, dark metal accents, and the alluring scent of coffee wafting from the central kitchen making it a quintessential example of a writer's or college student's perfect study space. The cafe offers coffee, lattes, smoothies, all sorts of sandwiches and bowls, to go treats, and some delicious baked goods. There are lots of vegetarian and vegan options, which is always appreciated, and the price is reasonable as well.

On March 24, a typical Sunday afternoon, I stopped by New Moon Cafe to grab some lunch. I decided to try the 'macro bowl' which is a bowl layered with a bed of kale and mixed greens, fluffy quinoa, bright red radishes, and pickled cabbage to add a little extra zang. Placed on top was shredded carrots, sliced avocado, and maple-soy tofu all dressed with a tahini sauce and sprinkled with sunflower seeds. Yum! The service was fast and the bowl was delicious and filling, perfect for getting me through a couple hours of studying.

On a different occasion, I have tried their enormous chocolate chip cookies (which could probably feed two or more people but I'm a hungry gal). It was later in the afternoon, so sadly I didn't experience the warm-fresh out of the oven goodness that makes chocolate chip cookies extra special. Nevertheless, the cookie was still soft and chewy with a good ratio of chip-to-cookie. Personally, I prefer more chip to cookie like in this ____ recipe.

In the future, I will definitely return, both for the study space and the good food.

Until the next meal!