September, 1998

Bliss
191 Bedford Avenue (between N. 6th & N. 7th Streets)
Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Tel.: 718-599-2547
Take the L train (first stop in Brooklyn from Manhattan).
Sunday to Thursday 8am to Midnight
Friday & Saturday 8am to 1am.
Wheelchair accessible

The sky is tinted pink, a warm midsummer evening just outside the glass door. The room has a quiet hum of conversation. The lights are low, the wood chairs mismatched but funky, a candle on my table and boogie-woogie playing in the background. I look up from my rice pudding and take in the moon as it floats just outside, framed by a row of tiny blue lights. How might I describe the moment? Perhaps, simply bliss.

Only a few months old, Bliss is Brooklyn’s newest vegan restaurant and the first in Williamsburg—the arty outpost sometimes known as Brooklyn’s East Village. Co-owners Kelly and Harry were audacious when they chose to name their eatery a word that means "highest happiness; the special happiness of heaven," and which was immortalized by the late myth-master Joseph Campbell (as in "follow your"). However, their semantic gamble seems to have paid off. The word is out that bliss is attainable here on Earth, at least in Kings County. Young and not-so-young hip people fill Bliss’s 20 or so seats for lunch, dinner and weekend brunch, talking long and late and enjoying some terrific, reasonably priced food.

As with any new place, there are some kinks (portion size, food serving temperature, and running out of ingredients), but subsequent visits show that Bliss is working them out. What’s refreshing about Bliss is that the owners are not shy about showing the way to heaven: "pure vegan organic cuisine" is emblazoned over the door. All foods are organic whenever possible and no sugar or white flour are used. Many of the offerings are "live" and are indicated on the menu. And the heavenly cuisine? It’s far from macrobiotic, but is pretty pure and, often, inspired. Bliss dishes let the flavors of foods come through without fussy sauces or too clever by half combinations of ingredients—ploys sometimes used to make vegan cuisine more appealing to the masses.

At Bliss, the masses are merely served good, healthy food in a comfortable space that almost feels like an artist’s apartment, without the clutter. And the same goes for the food. The roasted beet salad ($6.50) combines slightly sweet, slightly peppery beets with a forest of field greens and a slim thicket of crisp green beans for a delicious demi-meal. The spicy tempeh-veggie stir up ($8.95) is seasoned to perfection and served over brown rice in a bowl nearly the size of a Panama hat. The mushroom-leek risotto ($8.50) is great comfort food made slightly hip—leeks and rice and spice with a distinctive flavor that never overpowers.

And some of Bliss’s food is positively inspired: the somewhat inelegantly named potato wheels ($5.95) are the most appealing combination of opposites since Abbott and Costello. The wheels consist of baked potato rounds and are really luscious, chunked with tomatoes and avocado, arrayed like a daisy around a chutney of tomatoes and red onion. The rice pudding ($3.50) sends me over the moon. It’s thick with soy milk, sultanas, cinnamon and nutmeg. Just like I would imagine making it at home, but where it would never taste this good. The fruit crisps (selections change) are also great: the emphasis is on the fruit; the crunch is subtle and the whole thing is not over-sweet.

Soups ($3.75) change daily and are solid fare, but could at times use more spice. Also on offer: a selection of juice cocktails (known as "crazy Harry’s concoctions") listed by name ("spirit juice," $4.95) and function ("cleansing"). They are good and fresh tasting, but somewhat expensive. Bliss also has a range of sandwiches ($6.50 to $6.75)—roasted portobello, a Bliss burger and a sunflower sprout roll-up), nori-maki ($6.50), nachos, plenty of sides ($3.25 to $3.95) and a range of potato dishes, terrific for a spud-lover like me. You can create your own baked potato (a bargain at $3.25), nosh on potato salad ($3.25) and of course, revel in the potato wheels.

Pure Bliss? Well, it’s tough here on Earth. But the night I first ate Bliss potato wheels while the Cure played in the background, it certainly was a great local approximation.

Mia MacDonald is a consultant in international development and an animal activist. She lives in Brooklyn.

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