Adelina’s – (Mostly) Vegetarian With New Vegan & Gluten-Free Options

Have you been to Adelina’s (159 Greenpoint Ave) lately? For the vegetarians and vegans among us, Adelina’s is secretly and ALMOST totally vegetarian – with many vegan and gluten-free options. Plus Adelina’s owner Toby recently introduced a vegan Italian street food called Farinata, which he invited us over for a try. Of course we don’t just eat and drink when we go to Adelina’s – we also shoot the you know what with Toby. I am trying to convince Toby to drop the salame and go all the way – all vegetarian that is. Meat appears only a few times on Adelina’s menu in the form of cured meat on a salami plate, a pizza topping, stuffing for rice balls and a pasta topping. (Oh and they have a lobster ravioli which I am dying to try.) I know that all sounds amazing, but his non-meat options are stellar and strong enough to carry the entire menu on their own and make Adelina’s an Italian vegetarian mecca in Greenpoint.

Plus, Toby is himself a vegetarian.  Why accommodate all those rotten meat eaters anyway? There are plenty of options for them. I mean who doesn’t love pizza? And fried pizza to boot!

Toby is also a super nice guy who wants to make everyone happy and informed of their options. So, he introduced a new coding system to the menu, with VGN, VGT and GF – vegan, vegetarian and gluten-free, respectively.

His newest dish, the Farinata, a nothern Italian street food, a chick pea pancake topped with tomato and roasted red pepper pesto, was hearty and hit close to home – my favorite food of all time being panelle – a Sicilian street food, a fried chick pea fritter. Both are vegan and gluten-free.

At first the texture of the Farinata was confusing, because it looked like a pancake but it was creamy inside. Panelle are similar but definitely greasier and tend to be drier inside. Toby explained that it’s meant to be moister than panelle and once the delicious red pepper topping hit my tongue, it made a whole lot of sense. Chick pea flour has a very unique and nutty flavor and it worked really well with the tangy sweet of the pesto. The creaminess inside the crisp outside was a nice texture balance and it’s an overall very hearty and filling dish.

The side of warm lentil salad was very satisfying with slivers of of my favorite vegetable – fresh fennel.  And since we had to get back to our friends who were on doggy sitting duty, we took a few fried pizza pies to go, always a major hit.

Try the farinata and let us know what you think.