Hu Kitchen

Spring Break 2014- New York City

While in New York over spring break, my sweet husband was in charge of picking an evening restaurant for each night we were there. He took the assignment very seriously!  He googled the "Top 10" healthiest restaurants in New York and Hu Kitchen is one that came up.  He forwarded me the menu and I got VERY excited.  I then forwarded it to my girls and we all started to anticipate the trip! Although Hu sounds like some sort of asian restaurant, it is not.

Their slogan is: "Hu Kitchen: Get Back to Human" meaning get back to feeding our bodies things that it can actually use to help our bodies function, not just to make us feel full.

And this is a little about their story: (this is taken from their website)

"We were frustrated with the food options available today. We were even more frustrated with the half-truths that many in the food industry were peddling. It’s one thing to sell adulterated, highly-processed foods; it’s another thing entirely to hijack words like “healthy” and “natural” in order to sell them. These words used to mean something. It’s time to take them back.

So we created Hu Kitchen. We’re new to this. Our backgrounds are diverse, but we all share the same goal: to change the way modern human beings eat; to create a food brand that doesn't compromise quality and that never, ever lies to people."  

So back to me talking, go to their website hukitchen.com and read more - read about their seven "pillars" to help explain what they are doing and why.  We absolutely fell in love with the food and environment and went back there SEVERAL times while in New York! It was so delicious!   It has such amazing options for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.  Just to give you an idea of how great it was, here are a few pictures!

This picture is of the breakfast "sundaes" with berries/gluten free granola/seeds and nuts butters. Not to mention any and all smoothies - lots of greens and natural fresh ingredients. You could pick these out at the "mashbar." Here are a few examples from the menu:  Orchard Apple-org apple, housemade almond butter, org toasted coconut, cinnamon.  The Bonito- housemade almond butter , org raw grain-free granola, vanilla cashew cream, kiwi...or the  Pina Lada- pineapple, org coconut cream, maple walnut, org puffed quinoua.

Here is the chicken soup. It was just like we would have made at home.  The weather was cold while we were there and the soup tasted fantastic.

We didn't get too many pictures of the food because we ate it instead of photographing it.  You might notice that all of the plates are "licked clean".

This was their version of french toast with cashew creme and blueberries.  

This is my daughter Jennifer - she looks really happy.  She is a busy mother of four little ones (they were not with us, she was loving the vacation).  Jennifer wanted to eat there all day every day, wanted to move in next door.  The best line of the day was when my friend Patty said, "Jennifer is not going home, she is going to move in next door and just blog about HU kitchen for the rest of her life".  LOL!!!  We were happy with the restaurant and the idea of this was super funny!

This picture shows some more of the packaged items that you can purchase at Hu.  One of our favorite things was the Almond Granola (pictured above on the right.) 

My daughters recreated the recipe and we have made it several times since! Enjoy! 

Almond Nut Granola

1/2 cup Coconut Oil melted

1/2 cup maple syrup

1/3 cup coconut sugar

2 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp salt

3/4 cup almond butter or 1 cup

1/2 ground flax

5 cups gluten free oats

1/2 cup chopped almonds

Mix all wet ingredients plus almond butter until smooth. Mix dry ingredients together and then add to wet ingredients. Stir well. Cook at 275 for 35 minutes. We like to under-cook it!

There are a few ways to compliment a restaurant.  one is to return, which we did, two is to want to move next door and eat there every day, three is to want to write a blog about it.  But the best compliment of all was to serve up healthy delicious food and have a big family group laughing and joking and being really happy with their food and enjoying the time spent together.

So I say - Who is for Hu?  Look up the menu and read it -  hukitchen.com  - then when you go to New York go there, eat there...  After that... figure out how to get one of these in your town!

-Shannon