Beetle House NYC

I'm just going to be honest and say that I was not overly thrilled with choosing New York as our vacation destination this year. Even though I had months to get over it, I kind of slid into the trip a tiny bit pissed that I had to cancel our booked Cuba/Mexico vacation. To ease the blow, Jason did tell everyone that we could all pick one thing that we absolutely wanted to do on the trip (within financial reason) and the rest of us would follow along without complaint. While the girls were all about doing uber touristy things, like taking in a Broadway show, I'm more food driven and picked having dinner at Beetle House as my freebie.

Some of you may already know this, but I love Tim Burton, so ever since I first heard that there was a Tim Burton themed restaurant coming to NY (thanks friends who like to tag me in these kinds of things on Facebook!), I've been wanting to go. We arrived just a little after opening, and while we didn't think to make reservations, and because it is super tiny/cramped inside, I was surprised we were able to get seated right away. You can see from the below photo how narrow the space is, and the seating ends right past those stringed lights.

Forgive my photos on this post, but I didn't take my good camera around the city that day, so we are stuck with grainy iPhone snaps.

For Burton fans, the decor of Beetle House will totally suck you in.

Because they offer a wide variety of vegan and vegetarian options, it's the only restaurant I didn't have to hear, "What can mom eat here?" like I did at every other restaurant we stopped at on our vacation. 

I'm just going to say that the food is not cheap here, but not out of the realm of food pricing in NYC. You can choose an appetizer and an entree for $40 per person. Add in drinks and our bill for a party of 5 came out to over $350 with tip. I got the Vegan Wonka Wings and Vegan Sweeney Beef Burger.

Keeping with the theme, the Sweeney Burger comes topped with an old fashioned straight razor (plastic).

And the Edward Burgerhands comes with scissors stabbed through the bun.

Also ordered was the Cheshire Mac & Cheese, Franken Fries and non vegan Wonka Wings.

Jason and I ordered a few adult beverages to go with our meal. I got Beetle's Juice (so yum!) and Jason ordered (if memory serves me right) Edward's Lemonade. Both came out bubbling over with smoke (dry ice).

While the drinks were top notch, for the price of the meal, I was not impressed with the food. I've had better tasting vegan options in restaurants that don't offer a full vegan menu, but the rest of the family didn't have any complaints with their non-vegan choices. But, you're paying for the experience, so I was able to overlook it. For our experience, we got to hang out with Edward Scissorhands, who was quite the character. At one point, he ran around with his Jack Skellington mask on and later tried chopping up water bottles and the fake clouds in the sky.

Overall, even with my bland food, I did enjoy our stop at Beetle House very much and would say it is worth a visit, even just for cocktails if you're in NYC or LA. I would suggest making reservations though, as I think we lucked out getting a table when we did as it filled up really quickly soon after we were seated.  They do offer a cookbook so you can try their menu items at home. I bought the book so I could make Beetle's Juice at home since it was one of the tastiest drinks I've had in awhile.

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If you could stop anywhere in NYC, what would be your pick?