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Meatless By Miriam
Wolf Good-bye, hello AFTER MORE THAN 15 years prowling the streets of San Francisco trying to find good things to eat, I've packed it in and moved to Portland. There's so much to miss about the Bay Area. Good friends. Good food. But trading in an 800-square-foot apartment for a full-sized house with a yard and a good school down the block is just the right thing to do. So good-bye, Greens. Tah-tah, Thanh Thanh. Au revoir, Udupi Palace. Ciao for now, Millenium. Rock on, Rainbow Grocery. But as much as people in San Francisco (myself very much included) can think great vegetarian food can't be found outside the nine Bay Area counties (oh, all right, two or three counties), there are lots of great veggie places to eat when you venture outside your own city. The key is finding them. There's a ton of vegetarian restaurant round-ups available on the Web. Sites like the Vegetarian Resource Group (www.vrg.org) and Happy Cow's Vegetarian Guide to Restaurants and Health Food Stores (www.happycow.net) can point the way to a host of vegetarian restaurants. We used them this summer when we traveled through Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming. And while Wyoming, where I grew up, remains a vast wasteland bereft of vegetarian goodies, Utah, it turns out, can be pretty hip. In Salt Lake City, we felt pampered after driving more than 400 miles when we sprung for dinner at Sage's Café. This upscale "vegetarian organic" restaurant features food lovingly prepared from pristine ingredients. It could easily rival some of the Bay Area's best veggie restaurants. But the atmosphere is a little more down home (though still elegant in its way); Sage's Café even has a children's menu. Its offerings are a bit of a world-cuisine jumble – you can get a Philly "Cheeze Steak," tacos, pasta with pesto, or even a Thai-style curry. Often this is a recipe for culinary disaster, but Sage's Café pulls it off. We tried a soba salad that was packed with veggies and slippery buckwheat soba noodles. But what everyone just kept grabbing for were the chunks of spicy "blackened" tempeh. They were as addictive as potato chips. The cashew coconut curry was a huge bowl of veggies floating in a spicy coconut broth. While the flavors were not as awesomely crazy-making as you'll find in the best Thai restaurants, the emphasis on great organic produce made the dish stand out. We couldn't resist ordering a pesto-tempeh sub, also a study in new and delicious ways to eat tempeh. One of our very favorite dishes came from the children's menu – a little plate of steamed vegetables with "carrot butter." The carrot butter was smooth and thick, more like a paté. The flavor was sweet, the mouth feel unctuous without the use of dairy products. If you're in Salt Lake City, Sage's will satisfy your hankering for enough tasty vegan organic grub to fortify you for a tour of the nearby Mormon Temple. Once a month it offers an evening of fine raw food dining. But what about Portland, you ask? Well, Portland is a vegetarian food paradise, with more vegetarian restaurants per capita than even the Bay Area (statistic just spouted off, not actually verified, but you get the idea). Paradox Palace Café and Vita Cafe, sister restaurants in two different up-and-coming neighborhoods, serve breakfast to die for, including vegan corn cakes topped with either sweets (maple syrup) or savories (salsa, guac, and sour cream), vegan biscuits with almond gravy, and big ol' homemade vegetarian corn dogs. Weirdly, both places also serve cow-based hamburgers. Go figure. Portland is also the fake-meat capital of the world, with two establishments devoted to its consumption. Veganopolis is a downtown café-art gallery that started out as a food cart. It serves warming soups, salads, and sandwiches. A Tofurky melt or seitan Reuben sandwich should keep those cured-meat cravings at bay. Across the river, Food Fight is an all-vegan grocery store that features all of your favorite soy jerkies, frozen gluten ham, and other packaged delights. The Web site (www.foodfightgrocery.com) is a great place to go if you love to read forums in which vegans flame omnivores. Getting to know the Bay Area's vegetarian scene for this column has been an eye-opening delight. Thanks to all the veggie fans who checked out this column and especially to those who wrote to offer support, clarification, or just greetings.
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