Does a business deserve to be held to a lesser standard of customer service simply because they are all veg?
We had a disappointing experience at Planet Raw restaurant in Pleasant Hill recently. After 90 minutes of driving, we arrive to find Planet Raw tucked away in the corner of this shopping center in the suburbs. Chris goes inside while I’m outside looking at the menu and taking a photograph of the exterior to help promote them in the Ultimate Guide.
Chris returns before I’ve even finished taking my pictures, as I had to wait while this woman exited, as we prefer pics without people for UG.
And he says they’re closed, I ask why, he says the chef has left. And then, the woman who was leaving, interrupts our conversation to identify herself as the chef and just erupts with this litany of reasons why she is leaving, in a very angry fashion, ending with “next time call before you want to eat here”. Not one word of apology or even acknowledgment that now her restaurant is unable to fulfill its function of serving food to customers, because she is walking out mid-day.
I was totally shocked by her rudeness, and the very anti-customer tirade. (It almost felt like I was in the wrong for wanting to spend money at her restaurant.) Anyways, after she stormed off, our curiousity did get the better of us so we went back inside together to ask the staff who that was. They said it was Valerie, co-owner and chef. They were very friendly and apologetic, and did offer to try to make us something, but it wasn’t enough to overcome the very un-welcome greeting we just had. Interestingly enough, Valerie contacted me through yelp (where I also posted a review) and said the staff made a mistake; it was Carol, the other co-owner, who was rude, not her.
Anyways, for anyone else who might be driving a distance to visit them, I just wanted to share our experience that they close unexpectedly, and beware that you may be treated rudely.
Personally, while I do want veg businesses to succeed, I don’t think it does them any favors to hold them to a lesser standard. For any veg business to succeed, it must have the support of both veg and non-veg customers.
Side note: This was most definitely our first and last visit to Planet Raw. I might just give up on raw restaurants all together after this. The last time that I dined at one, Cafe Gratitude in SF, the waiter (who knew I was vegan) felt compelled to tell me that he prefers to dine on animals because he feels closer to them.
First impressions go a long way towards making it or breaking it for a restaurant. After all, if a restaurant doesn’t impress or at least show the potential for a good meal, customers won’t return.
The Symphonie Restaurant in Richmond, CA opened in February, 2009. Traveling through that area, we made a spontaneous decision to dine at Symphonie last week.
Inside Symphonie Restaurant
It was approaching dusk, so we couldn’t enjoy what appeared to be a charming and picturesque downtown. One nice point to dining outside of large cities — we did find easy and free parking in Symphonie’s parking lot.
The restaurant is a bit like the Doctor’s Tardis. It looms larger on the inside than it looks on the outside.
The restaurant is tastefully and pleasantly furnished. All the tables were prepared for the dinner crowd, complete with tablecloths, napkins, and place settings.
The only component missing were the customers. At 5 pm on a Sunday, we had our choice of seating in the restaurant.
The waitress seated us in the middle of the dining area, and explained that any items with the faux chicken were unavailable. When she asked, I shared it was our first visit to their restaurant.
Although it was only two pages, the menu was confusing. The first page was appetizers, salads, soups, fried rice, and noodle dishes. The second page was Lunch Specials (with soup, salad, and rice) and Specialties (with soup and salad). However, we could order from the Lunch Specials as a Dinner, but would not get the soup, salad, and rice and it would be a dinner portion.
We decided on an appetizer, Spring Rolls, and two entrees, Red Curry (from the Lunch Specials), and Mongolian Beef (from the Specialties), and brown rice.
Red Curry - Symphonie
The spring rolls were good (being vegan doesn’t mean I’ve lost my appreciation for fried foods), and interestingly, served with 2 dipping sauces. Only one of them appealed to both of us though.
The Red Curry was advertised as a curry and spicy, but neither of us found either of these qualities in the dish. The serving size was about average. The vegetables were well-cooked. I think the dish would have been better with a firmer tofu, rather than the big cubes of silken tofu. Unfortunately I saw potato with a big black spot right on the top. I know it happens with potatoes — it just needs to be cut-out before it’s cooked and served. It was huge, easily visible underneath the sauce. I guess the kitchen, in their haste to prepare 3 dishes for their only diners, missed it. And the sauce, it was about the right color for a curry but otherwise unremarkable. (In fact, their curry came up lacking compared to a frozen entree dinner with a curry sauce we’d had earlier in that same week.)
As soon as we saw the Mongolian Beef , we realized we’d made a mistake in ordering it. We double-checked the description; it’s one of those dishes that restaurants bundle with rice automatically. So, priced at $11.50, with half the dish being rice, it was very overpriced for what it was. Taste-wise, it was okay but forgettable — nothing outstanding that made either of us crave to return anytime soon.
As for the actual rice that we ordered, not listed on the menu we received, I even have something to say about that. Quantity-wise, it appeared more like a serving of rice for one person, but cost-wise ($2.50) it was priced like rice for two. The rice served with the Mongolian Beef dish was larger than the amount of rice we ordered separately, so we had enough rice.
Vegan Mongolian Beef - Symphonie
Frankly, though, after all that, the food wasn’t the most disappointing part of the meal. Or, maybe that should read instead
Surprisingly, though, after all that, the food wasn’t the most disappointing part of the meal.
It was a combination of the overall service and ambiance. The waitress did a good impression of a bad covert agent throughout our entire meal by fiddling with the existing place settings at the tables next to us — repeatedly adjusting the place settings, moving them back and forth between the same tables, straightening forks, and refolding napkins.
The cloth napkins are folded into a fan shape and decoratively placed on top of the plate. The plate is on a woven mat, on top of the tablecloth. Cutlery is placed directly on the woven mat. On my way to the restroom, while still in the main dining area, I walked by a laundry cart. It was holding a hamper filled with discarded table linens and a package of new ones. I didn’t see any discarded or fresh mats on the laundry cart. Since it’s woven, it’s easier for food particles to get caught within the slats. And it would be too incongruous for a restaurant promoting ‘Go Green’ to be treating them as disposable mats. At that point, I didn’t want to think too hard about how/if they clean the mats between diners. I just wished they placed clean cutlery on the napkins, as most restaurants do.
The restaurant is nicely furnished inside, and very big. On the main dining floor, there is a separate bar area, as well as another empty counter/bar area. The furniture is all dark wood. When we were there, they had soft music unobtrusively playing in the background. But (you knew it was coming) that was completely drowned out by the lively conversation and light footfalls of two young children affiliated with the restaurant staff. The kids were, well, kids in their playful and creative banter and shouting, which was easily overheard throughout the entire dining area.
The Check - overcharged by 6%
We had already agreed that if the waitress asked us at the end of the meal how it was, we would be truthful with her. But perhaps she had already (over)heard enough, because she didn’t ask when she presented the check.
As we got ready to leave, we noticed we were still the only customers in the entire restaurant.
Interestingly, the saga with the meal didn’t end when we walked out. The next day, after reviewing some of the photographs I’d taken of our dinner there, I discovered Symphonie had overcharged us by $1 on the spring rolls, and there was another unexplained 0.75 charge on the bill. The real total was $32.82 (tax included) but the restaurant charged us $34.74.
I wanted Symphonie to impress me, to be a wonderful vegan restaurant that I could rave about and encourage everyone to visit, but they didn’t. Instead, I left wondering how on earth they’ve managed to stay open for nearly a year.
Earlier this Spring, I was on a day trip through Berkeley with a friend. We had trekked across the Bay on BART, and were on a quest for vegan pizza at Bobby G’s. Everything else in between that and home was by random chance or grumbling “feed me” messages from our stomachs.
Smart Alec’s was one of those stops. We happened to be across the street, realized we were hungry, and thus decided to refuel on the most delicious vegan “air baked fries”.
Fresh Garlic on Air-Baked Fries
Catering toward Cal Berkeley students, Smart Alec’s is cafeteria-style food (burgers and soups), with many vegetarian and a few vegan options. There are still a few folks who are long-time members of the veg community in the SF Bay Area that begrudge Smart Alec’s decision to stray away from being an entirely vegetarian restaurant.
The order shown here was a large, all for the princely sum of $1.99. Fresh garlic is an optional choice, and is a must-have for those of you who like garlic, or are worried about vampires. Side note, Saturn Cafe, a veg restaurant open until the wee hours in Santa Cruz, also serves fries with fresh garlic.
In all honestly, and hindsight, I should have gotten a small, or split an order. But sometimes those “feed me” messages from my tummy overwhelm the rational part of my brain that should be responsible for making decisions like portion control.
Asian Rose was a restaurant in Santa Cruz, popular for its delicious and rich Sri Lankan cuisine. It’s just over an hour’s drive for us, down beautiful and scenic Highway 1. We made it a point to visit at least once or twice a year.
Over the recent Labor Day holiday weekend, little did we know that it would be our last trip. The food has always been entirely vegetarian, with many vegan choices. For example, all of the curries on the menu were vegan, and the prices were incredibly reasonable: one item was $6, two items $6.50, 3 items $7, and 4 items $7.50.
Another three Item Curry - Asian Rose
The first two photos shows two typical plates of three item curries – a deal at $7, including rice and a papadam. I opted for the Mixed Vegetables Curry, Spinach Yam Curry, and Basil Eggplant Curry shown in the first photo.
My biggest regret, every single time I’ve eaten at Asian Rose, is that there is a finite amount of food on the plate and I eventually reach the end.
As dire as my title sounds, Farewell Asian Rose, it’s really not that grim. We are not facing the end of vegan Sri Lankan food (yea!!)
Sri Lankan Spicy Potatoes
It’s sister restaurant, Malabar Cafe in Santa Cruz, remains open for dinner only, serving much of the same delicious cuisine. They’re now open daily from 5 pm to 9 m, and to 9:30 pm on Friday and Saturday evenings. And when I talked to the owner/chef during my most recent visit, he was going to be adding crepes. When we told him we were vegan, he assured us there would be vegan ones available, too.
So, whether it was Asian Rose or the remaining Malabar Cafe, it’s well-worth the journey to Santa Cruz for vegan Sri Lankan food.
An updated version of Bay Area Vegetarians’ handy Ultimate Guide is now available for your iPod. This lists all the vegan and vegetarian restaurants in the San Francisco Bay Area, great for locals, tourists, and everyone who enjoys dining veg.
It’s easily installed by downloading a file and moving it content to the ‘Notes’ directory of your iPod. The Guide does not programmatically alter your iPod in any way: it’s simply a collection of documents organized for easy browsing.
To the envy of all the people who live in San Francisco, the best vegan pizza is in the East Bay.
First, of the two entirely vegetarian pizzerias in the Bay Area, one of them is in the East Bay. Oakland’s Pizza Plaza became an all-veg pizzeria a few years back and has a wide selection of vegan pizzas on its menu, or you can entirely create your own vegan combo. They use Follow Your Heart vegan cheese and offer a wide selection of faux meats, too. Tony Tutto Pizza opened more recently in Mill Valley. However, while it is entirely vegetarian, it does not (yet) offer a vegan cheese.
Second, while there are a couple of mixed restaurants in SF that offer vegan pizza, I think for ease and choice of vegan pizza, East Bay wins the prize with 4 restaurants offering excellent vegan pizza choices:
After hearing favorable feedback about Bobby G’s, the newest in the preceding list to offer vegan pizza, I had to make a trip to the East Bay to try it out for myself. And I was not disappointed. It was scrummy!
Amazingly:
1) You can order vegan pizza by the slice, and each slice can be like a mini pizza (i.e. you can have whatever toppings you want on each slice!)
2) Vegan pizza is available in their lunch special, how cool is that. I always hate going to restaurants and feeling left out when they don’t have any vegan lunch specials.
Anyways, provided with the first-in-my-lifetime opportunity to have vegan pizza by the slice with whatever toppings I wanted, I could not refuse. I chose to have different toppings on each of my three slices: first, olive and pineapples; then spinach (I figured this was in lieu of ordering a salad ); and being the fungi lover I am, mushrooms.
Overall, the proprietary tofu ricotta was yummy, and just the right balance of toppings too. Let me repeat myself again: totally scrummy!
You can also make your own mini combination, as my fellow pizza lover did, and they offer a vegan salad, too. Note, while the combo pizza slices may look more festive, my singular topping slices were excellent and in no way lacking. I think all 3 slices cost me about $10 + tax/tip.
I would definitely return again, and bring a large to-go container with me
Brunch is one of my favorite meals. Maybe it’s because so often during the week I’m rushing to work and my default breakfast staple is toasted whole wheat bread. And on the weekends, it’s nice to have a more leisurely breakfast — especially when there’s no shopping, cooking or cleaning up required.
Living on the mid-coast Peninsula, if it’s not vegan brunch at home, then I have to travel further abroad, like the East Bay. Brunch at Fellini’s in Berkeley makes that very easy, since it’s only a couple of blocks from North Berkeley BART.
Fellini offers 7 different vegan/vegetarian brunch items, ranging from french toast at $7 to scrambles to florentine or benedict at $9. And, as a nod to the concerns of veg*ns, the veg*n dishes are prepared in pans dedicated to their veg*n food.
On past brunch visits to Fellini’s I’ve alternately enjoyed the florentine or benedict. This time I decided to try the Tofu Veggie Scramble. I would not make that choice again. I found the scramble pretty boring, and a tad on the salty side, too. It wasn’t a total disappointment, though, as the accompanying house potatoes were delicious.
There are 32 vegetarian restaurants in the southern area of the San Francisco Bay Area (aka “South Bay” for locals).
My favorite place to eat veg in the South Bay is Merit Vegetarian in Sunnyvale, one of only 9 restaurants that is vegan/primarily vegan. Merit currently has a couple of drinks with dairy, and also a non-vegan version of its popular vegan flan. However, we’ve heard that it will be removing the non-vegan items from its menu in the near future. (Other vegetarian restaurants following the Supreme Master Ching Hai that have removed non-vegan items in recent years include Vegetarian House in San Jose and New World Vegetarian (renamed to New World Vegan) in Oakland)
Spicy Lemon Grass Tofu, Merit Vegetarian
Merit Vegetarian offers a wide variety of vegan Vietnamese appetizers, soups, a good selection of entrees with faux meats, tofu, or entirely vegetable-based, as well as vegan desserts. It’s a large space, including comfortable booth spaces, big round tables for group dinners with family and friends, and regular tables, with a seating capacity close to 100 people.
During the week, they offer lunch specials between 11 am and 4 pm. You have your choice of a dozen different entrees served with brown rice for $7. It’s a deal, but only available Monday-Friday, excluding holidays. You also have the option, of course, from ordering from their regular dinner menu.
Fresh Spring Rolls with Peanut Sauce
On my most recent visit to Merit for a weekday lunch, we picked an appetizer from the regular menu and two of their lunch specials.
Their fresh spring rolls are filled with lettuce, mint leaves, cilantro and seasoned tofu, with a peanut dipping sauce (6 pieces, $5.50). They’re delicious, and could make a nice lunch on their own. (The light setting was a bit off on this photo, sigh)
On this visit, we selected the Spicy Lemon Grass Tofu and Sesame Eggplant Tofu.
Sesame Eggplant Tofu, Merit Vegetarian
The Spicy Lemon Grass Tofu uses a rich sauce made from lemongrass and chili for its kick, as well as tofu, bell peppers and strips of green onion. Just like it name indicates, it’s mostly a tofu dish with a generous amount of sauce for the accompanying rice. Loving Hut, another chain of restaurants that follows the Supreme Master Ching Hai, too, also has a lemongrass dish. We tried it at their SF location and while it was good, we like the one at Merit Vegetarian much better.
The Sesame Eggplant Tofu contains its namesake three ingredients with mushrooms. They serve the eggplant cooked to perfection, soft and delicious in a basil sauce. Eggplant is one of those vegetables that I rarely at home, but only eat while dining out.
On a scale of five, I’d give Merit Vegetarian a five out of five. The food is excellent, with many different choices, affordably priced, with good-sized servings. Next time I’ll have to plan my trip to Merit to include a cooler with ice so I can order extra to take home in my own non-Tupperware plastic containers
For many years, vegetarians in the San Francisco area envied the abundance of purely vegetarian Indian restaurants in the South Bay. Why, we asked ourselves, was New Ganges the lone Indian vegetarian restaurant in San Francisco?
Mixed Vegetable Uthappam served with a sambar and three coconut-based vegan chutneys
Then, last summer, it all changed. Udupi Palace, which has vegetarian Indian restaurants in Berkeley, Newark, and Sunnyvale, expanded to San Francisco. Udupi Palace serves traditional dosas and other south indian food.
Udupi Palace has been well-received, and even in this economy, they continue to do brisk business. I’ve been there several times earlier this year, dining early and mid-week, they’ve typically been two-thirds full.
The prices are reasonable, the food is well-seasoned and delicious, and the wait staff are friendly and prompt. There are many selections for vegans, and the wait staff have always been helpful in answering which items are vegan or can be made vegan.
Inside the Samosa: one order contains two pieces, and two different sauces.
The Udupi Palace in SF is one of my favorite vegetarian restaurants in San Francisco. I’d highly recommend it to anyone looking to enjoy vegetable-based Indian foods (there are no faux meats used in any of the dishes).
And, one of those days, purely in the interest of research for my blog, of course, I need to try their lunch buffet. It’s $7.95 during the week, and $8.95 on the weekends.
After our old refrigerator started freezing our produce, we bought a new refrigerator. There wasn’t any labeling that would be amiss in a vegan home; we just removed the unnecessary plastic egg tray.
Yet, it’s not always that easy to remove the reminders that we live in a meat-eating and animal-exploiting world. I recently purchased a new digital camera, a Canon PowerShot SD 790. It’s a point-and-shoot camera, but much fancier than the earlier two digital cameras I’ve used. In fact, it has special settings for taking photographs indoors, of foliage, at the beach, underwater, of “pets & children” (who won’t stay still), sunsets, and many more than I can elucidate from memory. The one setting that it does has, and that I cannot erase from memory, is the “aquarium”.
It will be my ongoing reminder that I am living and buying in a world of meat-eaters. So, it was with sweet irony that I first used the setting to snap a photograph through the glass window of the freezer of one of my all-time favorite vegan desserts, Mudslinger’s FreeStyleTarmack soy ice cream.
The best vegan ice cream
It is absolutely the most decadent and delicious consortium of espresso, chocolate and peanut butter ever created by man, in this case Michael at MaggieMudd.
The Mudslinger’s FreeStyle line is entirely non-dairy, and carried by many natural food stores and restaurants in the Bay Area (including Garden Fresh and Herbivore).
If you live in San Francisco, or in an adjacent city, this is definitely a must-try experience to visit their store in SF’s Bernal Heights and explore their many non-dairy ice cream flavors, sundaes, shakes, or custom-made ice cream cakes.
); and being the fungi lover I am, mushrooms.
