Medellin's Herbario Worth the Trip

Herbario
Carrera 43D 10-30
Medellin, Colombia
+57.4.311.2537
www.elherbario.com

Colombia was the last place I expected to find one of the better vegetarian meals I've had. South America is traditionally known for its beef, not its ways with produce. But Herbario in Medellin proved to be a phenomenal restaurant that offered a varied menu, primarily focused on chicken, fish and beef, but with a few vegetarian gems.
Among the starters, goat cheese served with apple and merlot-soaked pear (above) was light and flavorful. The cheese had a smooth and creamy texture that perfectly complemented the pear. A medley of mushrooms covered in gruyere (below) with pesto and fresh herbed goat cheese was a hearty appetizer that had the texture of a savory stuffing. The sharp and cool herbed goat cheese provided a nice contrast.
Tofu (below) with sweet red pepper, tomato and potatoes in a mild bean sauce was an incredible combination of flavors.
Mushroom risotto (below) in mushroom sauce with crispy fried cheese was rich and savory. While one would expect a mushroom overload, the dish was mild and well-balanced, with the sauce coming across as a mild mole.
The restaurant is warm and comfortable and the staff is very friendly and attentive. There is an adjoining shop to purchase a variety of restaurant-prepared sauces. There is also a full bar and wine list. Entrees are about US $13 and appetizers are about $7.

Los Angeles' Cru Offers World Tour of Raw Foods

Cru
1521 Griffith Park Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90026
323.667.1551
www.crusilverlake.com

This vegan, (mostly) raw foods restaurant in Los Angeles' trendy Silver Lake offers a varied and eclectic menu that takes inspiration from cuisines from around the world. Offerings range from Asian noodle bowls to curried squash soup to ravioli and pizza.

Dinner began with spring rolls (above) wrapped in thinly sliced cucumbers and filled with sprouts, cabbage, shiitake mushrooms and avocado served with a sweet chili sauce. This could have used more avocado and mushroom and fewer greens. The sauce overcame the blandness and added some flavor, but, in general, this dish did nothing to dispel the stereotype weeds-and-seeds vegan fare.

The jicama ravioli (above) filled with cashew nut cheese and topped with pumpkin seed pesto had a good combination of bold flavors. It's understandably the restaurant's signature dish.


The spicy raw vegan chorizo tostada (above) was flavorful, but not overly innovative. The shell was difficult to cut and overly chewy. The chorizo had a nice texture and a zesty bite.

The desserts were among the standouts at Cru. The coconut chocolate pie (below) was light and fluffy, yet had the perfect chocolate flavor. The orange zest on top was a great accent.


The chocolate truffle cake (below) was like cutting into a candy bar. It was seriously rich, thick and firm. The flavor was pure chocolate. I would guess it had 75 to 80 percent dark chocolate, just a hint of bitterness coming on the finish.

Service is friendly and efficient, but you may need to ask for information about the dishes as it's unlikely to be offered otherwise.

Cru does not offer wine, but you can bring your own and there is no corkage fee.

The restaurant does not take reservations, except for parties of six or more, and it does fill up quickly. It opens for dinner at 5:30 p.m. daily, and by 6 p.m. there are people waiting. The restaurant is quite small - it seats about 20 - and there is no entry way separate from the restaurant. Those who chose to wait inside to be seated can be a distraction and can negatively impact the otherwise easy-going atmosphere.

Entrees run about $13-$15, with starters and desserts about $8.

Horizons Heats Up James Beard House With Vegan Dinner

Horizons
611 S. 7th Street
Philadelphia, PA
215.923.6117
www.horizonsphiladelphia.com

James Beard Foundation
167 W. 12th St.
New York, NY
212.627.1064
www.jamesbeard.org

No sooner did the notice from Vegetarian Times hit my Facebook page than I picked up the phone and made a reservation. For the first time in 23 years, the James Beard Foundation was having a vegan dinner – a vegan dinner prepared by Rich Landau and Kate Jacoby of the highly acclaimed Horizons vegan restaurant in Pennsylvania at Beard’s Greenwich Village townhouse. This was an opportunity I couldn’t miss.



Beard’s townhouse was left to Reed College, but chefs such as Julia Child thought the place needed to be preserved for food events. So with help from folks like Wolfgang Puck, they put on fundraisers and managed to buy it and create the foundation. Now there are food events there about 250 days a year.

When I arrived, the place was already packed. Guests walk through the living room, into the kitchen and in the back to the atrium, where hors d’oeuvres and sparkling wine are served.Some of the wines for the evening (above).

Hors d'oeuvres included:
Oyster mushroom fritters with aguardiente creamed spinach Black olive blini with truffle cream, golden beet relish and seaweed caviar (above)

Edamame purée with crispy sushi rice, gochujang, daikon and nori dust

Grilled seitan with crispy tortillas, whipped avocado, cilantro and green olive relish

Dinner began with portobello carpaccio (above) with crispy capers, rosemary mustard and spaghetti squash latke. It was served with a 2007 Sella & Mosca La Cala Vermentino. The mushroom on this was sliced incredibly thin, giving it a very different texture. It was excellent.

The next course was saffron–cauliflower bisque with fennel confit crostini and oloroso sherry cream. It was served with a 2008 A to Z Pinot Gris from Pennsylvania, which was a very pleasant surprise. All of us at our table were completely taken with it.

The caramelized celery root ravioli with charred brussels sprouts, smoked royal trumpet mushrooms, and sage-grain mustard emulsion was the one dish that didn't quite work for me, although the brussels sprouts were very tasty and nicely cooked. This was served with Chaddsford Winery 2007 pinot "NoPinot" noir.Peppercorn-seared tofu (above) with creamed leek and truffled parsnip purée, salt-roasted golden beets, hazelnuts, and apple cider vinegar reduction was outstanding. I generally don't eat tofu, preferring vegetables instead of substitutions for animals, but this was so tasty and nicely flavored and had a wonderful rich texture. It was another of the standout dishes of the evening.

The heirloom pumpkin cheesecake with chestnut candy and quince jam was made with tofu and was so rich, smooth and creamy, I never would have known had I not been told.

Chef Landau mingled with guests after dinner, and it was truly a lot of fun to eat at the Beard house with so many mementos throughout the house.

There were likely 80-100 guests at dinner. Cost was $100 for members and $125 for non-members. I was told this was a bigger turnout than at most dinners. I was thrilled as this would seem to bode well for future vegan and vegetarian dinners at the Beard house.

Ten Tables May Just Be Ten (or Twenty) Too Many

Ten Tables
5 Craigie Circle
Cambridge, MA
617.576.5444
www.tentables.net

The Boston area, seafood mecca that it is, is tough for vegetarians. So I was excited when this well-regarded Jamaica Plain restaurant opened in Cambridge, and that it had a vegetarian menu. I wasn't so excited after eating there.

The restaurant, which has just ten tables in Jamaica Plain but about 20 in Cambridge, offers a "surprise" vegetarian menu for $28 most nights of the week. (Call first to find out which nights.) It must be ordered by the whole table. My companion and I went for it.For our first courses we each received a different salad - a roasted beet salad with maytag blue cheese and frisee, and mesculun greens with marcona almonds and shaved manchego. Both were delicious, and I was thrilled to think we might each receive different dishes through each course, giving us the opportunity to try twice the number of plates. Unfortunately, this started and ended with the salads, causing my companion to suggest it appeared more likely they ran out of the blue cheese to make two of the same.

The next course was squash soup (above). Tasty, although a bit bland. The soup was followed by ricotta cavatelli with delicata squash, sage, porcini broth, and Parmesan (below). Overall the dish was good and flavorful (pasta was a bit too firm), but with the squash soup proved to be too much emphasis on one vegetable. Again, we wondered if this was a thought-out vegetarian menu, or something pulled together from what was on hand.
Our final course was a chocolate terrine with "Thai basil" (actually regular basil) ice cream and sea salt. The basil overwhelmed the ice cream and did not complement the chocolate. I enjoy sea salt in chocolate, but it has to be done in the right amount so it does not overpower the chocolate. In this case, all I tasted was salt.

Service was less than stellar. The sparkling water we ordered never arrived. The check was delivered face up with the dessert.

By the reviews I've read of Ten Tables, it seems to delight a lot of people, but a good place for vegetarians it's not.

Radio Africa & Kitchen: Such a Great Find It's Hard to Share

Radio Africa & Kitchen
at The Coffee Bar on Thursdays and Fridays, 6-10 p.m.
1890 Bryant Street
San Francisco, CA
415.420.2486
www.radioafricakitchen.com

It really is hard to share this wonderful nomadic restaurant in San Francisco. Serving dinner just two nights a week from a coffee house, Radio Africa & Kitchen feels like your own special, secret find that you want to keep that way. But the chef is so terrific and his story so wonderful that it would really be a crime not to spread the word.
Self-taught chef Eskender Aseged fled his native Ethiopia in 1971 at age 19 with only the clothes on his back. He eventually made it to the US, working as a busboy and waiter by day and going home at night to recreate flavors in his kitchen. He left his last job at Campton Place to work on the nomadic Radio Africa and Kitchen. He started serving a group of friends around a picnic table and eventually found places where he could offer his food to the public two nights a week. He doesn't advertise, but he's gradually gained customers primarily through word-of-mouth. Eskender focuses on authentic, healthy meals served while listening to a variety of African music.

The menu changes weekly. You can call ahead or check the website to find out the vegetarian offerings. I started with heirloom tomato gazpacho with fennel pollen and creme fraiche (above). It was wonderful, with smooth tomato flavor. The edamame hummus with green olive oil and tartine bread was also a great starter.


For the main course, I had the Ethiopian mushroom wot with vegetable alicha and goat cheese-stuffed squash blossoms (above). It was perfect with the cheese providing a wonderful complement to the lightly cooked and flavorful vegetables.

Dessert was an over-the-top (and I mean this in the best possible way) chocolate decadence with mixed berries and organic vanilla ice cream.

Reasonably priced wine pairings ($7-8 a glass and about $26 a bottle) are offered with each dish.

The total bill for two, with two glasses of wine each, was $98. Waitstaff is relaxed, casual and very good.

Radio Africa and Kitchen is truly a wonderful find ...if you know where to find it, hiding out (there's no sign) two nights a week at a coffee bar. Make reservations as seating is limited.

Shanghai's M on the Bund Brings Glamour Back

M on the Bund
6/F, No.5 The Bund (Enter on Guangdong Lu)
Shanghai 200002 China
www.m-restaurantgroup.com
(86 -21) 6350.9988

Undoubtedly the most well-known restaurant in Shanghai, M on the Bund has played host to a staggering list of gliteratti. To name a few: Prince Andrew, Dolce and Gabbana, Helmut Kohl, Gore Vidal, Richard Branson ...and now, me. (Surely, I'll be added to their list of notable diners any day now. ;-) )

This fun and unpretentious restaurant isn't simply about being seen or hobnobbing with the well-to-do, but takes its food seriously. M has been on Meile's top 20 restaurants in Asia list for two years, and was named one of the 50 best restaurants in the world by Conde Nast Traveler.

Before dinner, I went to the M's Glamour Bar one floor down to watch the lights of Pudong come alive as the sun went down. It's a great place to sit and enjoy a martini while staring out at the modern architecture across the river. The interior of the Glamour Bar hails back to days of salons, art deco and jazz. The spaces are comfortable and the mismatched cut-crystal glasses are exquisite. Later, the space comes alive with readings, music and the unexpected. Call for a reservation to get a window table.

The restaurant is warm an inviting, a mix of contemporary and classic design - whimsical yet sophisticated. The main focus is the food, fresh ingredients with European influences. Our starters were the red, green and yellow tomato soup - a very nice blend of flavors - and eggplant served three ways (above) - rolled with red peppers; charred with tahini and mint; diced with olives, almonds and parsley - and served with thin wafers. The eggplant dish would have been well-suited as a shared appetizer for the table as it was too much for one person.
For the mains, the risotto with green, spring vegetables (above) was excellent. The risotto had a nice firm texture and the vegetables were at the peak of flavor.

The tagliatelle with zucchini, lemon zest, fresh herbs, pine nuts and parmesan (above) was strong on the lemon. My dinner companion liked that the chef was not afraid to make a flavor dominate. I tend to go for more balanced plates.

For dessert, a chocolate bomb had a hard chocolate shell with an airy almost ice cream-like filling. It wasn't excellent, but good and refreshing, and plenty large enough to share.

There was a reasonable selection of wines from all over, with a good selection of wines by the glass. Service is good and friendly. Expect to spend about $50 a person before wine.

Make reservations early to get the choice tables at the windows.

Comfort Food Proves the Winner at Chicago's Boka

Boka
1729 N. Halsted St.
Chicago, IL 60614
312.337.6070
www.bokachicago.com

The last thing I expected to find myself fawning over at Boka was the macaroni and cheese. After all, the restaurant's executive chef is Guiuseppe Tentori, an alum of Charlie Trotter's, where making beautiful vegetable meals is a given.

But at this trendy Lincoln Park restaurant, it was the humble mac 'n' cheese (below) that stole the show. Granted it's not your box of Kraft. The dish includes a mix of fontina and sharp and medium cheddar cheeses as well as edamame. Two orders (it's a side at $7) and a dark beer and I would have been set.Alas, I didn't go to Boka for comfort food. My main dish was the herbed risotto tart with roasted portobello thinly sliced on top, baby turnips, ricotta and beet puree. The dish didn't disappoint. The turnips were fresh and nicely cooked; the tart was an interesting way to present risotto. And the portion was just right so as not to be overly filling.Boka's food is good, and the restaurant is unquestionably popular. Reservations are necessary. The downsides are it is loud and service is not up to par. The two tables next to me and I each had to inquire about ordered items that did not show up when they should have.

The wine list has a lot of offerings in the $45 range, which is nice to see. On the other hand, expect to get a wine that retails for less than $15. I found their markups to be outrageous - about 200 percent.

San Francisco's Plant Cafe: A Triumph of Style Over Substance

Plant Cafe
Pier 3
San Francisco, CA 94111
415.984.1973
www.theplantcafe.com

This mostly organic restaurant in San Francisco boasts a peaceful location on the waterfront at pier 3, near the Ferry Building, and an executive chef with a resume that will make any Bay Area vegetarian drool -- Sascha Weiss was pastry chef at vegetarian restaurant Millennium and worked at the sorely missed raw foods restaurant Roxanne's in Marin County.

Despite that, Plant Cafe is a triumph of style over substance. It's not that the food is bad, but that nothing is exceptional, although with a little tweaking it could be. The setting, with the relaxing tables on the water's edge (the outside tables are heated), makes for a delightful place to spend a leisurely lunch break. And while the food is fine, with a good mix of items for vegans, vegetarians and carnivores alike, you are likely to come away satisfied but not overwhelmed by the taste combinations.

The menu is a mixture of several salads, small plates (most with mussels, scallops or crabs), a pasta, several pizzas, the vegetarian Plant Burger (above), and large plates, which are split about half-and-half between vegan items such as pumpkin seed and cornmeal-encrusted tempeh and animal-based dishes such as duck breast in plum puree.

The signature Plant Burger patty is a mixture of lentils, mushrooms, bulgur, beets and cashews. It comes topped with avocado, cheese, aioli and onions and, for inexplicable reasons, is served on wheat bread. The heavy, mushy mixture of ingredients overwhelms the bread making a soggy mess. While it’s good, a whole wheat bun would be a better choice here.

The walnut pizza (above) with goat cheese in a balsamic reduction was probably the best choice, although slightly bland.

The fresh herb pasta (above) with corn, cherry tomatoes, arugula, garlic and pecorino was also not a bad choice.

Entrees range from about $13 to $20.

Perhaps the best way to enjoy Plant Cage is sitting out on the back deck on the water enjoying the patatas bravas, bowl of mixed olives and a beer or glass of wine from their extensive list of beverages.

Blouet Offers Masterful Culinary Strokes at Cafe des Artistes in Puerto Vallarta

Cafe des Artistes
Guadalupe Sanchez 740, Centro
Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
www.cafedesartistes.com
+52 (322) 222.3228

Chef Thierry Blouet has worked in some of the most prestigious kitchens in the world, from Le Fouquet's de Paris and Le Moulin de Mougins near Cannes to the Ritz in Chicago. Along the way, he earned Maîtres Cuisiniers de France award, being one of only 340 French chefs to do so.

He now has his own restaurants in Mexico, the star of which is Cafe des Artistes in Puerto Vallarta, where he merges his French training and skills with Mexican ingredients. The result is that his restaurant is considered one of the top in Latin America.

While Blouet offers a three-course menu that may or may not offer vegetarian dishes for about 350 pesos a person, the kitchen is also eager to prepare dishes for vegetarian diners.

On a recent meal an appetizer included an artfully prepared trio of gazpachos - cucumber, tomato and beet (below).A poblano pepper stuffed with cheese was certainly not out-of-the-ordinary, but nonetheless very well prepared.The surprise vegetarian dish from the kitchen featured five thinly sliced pieces of eggplant wrapped around fresh goat cheese (above). While I generally dislike the texture of eggplant, this was excellent, leaving none of the spongy eggplant texture, but lots of wonderful flavor.

My guests and I passed on dessert, but the kitchen delivered some small pieces of multi-layered, fondant-filled chocolate cake.

Service is top-notch, and the restaurant offers probably the most extensive wine list in all of Puerto Vallarta, with an excellent selection of wines priced under 500 pesos. With cocktails, a bottle of wine, and two courses each, I'm not sure where you can get a better meal for about $35 US per person.

Michael Mina Delivers on Food, Misses a Bit on Service

Michael Mina
335 Powell St
San Francisco, CA
415.397.9222
www.michaelmina.net

There are restaurants that offer vegetarian menus just to round out their offerings - Alex at Wynn, for example. And then there are those that understand that vegetarian cooking can be innovative, delicious and fulfilling. Michael Mina falls into the latter group.

The San Francisco restaurant offers a full vegetarian menu filled with creative and tasty offerings.

A recent dinner included the heirloom beet chop salad (above) with spiced filberts, fromage blanc fritters and Belgian endive. The combination of the sweet beets and bitter greens made for a nice balance, especially with the warm nuggets of cheese.

The chickpea soup (below) was set off with sweet bites of onion.The soft-boiled hen egg with green asparagus, chanterelle mushrooms and bernaise sauce made for a wonderful entree. The warm egg was cooked for 40 minutes so that it came out nice and warm with a perfectly viscous yolk. If only more places that made eggs Benedict took the time to make their eggs like this. The egg was atop asparagus that had been thinly sliced lengthwise, so they were almost like noodles.

The German chocolate torte with pressed coconut and candied pecans was rich and flavorful.

While the food at Michael Mina is quite good, the service is somewhat lacking. Dishes were not cleared immediately between courses, it often took a reminder to get water glasses refilled, and instead of replacing a lint-covered napkin the waiter shrugged it off. The linens were wrinkled and the arm of my chair was coming apart. The restaurant could use some attention. To their credit, the kitchen did send out an extra course - a squash salad - to fill time while waiting for the egg to cook.

Michael Mina is not the most cozy of restaurants as it's situated in a large room just off the lobby of the Westin St. Francis. The restaurant does have a nice deal right now - a three-course pre-theater menu offered before 6 p.m. for $55 a person.

Napa's Ubuntu Offers Vegetarian Eats and Yoga

Ubuntu
1140 Main Street
Napa, CA 94558
707.251.5656
www.ubuntunapa.com

Ubuntu, the two-year-old vegetarian restaurant in Napa, has become a media darling. The New York Times wrote about it as though they had no clue vegetarian restaurants served anything other than tofu and wheat gluten. It was odd given that New York has a rather nice share of quality vegetarian restaurants that focus on what comes out of the garden.

Perhaps it's that Ubuntu is not just a restaurant but also a yoga studio that helps with the fascination. While I like the restaurant and have eaten there about a half a dozen times, vegetarians used to eating quality meals might find it doesn't quite live up to the hype. In any event, Ubuntu is good.

One of the staples of the menu, and a great little pre-meal snack, are the marcona almonds in sea salt and lavender sugar. During a recent meal, those preceded a nasturtium, brioche and pear salad (above). Although it had a little too much bread, it was definitely a visual treat.
The strawberry pizza margherita (below) with hand-pulled mozzarella, three-day Napa strawberry soffrito, basils and saba was good, but nothing special. The strawberry soffrito was so light as to not add any flavor.
A much better choice was the creamy gnocchi with truffle oil (below).
For dessert, their vanilla bean cheesecake in a jar (below) is wonderful. During this meal it came with strawberries, at other times it's come with different fruits. It's nice and creamy and not at all dense and rich like most cheesecake.
Ubuntu serves quality ingredients, many from the restaurant's organic garden. It may not surprise vegetarians, but if the press is any indication, your carnivore friends may be amazed at what a vegetarian restaurant can be.

Guerrilla Dining: A Moveable Feast

graffEats
Guerrilla Dining
San Francisco Bay Area
graffEats@gmail.com

The hottest places to eat are no longer restaurants, but warehouses, fields, parking lots, even on a platform dangling from a crane. Guerrilla dining, as it's called, is to food what raves were to parties - an event held in a location revealed just prior to the event. Some are revealed through underground networks, while others are more out in the open, available for anyone to join.

graffEats has put on guerrilla dining events in castles and farmer's fields in the San Francisco Bay Area. Blair Warsham, former chef/owner of the Tinderbox in San Francisco, creates the meals. With 72-hours notice, he can accommodate vegetarians. On a recent night in Healdsburg, graffEats celebrated the start of tomato season with a tomato dinner near the basil fields (below) of Dan "The Tomato Man" Magnuson, who grows about 40 varities of heirloom tomatoes that are sold to restaurants in the area and at the local farmer's market.
The five-course menu included a fun but messy tomato popcorn (below). I'm kind of eager to see if I can do this myself by covering popcorn in finely crumbled, dried tomatoes.

That was followed by chilled watermelon and heirloom tomato soup, and a peach and purple Cherokee tomato salad with opal basil walnut pesto and aged California white cheddar (below). This was a wonderful, low-fat twist on a caprese salad. Friends I mentioned it to commented that peaches and tomatoes seemed a strange combination, but it worked. In fact, it worked extremely well. The tomatoes were so wonderful they served as a nice reminder in this dish that they are indeed fruits.
The main course was grits with fried green tomatoes (non-vegetarians had theirs with bacon and white shrimp). I was prepared to not care for this, but the grits were smooth and flavorful and the tomatoes maintained their sweetness for a well-balanced combination.

The final course was Humboldt Fog goat cheese with strawberries.

Diners ate family-style at one long table. Talking and getting to know the diverse group was a big part of the fun. Dan talked tomatoes (store them stem down) and shared some of his favorites. Each diner also left with a plastic bag of different varieties of tomatoes. The owner of the Cheese Shop of Healdsburg was on hand to talk cheese, and a local diner brought his homemade port to share.

Dinner was $45 a person and included music, and a donation to St. Anthony's Dining Hall. Wine pairings were $25 a person. The one negative was that the pours were small and no one was on hand to discuss the wines chosen for the dinner. The dinner was a bargain though, especially when compared to OutstandingintheField.com, which charges about $200 a person for their farm-to-table dinners.

Write to Blair at graffeats@gmail.com to get on his mailing list for upcoming dinners.

Finding Vegetarian Gems in Meat and Seafood Country - Araxi, Whistler

Araxi
4222 Village Square
Whistler, BC Canada
604.932.4540
www.araxi.com

There's no question - Whistler is largely a meat-eating kind of place. Vegetarians know the types of restaurants here well. Menus have every variety of animal on the planet and then a token "vegetable platter" just in case a vegetarian should walk through the door and still have the courage to order.

At first glance, Araxi is no exception. The menu is heavy on veal, steak, and fish. And then there's the sole vegetarian entree of spinach gnocchi. But if you're looking for good food in Whistler, well, Araxi is pretty much the place to go. (Barefoot Bistro is the other top-rated restaurant in Whistler, but finding vegetarian items there is like finding a carnivore at a PETA gathering.)

I called in advance and asked if the chef could prepare a vegetarian tasting menu. I was told it would be no problem. When I arrived, the menu had just changed. I found enough interesting items on the small plates menu to keep me happy. So I made my own tasting menu. I started with an heirloom tomato and buffalo mozzarella salad (above) with arugula, basil sorbet, olive oil and tomato chips. I'm a bit fussy about my mozzarella and this was among the best I've had, competing well with mozzarella made same day.


The white cheese souffle (above) with red sorrel, fresh laurel and lemon thyme cream toasted almonds and grilled almond oil, though slightly less cheesy than I'd hoped, was good. Others will probably appreciate that it is not overly rich.

The ricotta stuffed Pemberton squash blossoms with local vegetable ratatouille and gazpacho vinaigrette, globe eggplant and roasted garlic puree were nicely done and had a balanced flavor.

I did try the spinach gnocchi. It was nothing special and somewhat bland, so making a meal of small plates was definitely the way to go.

Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper called Araxi's executive chef James Walt one of the top seven chefs shaping Canada's cuisine. One can hope he can shape it a bit more toward vegetables, especially given the produce that grows in nearby Pemberton.


Araxi is well known for its extensive wine cellar. And the cocktails aren't bad either. Cheers!

Oakland's Popular Pizzaiollo: Worth the Wait

Pizzaiollo
5008 Telegraph Ave.
Oakland, CA 94609
510.652.4888
www.pizzaiolooakland.com

I held off on going to Pizzaiollo for months. The reviews were outstanding, but the crowds of people who came to savor Charlie Hallowell's food were also spending lots of time out standing on the sidewalk waiting for tables.

A friend called at precisely 3 p.m. one day last week (they will take same-day reservations beginning at 3 p.m.), stayed on hold for 15 minutes, but scored a reservation for a time we knew we couldn't make. We took it anyway. And, after a few phone calls to update on our progress, the kind host promised we would have a table when we got there. And we did.

Hallowell is a disciple of Alice Water's, having worked at Chez Panisse before going out on his own. He lives above the restaurant and seems to sincerely see it as a mission to cook fresh foods for his community, his friends and his family-like staff.

Hallowell makes use of what's fresh and local, and the menu changes daily. You can generally count on several wood-fired pizzas, several antipasti, a few larger meat/animal dishes and a few pastas. Plenty of options are vegetarian or can easily be made vegetarian.

My wild nettles and pecorino pizza (above) had an excellent thin crust. The pecorino didn't quite hold up to the flavor of the nettles, but it was good nonetheless.

My antipasti of fried squash blossoms stuffed with cherry tomatoes, basil and cukes were fantastic. I really could have made a meal out of those ...maybe two orders, especially as friends also couldn't resist them.

The restaurant is casual. The kitchen (below) is open. Waiters wear what they want. Despite its success, there's no pretense.


Do check out the drink list - some interesting house specials. Dinner for four - with a drink each, a bottle of moderately priced wine, appetizers, pizzas and a couple of desserts to share came to something over $200.

Dirt Candy Delivers Treats from the Earth

Dirt Candy
430 E. 9th Street
New York, NY
212.228.7732
www.dirtcandynyc.com

Dirt Candy fills a tiny space in the East Village. The restaurant is not much bigger than my hallway, but what is it they say about good things and small packages?

Amanda Cohen, chef and owner of Dirt Candy, has worked in just about every vegetarian restaurant in Manhattan. She opened Dirt Candy last fall do one thing - cook vegetables (candy from the dirt) and cook them well.

She's honest when she says in her blog, "I don't care about your health." That's apparent by her use of the deep fryer. The house specialty is jalapeno hush puppies with maple butter served as a snack for $6. They didn't do much for me, tasting rather bland, though the maple butter was nice. Soups were more flavorful.


Other dishes were more satisfying. The crispy tofu in kaffir lime buerre blanc (below) was worth the $17.

Any dish at Dirt Candy can be made vegan. The wine list is short, reasonably priced (most bottles from $20-$40), and somewhat interesting.

There are certainly better vegetarian restaurants in New York, but when you need a change from Candle 79 or Pure Food and Wine, Dirt Candy's not a bad choice.

Bali's TeraZo: Good Food and a Lovely Place to Linger

TeraZo
Suweta Street
Ubud, Bali, Indonesia
www.baligoodfood.com/terazo.asp

This comfortable open-air restaurant is near the center of Ubud, yet just far enough removed from what hustle and bustle there is to make for a nice respite. Located close to the town's main temple, during the dinner hours the beautiful Balinese women in their colorful sarongs and lacy blouses often walk by with their lofty offerings of fruit and flower pyramids elegantly balanced on their heads. There are few better ways to pass time than sitting in TeraZo, drink in hand, watching the world go by.

Well, there is one way to make it even better ... by enjoying lunch or dinner there. While the restaurant has several vegetarian items on the menu from polenta with ratatouille and basil pesto or fresh pappardelle with mushroom cream, they make the most incredible twice-baked goat cheese soufflé (below). On my first visit to Ubud, I ordered it three times in seven days. I could have lived on it.
Vegetarian pot stickers (below) are another good appetizer choice.



For dessert, the Temple of Chocolate, made with European chocolates, is worth a sacrifice or two.

Prices are a little high by Balinese standards. Expect to pay about $50 for dinner for two.
TeraZo does have a wine list and a full bar. Alcohol taxes in Bali are quite high (somewhere around 200 percent), so be prepared. Do skip the local Hatten wine. It's among the worst wines I've ever sampled.