Veggie Galaxy

As mentioned elsewhere, Veggie Galaxy will be opening in Central Square. It will be a sister restaurant to Veggie Planet, but will serve baked goods and diner food. All vegetarian. I'm excited.

CloverFoodLabs

Niall and I tried CloverFoodLabs again last night. This time, they let us eat, so that was definitely a step in the right direction.

There's basically no need for me to review them here - everything that Yelp says about them is right on. But here's my specific take.

The food was in the good range. Niall and I split a chickpea fritter sandwich, a BBQ seitan sandwich and an African peanut soup. The seitan sandwich was pretty good. I think it was mostly buoyed by its delightful barbecue sauce. I thought the other sandwich and soup were just okay. It's possible that the chickpea fritter was colored by us A) having just gotten back from the falafeleria that is Israel, and B) having had fried chickpea fritters (essentially) last night for dinner.

Both sandwiches were recommended by our "waitress," which says to me that those are their best stuff. Which makes me wonder about the rest of the menu.

There aren't a lot of places in the Square where a meal for two runs for $14, which was pretty cool. It was also fairly quick.

Logistically, they've got some issues. In an attempt to reduce waste (a goal I applaud), they've taken a few silly steps.

1. They're doing an all-iPod / no-paper thing. A woman (the aforementioned "waitress") stood by the menu board and entered my order into the iPod. Its a system I generally like, and, for ordering, it was pretty quick. But to enter my name (to pick up the order) was slow. Better would be assigning me a number to remember, or perhaps going to a computer, with its fine keypad entry system. Or this.
2. They have no plates. I think this isn't bad - I go plateless for lots of foods, including sandwiches, but it creates a problem. All their sandwiches are overstuffed pitas, so when the food is done, the preparer needs to hold onto it until someone comes and gets it. Much better would be a rack of some kind, or a thing like an ice cream cone holder.
3. They have no trays. To reduce the waste (and cost) of washing trays, they don't have them. It makes the food hard to carry back to the table.
4. Everything is compost-able. Forks, spoons, cups, everything. Which makes it feel cheap, and I question how much energy it saves. My guess is that its a dishwasher wage saver, which they are billing as environmentally friendly.

Lastly, I think that the Apple Store aesthetic is sort of unappealing. I think the reason there are no keyboards is because the iPad is the future and they want a jump on it. But I accept that I might be alone on this one. Certainly I will say this - the gimmicky-ness of the place absolutely overshadows the food.

With all that said, it was a decent meal at a very acceptable price. I will definitely eat at Clover again.

Veggie Burgers in the NyTimes

Hot on the heels of my attempt at these burgers, the New York times has an article about veggie burgers on the rise in New York City.

I wonder if the same thing is happening in Our Fair City

Veggie Planet

Niall and I went to Veggie Planet last night with our friend Nick (after being turned away from Clover, on account of a company meeting).

Unfortunately, the Veggie Planet pizza oven was broken, so I couldn't get my pizza fix. And, all of the appetizers require the pizza oven in some way, so they were working at reduced strength.

But I did get the Mexican beans over rice, and their homemade ginger beer, and both were delightful. I think everyone else enjoyed their meals too.

Also, Jill Sobule was playing at Passim, so I got to hear her drift in from next door, which was nice.