Our friend Karine was organizing the Nature’s Express grand opening event in Berkeley on Saturday so we decided to go check it out. Fashionably late, as usual, we were surprised to see a huge line still going strong when we arrived.
Nature’s Express is basically fresh, fast, vegan food to-go. Sandwiches, salads, wraps, smoothies, etc. They had a limited menu due to the fact it was their grand opening and a good portion of the stuff was already sold out by the time we hopped in line. I managed to grab a thai peanut wrap sorta deal out of the refrigerator and Flori placed an order for 2 mushroom burgers and a lemonade.
The verdict? It was OK. The wrap was a spinach tortilla with some cheap greens and tofu in it. The burger looked like a frozen pressed patty slapped in between a bun with some fresh veggies. Despite the quality, the portions were good size though. On one hand, I feel like it’s nothing I couldn’t have made at home but on the other, we’re pretty stoked that another all vegan restaurant has hit the streets of Berkeley.
I think the highlight of the event was congratulating Karine on the amazing turnout and chatting with other vegans such as
Chef Jessie Miner and meeting the adorable little old lady who owns
Millennium. Oh, and the fact we won a goodie bag with a $10 gift certificate in the raffle was pretty awesome too.
I can’t say that I was totally impressed but given the fact that it was opening day and we pretty much got the last of the food, I’m willing to give it another shot.
Sunday, we decided to venture out to
The Plant Cafe in SF. I had heard some good things and we were really excited to try it. We chose to go to the Marina location for breakfast since we were already in the area. Just to clarify, The Plant Cafe is NOT an all vegan restaurant.
We got there around 11:30 and they were only serving items off the breakfast menu which kinda bummed me out. I guess I expected it to be a typical sit-down restaurant with a server who takes your order. Instead, we ordered at the counter, gathered our silverware, table tag, condiments and our coffee cup and picked a seat. We helped ourselves to the coffee in the warmers by the front door and our food was delivered shortly after. I went with the basil, pesto tofu scramble. *Yawn*. I could make a better tofu scramble with my eyes shut. It wasn’t bad, it was just… blah. The perks of the place? The vegan options were actually labeled “vegan” which was nice and the majority of the take-out boxes were vegan friendly. Nothing else struck me as even coming close to awesome. We finished our food and bid the place adieu.
Photo from Yelp.com
Feeling like I may have been too hard on the Marina location, we decided to give the Embarcadero location a try for dinner later that night. I was super impressed with the layout of the restaurant and the fact they had heated outdoor seating along the waterfront. We grabbed a spot outside and ordered the pumpkin seed & cornmeal encrusted tempeh.
Maybe 5 minutes after sitting down, this adorable little toddler wanders over to our table and projectile vomits all over the seat next to me. One more step and I would have been covered in toddler puke. Not once, but TWICE. A couple minutes later our server delivers our food – while stepping in it. Trying not to gag, I politely asked our server if he could please grab a mop or something – anything. Finally, the mess was taken care of. The smell? Not so much. I’m not sure if it was the puking incident that ruined the taste of the food or if it just plain sucked. Either way, it seemed really bland and the portions were much smaller than we expected for a meal that was $14 a pop. Not to mention, the service was sub par – especially considering the circumstances.
Needless to say, we were more than happy to get the F outta there. Considering both experiences were pretty gross, I can’t say I recommend this place nor will I be going back anytime soon.
Despite the whole disgusting vegan food experience, the weekend turned out to be pretty rad. We had an awesome 5-6 mile run in the rain with the
PETA Pack, stayed in a
fantastic hotel, and made a pretty big and VERY exciting decision that should be final today at 1pm.
Interested aren’t you? Check back this week for details!
