Bay watch: Vegetarian travelers can enjoy lots of choices in San Francisco - California - Traveling Fare

Vegetarian Times, Sept, 1997 by Amy O'Connor

The bay area -- San Fracisco in particular -- is the spiritual home of vegetarians. In the 1980s, the University of California's Berkeley campus became the first college cafeteria to serve a vegan menu while Alice Water's nearby restaurant, Chez Panisse, inspired chefs everywhere by serving locally grown organic produce. San Francisco's Greens was the country's first upscale restaurant to serve no meat. EarthSave founder and author of Diet for a New America (Stillpoint Publishing, 1987) John Robbins fives nearby, as does environmental guru Paul Hawken. These icons of environmental activism and social responsibility wouldn't pitch their tents anywhere else.

Neither would my friends Joe and Tracey Loendorff, two longtime residents of the City by the Bay. But despite the green influences all around them, they stubbornly refuse to dine in vegetarian restaurants. To them, clean living means heading for a restaurant without a liquor license or smoking section. I have dragged diem to countless places promising "food so good you won't miss the meat." They did. Despite these disappointing setbacks, I was determined to have them eat vegetarian food and like it.

On a recent trip to the Bay Area, I realized how I could use my friends' skepticism of vegetarian food to my advantage. While looking for innovative vegetarian restaurants for Vegetarian Times readers, I was overwhelmed by choices. I counted nearly 60 meatless restaurants in San Francisco and the Bay Area, and many others considered veg-friendly. How could I sort the wheat from the chaff during my one week stay? A light went on over my head: Why not take two people who eat every meal at Tony's Cable Car hamburger stand along for their reaction? If they like a vegetarian restaurant, I reasoned, it must have real merit.

Well, joe and Tracey did like the famous gourmet restaurant, Greens, where we had a night lunch of salads with lettuce grown on organic farms in Marin County as well as a yummy polenta appetizer smothered with roasted mild poblano chilies, smoked cheese and cilantro. With its soothing atmosphere and beautiful ocean view, we didn't mind the prices. Lunch entrees start at 3 1 0; em dinner to cost at least $25 per person without wine. We found the Greens' takeout section to be overpriced ($5 for half a sandwich!) and not as good, but convenient for an impromptu picnic along die Marina.

Besides Greens, there are other upscale veg options. We were delighted to learn that one of San Francisco's most elegant hotels, The Clift, has introduced a prix fixe vegetarian menu for $24. When we went, the lineup included a rich spinach and Brie soup, redolent with earthy truffles, and a crispy potato terrine with lentils. Another show-stopper was the truffle risotto with asparagus and goat cheese. When it's not truffle season, the menu features other seasonal offerings on the menu.

The next day I took Tracey and Joe on a walk through Chinatown. This neighborhood's extremely steep hills almost gave Joe collapse, and Tracey was disgusted by the sight and smell of baskets full of sharks' fins and plucked ducks hanging from storefront windows. If you are bothered by such displays, steer dear. Most people consider vibrant Chinatown a must-see stop. It even has two unusual and very affordable vegetarian restaurants: New Lotus Garden, on Grant Avenue between California and Pine streets, and Kowloon, a little further up on Grant Avenue.

New Lotus Garden offers a wider variety of meat analogues than any place I've ever been. We tried gluten puffs in curry sauce and green pepper; a seitan "pork" with bitter melon, a traditional Chinese tuber; and snow peas with black bean sauce. The dishes were generous but very salty and a tad greasy. joe and Tracey gamely tried everything.

Further up Grant Avenue (Chinatown's main drag), we discovered a tiny storefront called Kowloon that serves exclusively vegetarian dim sum. I can't tell you what we ordered because no one in the restaurant spoke English. We just stood in front of a glass cabinet, pointed at random and came home with a pastry box full of glutinous rice pastries filled with seitan, seaweed or sesame paste. We weren't quite unanimous in our assessments. Back at their apartment, Joe washed his down with a bottle of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, and Tracey tossed hers in an ashtray. I ate several of these delicious, filling dumplings and would happily go back for more.

That night we went out to a dark, smoke-filled club and stayed out until 2:30 a.m. The Loendorffs looked wan and vulnerable the next morning, and I seized the chance to suggest a trip to Raw Living Food Restaurant, one of the few restaurants in the world with neither a stove nor a grill. Tracey thought that sounded like an appropriate penance for the previous right's overindulgence. "After a night of raw living, why not eat raw food," she grumbled. Shielding our eyes from the light, we set off.

"Raw goes way beyond vegetarianism, past veganism, flying by macro-biotics (sic) to a time before there was fire! " little tents on our table proclaimed. Other messages explained the philosophy behind raw cuisine: Cooking destroys vital enzymes and nutrients and puts an extra strain on the immune system. Then we read a flyer extolling the evils of cooking. ("If you put your hand just for a moment into boiling water or on a hot stove, that should forever persuade you just how destructive heat is.") We couldn't repress a few giggles, but we sobered up when our handsome, seemingly well-fed waiter sauntered over.