As most of my friends are vegetarians or vegans, I'm pretty used to and happy to eat at restaurants that cater to their dietary restrictions. Although where I normally draw the line is with fake vegetarian meat - I'll eat any and all vegetables but fake meat just doesn't do it for me. So it's kind of funny that I somehow got convinced to try fake meat here and actually enjoyed my dinner.
The menu here is strictly vegan and definitely has that hippie dippie vibe that I generally find annoying. But none the less, I was open to being more healthy, especially in this new year. Mabel, Aarti and I split the fluffy quinoa salad ($12) and I got a un-chicken filet on a bed of mashed fava beans and a huge bed of roasted kale ($15). The fluffy quinoa salad was served with baby greens, avocado, red peppers, raw corn, onions and obviously quinoa and then tossed with this delicious lime mustard vinaigrette. It was quite a tasty and a really fantastic salad I must say. It's a fairly large portion, so it's easily sharable with a few people but I could see myself ordering that on my own for a hearty lunch. The salad was definitely the highlight of the meal, although the un-chicken wasn't too bad. I don't really know what's in the un-chicken except that it's probably some kind of soy/plant based protein. If you've ever eaten chicken before, you know that this doesn't look or taste like chicken very much. It's not bad but it's definitely not an adequate meat substitute in my book. But if you've never had meat or if it's been a really long time, I could see how it would be an acceptable substitution. It was 2 fairly large and thinly pounded filets, so again, very large portions here. The mashed fava beans had a sweetness to it and was very filling. As for the boiled/roasted kale on top, it was just ok, I felt like they included it in there because it needed something green to the dish. They could have chopped it up a bit because it was just a pile of large leafy greens that was hard to eat on it's own.
While I'm an unbashed meat lover, I believe it is important to try to be healthy and have meals that have a plant based focus. So I'm always open to trying new vegetarian and vegan places and for the most part they usually surprise me in how satisfying and filling they can be. While there has been a trend these days of really high end vegetarian places like Semilla and Dirt Candy, I appreciate that you can get a fairly decently priced casual meal at a place like Peacefood where you're not just eating roasted carrots or a bed of lettuce. Total bill: $25/pp with tax and tip
Photo Credit: Yelp
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