~ Robert Heinlein, "Friday"
http://www.herbivorerestaurant.com/
(Today's musicality EweToob links are thanks to my nephew Cameron's input. Even though he has no clue that Ella Fitzgerald should never be compared with any other female 'merican singer ~ ever, and, after many years and much stubbornness, he has finally come to the correct conclusion that Green Day's ultimate classic is "American Idiot", he still has a pretty decent taste in music and I will usually defer to his suggestions on any music from the 21st Century.
I particularly like the first video in that it is basically a live performance and you get to see how Emily Wells records and performs her music. And what's hotter than a female playing with herself… while other women are sitting around watching?!)
Vegetarians are stupid… and Vegans are just Vegetarians with too many arbitrary rules.
I wanted to try something completely different for breakfast this morning, Mr. Python, so I went to Herbivore ~ the Earthly Grill. They are a 100% Vegan restaurant with three Bay Area locations (the original location is in the Mission and the newest restaurant is in Berkeley); the one I went to this morning is on Divisadero in the Haight (I refuse to call this neighborhood "NoPa", as that is just as stupid as parklets). They open at 9:00am every day, and for "breakfast" at that (I have eaten there for lunch and dinner before, but this was my first breakfastary trip there). In addition to lots of indoor seating, they have one large sidewalk patio pic-a-nic bench that seats six and a very cool backyard patio (that has two levels to it) that has seven tables for two.
parklet mini-rant of the day
Okay, I will make this one quick. There are two stupid parklets in this neighborhood (just a block apart from each other). That isn't the main complaint, the main complaint is that they are just two to three blocks from Golden Gate Park (the Panhandle area), and both are just ONE BLOCK away from Alamo Square Park ("Oh, but that is an uphill walk!"). Yeah, these parking obstructions are soooo very necessary.
Seeing as it's a 100% Vegan restaurant, there isn't anything on the menu that I couldn't eat. They offer a pretty decent selection for breakfast, too. One of the stranger things I saw on the menu was "French Toast". French Toast? Without eggs or milk? Isn't that just called grilled bread? I asked the pretty server-lady person how this is made and it is actually made with soymilk, olive oil, and some other ingredients (which I really didn't bother to remember). Perhaps to differentiate it from "real" French toast, they should call their version "Belgian Toast" (Who's going to van damme complain about that?). There were two things that I really wanted to try: grilled corn cakes ~ black beans, tomato chipotle salsa, guacamole, and sour cream (probably soymilk based), with house potatoes; and (what I finally decided on) southwestern tofu scramble ~ with tomato chipotle salsa, black beans, guacamole, sour cream, house potatoes, and blueberry corn bread. I also ordered a side of tempeh[1] bacon and a glass of housemade ginger ale ~ fresh ginger, lime and lemon juice, agave[2] nectar, and sparkling water.
This was one of the better tofu scrambles that I have had. It had lots of good junk in it: corn, jalapeño peppers, tomatoes, and a few other fresh ingredients. Now, I have nothing against tofu scrambles, but they just aren't usually that exciting. Both the salsa and guacamole were very good and fresh-made. The real surprise of the meal was the excellent house potatoes they have: thinly sliced potatoes (sort of a cross between homefries and hashbrowns); they were very tasty and had a yellowish-tinge to them that I figured was just turmeric[3], but when I asked the cute server-lady she told me they also add nutritional yeast (usually the only kind of "nutritional yeast" I get comes in the Beer form); I did ask and she also told me that these were made with 100% Vegan potatoes, too. The tempeh bacon was pretty good. The housemade ginger ale was also a very good find and almost as good as the potatoes (both are worth a return trip-see). It was good blueberry corn bread (but it really could have used some butter on it, though).
For condimentary supplementation, Herbivore just has Cholula®. I had come prepared with a few of my own and used some Serious Food… Silly Prices Sweet Heat Hot Sauce (Thanks, Cindy and Greg!) on the scramble and a little Cherry Republic® KaBOB's Kick'en Hot Sauce (Thanks, Greg and Cindy!) on the potatoes. However, neither were probably needed as their tomato chipotle salsa was pretty tasty on its own; luckily I went lightly with both of the bottled stuff and got to enjoy the homemade salsa.
As I had skipped any coffee (100% Vegan or not) with the meal, I went to Peet's Coffee for a Coconut White Mocha[4] afterward (and I even had to walk allll the way around the block to get it, too). This was good, but it could have had more coconut flavour in it.
I probably could become a 100% Vegan if I really wanted, except that I would have to learn how to cook for myself and I would never be able to visit Israel (you know, "a land flowing with milk and honey")…
Glen Bacon Scale Rating: southwestern tofu scramble ~ 6.5; house potatoes ~ 7.2; housemade ginger ale ~ 7.1; Peet's Coconut White Mocha ~ 6.4
1. Stupid, useless cunning linguist/pseudo-culinaristic pointer of the day, number one:
"Tempeh" comes from the Javanese word "témpé".
Plus, Bill Gates and his group of jackbooted Brown Shirts at Microsoft Auto-Spellchecker do not even recognize this as a valid word. They must be a buncha damned non-Veganists, too. I bet they are in 100% support of parklets, though.
2. Stupid, useless cunning linguist/pseudo-horticulturalistic pointer of the day, number two:
"Agave" is Neo-Latin from Greek "aguaé" (the feminine of "agauós"), meaning "noble, brilliant, illustrious".
By the way, the blue agave plant is used for the production of Tequila. Now that is a very noble and illustrious use of the plant.
3. Stupid, useless cunning linguist/pseudo-horticulturalistic pointer of the day, number three:
"Turmeric" comes from Old French "terre merite", from Medieval Latin "terra merita", literally "meritorious earth".
4. Stupid, useless cunning linguist/pseudo-horticulturalistic pointer of the day, number four:
The use of "Mocha" as a term in relation to coffee-chocolate blends comes from the Yemen port city named al-Mukha, which was once important in the export of Arabian (see, in this case, it is correctly used and not "Arabic") coffee.
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