I tried a vegan eat out popular to Salt Lake City the other night. I’d heard good things about this place from vegan and non-vegans alike. While I’m not completely upset with the meal I received it was very underwhelming. First impressions were very good, even though Sages Cafe sits in the heart of downtown Salt Lake it seemed a bit “off the beaten path” to me. I enjoyed the older style building and the vegetation outside gave the building a cool feeling on a warm day. I found the decor to be quaint and loved the exposed brick.
Our service was adequate as we were seated within 5 minutes despite the place being moderately busy. The establishment was clean and well kept and we had a nice table next to a window overlooking the street. We started off with the Bruschetta for an appetizer and some locally brewed beers. The Bruschetta was great consisting of vegan cheese sitting atop bread sprinkled with almond flakes and seasonings. For beers we ordered a Squatters India Pale Ale and a Pinkus Hefe Weizen. We took a moment to decide on our main course and this was not because there were too many options to choose. In fact the menu was too small. I suppose when you cut out two food groups your menu tends to get a bit smaller. What was there seemed to be very healthy and they had a reasonable selections of beer and wine.
We settled on the Picadillo Vegetariano and the Nut Burger (I knew this was a bad idea but a client had told my girlfriend it was fantastic). The Nut Burger was nothing more than a conglomeration of nut paste resting between some wheat bread. Might as well have gotten a PB&J. It was dry, dull, chalky, and tasteless. The Picadillo Vegetariano was a stir fry consisting of a fresh sauté of tomato, bell pepper, onion, carrot, tofu, black beans, brown rice and Caribbean spices topped with California black olives, served with cilantro-lime vinaigrette tossed greens. The tofu was billed as “vegan chicken” but it was obviously just standard tofu that anyone could make. The stir fry lacked the flavoring you would expect from a restaurant.
It’s difficult for me to gauge this from the Vegan perspective as I’m not Vegan nor Vegetarian and have never been to this type of restaurant. The service is decent and the decor is good, but for $45.00 I felt we would have left filled up. Worst of all the food was simply not filling, when we left our plates were as empty as our stomachs.
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Tags: sages cafe, salt lake city