Vegan Restaurant Consulting, L.L.C.

I hate to bad-mouth an all-vegan establishment. Believe me when I say that I struggled with how to word this delicately, searched for the silver lining to the many clouds… but Ithaca’s Food For the Planet downright stunk. It pains me not to be supportive to a veg-friendly establishment, but I have standards to uphold. And as a 13-year vegan, as a lover of vegan food and as a well-traveled vegan food blog reporter, separately, I take it pretty seriously. To make a sparkling lemonade spritzer from lemons, I have paired my review of Ithaca’s Food For the Planet with some tips, inspired by a half-kidding remark from my vegan foodie better half, CandyPenny. [“We should be vegan food consultants,” she said after one of countless lengthy food discussions after one of countless meals together.]

Some golden rules: if you’re gonna have a menu with items easily whipped up at home, you better do it well, at bare minimum. You love food, right? That’s why you opened a restaurant? Show it some respect. With regard to veggie patties, if the taste is not there, kill ’em with the texture, which many times is the root of a customer’s veggie burger craving. If the taste or the texture is not there (see the ‘Gume patty below), dress it well. No, that’s not with a side of store-bought dressing (I can recognize Annie‘s Roasted Red Pepper Vinaigrette [below] anywhere). Maybe with a dressing unique to your restaurant because you created it, or at least a house-made version of one of the many sandwich classics… or maybe a bottle of ketchup on the table… or maybe have a patty that has taste and/or texture. The best thing on the plate below was the avocado. That shouldn’t be the goal unless you run a fruit & vegetable stand. Use the amazingness of those fruits and vegetables to create something delicious, simple as that.

A quick note about buns, hun. I like big buns and I cannot lie, but not when patty’s taste/texture turns makes a triple-bunburger. A bun serves to deliver the patty, not take it over completely. A bun’s texture should complement the patty and not imitate it (e.g. BBM: brown, bland, mushy). And, to speak for my dining partner, a Club sandwich is never served on a bun.

A side salad for $4 is a bit standard I suppose. But below is no side salad. It’s wet lettuce with some carrot drizzled with a very bland dressing. Often a restaurant’s attention-to-detail and creativity is best tested by the quality of their salads [and, many times, by their website and the presentation of their menu, in Food For the Planet’s case a blogspot and photocopied and outdated paper copy, respectively]. These things speak volumes. But let’s stick with price for a second. Prices need to make sense. Guacamole with chips – $8.00. Ok, a bit high but what are you going to do. Take that same guacamole, add nut meat made from pecans, hazelnuts and walnuts, pico de gallo and raw nacho cheese and sub the chips with raw tortillas and now… still $8.00. Huh? I’m confused. And more nacho price confusion: Nachos Veganos, [not available during my visit] which, described as “Vegan style South of the border bliss!”, I assume contain that magical guacamole, are also $8.00.
Some of the Yelpers complained about Food For the Planet’s prices, and I agree. For this quality and delivery, the menu prices need to drop. Sure, my party only sampled a small portion of the menu. I would have liked to tried some of Food For the Planet’s more involved dishes but not many were available. That’s pretty annoying too when most items on the menu use the same ingredients. It kind of indicates that things aren’t being made to order. All of these things allow a price to sit well or to rub you the wrong way. To illustrate this relationship, $23.00 for Candle 79‘s Seitan Piccata sits well because it is an exceptionally delicious dish. $7.25 for the ‘Gume burger above doesn’t sit well because… because of everything I just said above. Had the ‘Gume burger been $3.00 or so [or had it been served with a good side], the price would have sat well, expectations would be lower and many of the points above would have no merit. In essence, your price sets the expectation of the diner, and the relative value has a significant impact on how one perceives the quality of the meal. Not rocket science.

And a quick word about service. Children shouldn’t be serving me my food. It’s not cute. It’s likely breaking many Health Department codes and Child Labor laws. Ok, I exaggerate but really: should a little girl, about 7 or 8 maybe, be bringing my food to me when she is spending down time on the restaurant’s floor playing with toys and another little boy? Should her little hands be grasping a plate when she needs to touch the plate’s food to do so? Uh, no.

Okay, now that I said all of that… Let me say, I have had amazing vegan food in the unlikeliest of places, traveled close to half the country to sample vegan eats. I’ve had much to rave about in my years of eating vegan and don’t hold back a single deserved superlative. This isn’t to say that my standards are easy to meet and this isn’t to say I gloss over unfavorable experiences, no. I am continually awed by what is out there. I’ve also learned a lot about what it takes to satisfy a discerning vegan diner and have come to realize that with the indirect mainstreaming of veganism [care of the green movement, the v-bomb being dropped in the news and celebrity reports, etc] and the general growth in vegan product availability and selection, this may get lost in the shuffle, within good intentions. Though I praise all vegan-friendly ventures as a vegan, as a food lover I am more critical.