Re: The New Vita Cafe Menu

I recently went to the Vita Cafe on NE Alberta to have a "fancy goodbye dinner" with my boyfriend, who is in Chicago for five days. Now, I have been to the Vita any number of times during my 10 years in Portland, and I have always found it to be a pleasant atmosphere and delicious food. They also have tons of vegan desserts, such as cheesecake and this amazing apple/marionberry torte thing. The waiters and waitresses are all really attractive in that very particular blend of Hot Unwashed Portland Ambiguous Sexuality" that I find irresistible and am always seeking to emulate. They will sit down at the table with you and chat about their favorite menu items, which helps if you sometimes have a hard time deciding, like a certain Yours Truly.

On this visit, however, something was different. The menu had changed! Our waitress, who Andrew insisted looked like Katy Davidson, informed us that they are switching to a "rotating seasonal menu." I was very excited to hear this. Seasonal eating is much tastier and more healthy, and I am glad to see my favorite restaurant adopting this method! Eating seasonally means that you use vegetables and fruits when they are in season. I don't really have a handle on which are in season at which times, since in this day and age we can get almost all kinds of fruits and vegetables at the store any time we want. But for example, fruits like apples get really mealy and not as crisp and delicious during this part of the year, because apples are a fall fruit, and so in order to have them in May, they have to be shipped from a long way off, or grown in non-ideal situations.

The new menu we sampled from was the tail-end of their winter seasonal menu, and it features items like vegan eggplant parmesan (amazingly good), a spinach pasta with a white bean and sage sauce (also excellent), various types of polenta, and an amazing burrito stuffed with winter vegetables.

I am interested in eating seasonally. It's easy to do if you get one of those memberships to a place like Organics To You, where they deliver a crate of locally grown fruit and veggies to your door once a week. Then you only get what's in season. So all summer long you get blackberries and watermelons and corn, and in the winter you get potatoes and eggplants, and in the spring you finally get amazing, beautiful strawberries. The Vita cafe has inspired me to look more seriously into this lifestyle, and to learn the seasons for all my favorite foods, all of which come from our wonderful Planet Earth (except for soy bacon. I don't know WHERE that stuff comes from).