San Francisco Eating: The Plant

At the recommendation of good friend whose taste buds I trust, we decided to check out The Plant - known for its use of local and organic produce/ingredients - at Embarcadero in San Francisco for lunch one day. We arrived at a slightly odd hour between lunch and dinnertime, and were bummed to discover that the actual restaurant was closed - but luckily the related cafe right next door was open. This sample cafe menu is more robust than what we saw, but it didn't matter. It was a good place to catch up over good food with good friends!

We shared the BBQ tempeh panini (tempeh with chipotle barbeque sauce, roasted red onion and vegan aioli), which was served with a fresh side salad and deliciously vinegary pickled cucumber slices that you can tell are made in-house:

And the Plant burger, which is a veggie burger made from lentils, mushrooms, beets, cashews and bulgar. Served on foccacia with roasted onion, lettuce, tomato and vegan aioli and plated along side a salad, herb-roasted fingerling potatoes and more pickled cucumber slices, it was a unique and very tasty veggie burger:

And, The Plant serves Blue Bottle coffee! Soy cappuccino with a foamy flower flourish = yum: