more than a food blog

Roughage NOM!  I went with Shimi the other day to Cafe Gratitude – the one in Berkeley, though I find out now that there are others in SF.  If you couldn’t tell, I’ve been celebrating my move by bingeing on foodstuffs like liver and custard and bubbly of all sorts so a big bowl of grass sounded awesome to me.

As did self-reflection?  Man, this place is SOOO Berkeley-ed out.  When we placed our order, the server (with the requisite bizarre hairstyle and septum piercing) said, “The question of the day is: What are you grateful for?”  Shimi said health; I said my job.  I actually haven’t started my job, which is the best kind of job you could have – a job that you don’t have to go to.

There is also some sort of board game, but the instructions were missing and we sent another server on a rules hunt which failed so we didn’t really play properly.  All Shimi could recall of the rules was that there were no losers, natch (“only winners?” I guessed correctly), and the cards had hippie dippie questions and directives like the ones below:

I love things that rhyme so I love #1.  [Semi-related side story – do people already say “Neato mosquito!” or did I just invent that today?  I think I invented it.  Maybe?]

I ordered the I Am Effervescent, which was the house gingerale with ginger, lemon, agave & naturally sparkling water on ice.  I took a sip and tried not to make a face.  Shimi tried it and, in her diplomatic Shimi way, said, “That…doesn’t really suit my palate.”  lol.  A squeeze of lemon helped immensely, but basically the drink lay untouched for the rest of the meal.

The food, though – the FOOD!  We both ordered the I Am Thankful coconut curry soup with avocado, tomato, cucumber, shiitake mushrooms & cilantro.  It was cool and silky and the mushrooms injected this awesome earthy punch that was mellowed out by the avocado.  I should have ordered three larges of this and been done with it.

Shimi also got the I Am Abundant, which was a sampler combo of their I Am: Happy, Giving, Exciting, Honoring, Opulent, Relishing, Insightful, and Thriving, which included sprouted almond hummus, Asian kale-sea vegetable salad, hempseed pesto crostini, spicy cashew nacho cheese w/ flax chips, olive tapenade, buckwheat crackers, spring roll, and mini house soup.  Of the things I tried, I loved the almond hummus and my spoonful of the house soup, which was yellow and white (all I can remember).

I had my eyes on a bigger prize – whatever would give me maximum poo-age.  I settled on an I Am Accepting grain bowl with steamed Bhutanese red rice tossed w/ raw kale, avocado, cucumber, nori, scallions, & herbs in sesame-ginger sauce. It went down my gullet green and fibery (pictured top) and came out pretty much the same way, complete with sesame seeds.  My server very astutely recommended that I get black beans on the side, and each spoonful of green stuff with a dollop of beans on top made for a surprisingly hearty, complex, and truly delicious mouthful.

Next time, I will top my meal with a nut milk ice cream.  Nut milk.  Haha.

Cafe Gratitude
2400 Harrison St
San Francisco, CA 94110
415.824.4652

This entry was posted by janet on August 16th, 2009. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.