Had this been the first line of the letter, I might have been alarmed. But since it was the closing line, a rhetorical question that ended a diatribe documenting my obvious disdain for animal life, written by a fanatical vegan vegetarian who referred to anyone who eats meat as "a mentally diseased savage," I wasn't too concerned.
Lately, though, I've become weary of a common correspondence theme. Most of these tiresome missives come from Boulder, and they always start off with a question such as: "Have you ever spent time with a duck and gotten to know it?"
The thing is, I love animals. I also love their meat. So I never take creatures for granted, and unlike many people who can only stand to buy their flesh pre-slaughtered and wrapped in cellophane, I'm willing to deal with it from the last squeal to the cooked meal. What I'm not willing to do, however, is listen to more obsessive whining from people who feel it's their life's work to convert everyone they meet to a lifestyle that, frankly, seems unnatural. And I'll continue to feel that way until canine teeth--which clearly weren't made for ripping the flowerets off a head of broccoli--evolve out of humans.
That said, let me also mention that I rarely eat meat. Since I consume it in the line of duty, I try to avoid it the rest of the time, which means my non-work diet is made up primarily of fruits and vegetables, with a few carbohydrates such as pasta and bread thrown in for fun. Luckily, while I love meat, I really love vegetables.
Which is why I was delighted by the news that Sabhna Gupta had opened a second Creative Cafe, a Denver sister to her popular no-meat-no-eggs-no-animal-fats-and-very-little-dairy eatery in Boulder. I had eaten at the original Creative Cafe a few years back and was impressed by the kitchen's flavorful and, yes, creative vegetarian fare.
But after three visits to Gupta's several-month-old outpost, I'm still disappointed. Where I had remembered savvy execution, judicious seasoning, innovative ingredients and lively presentations from my Boulder experience, here I found sloppy production, thrown-on herbs, an excess of zucchini and the same garnishes on every plate.
With the notable exception of the excellent lunch buffet ($5.95), that is. Gupta is originally from India, but her extensive knowledge of all vegetarian-heavy cuisines was well-displayed in such tempting buffet offerings as crunchy onions stir-fried with bright green beans and sprinkled with sesame seeds; soft, slippery rice noodles mixed with zucchini, carrots and red peppers and coated with a sweet-and-sour vinaigrette; jalapeno-hot, soy-cheese-filled quesadillas; a chunky potato curry augmented with a block of eggplant; and expertly steamed mounds of basmati and brown rices. The most interesting items, though, were the salty miso soup and an addictive lemon-tahini dressing for the otherwise boring salad of lettuce, red cabbage and carrots.
Red cabbage and carrots, along with zucchini and broccoli, show up all too frequently at Creative Cafe. By the time I had finished my third meal at this sparsely decorated but cheery restaurant, I was thoroughly bored by the lack of vegetal variety. A lunch-time entree of organic udon noodles with grilled vegetables ($7), for instance, brought a huge pile of Japanese buckwheat noodles in a smashing peanut sauce, slightly tart and spicy with a smooth, sleek texture. Unfortunately, there wasn't quite enough to moisten all the thick, doughy noodles (there's a reason the Japanese normally reserve udon for soups or long-simmered sauces). The noodle pile was generously topped by well-grilled zucchini, carrots and broccoli, all of which had been coated with so much thyme and oregano that it was like eating vegetables that had fallen in mulch--an impression heightened by an extravagant final sprinkle of finely grated red cabbage and carrots.
The same vegetable slivers were showered on just about everything we tried at Creative Cafe, whether they matched the dish or not. The garnish looked good on the stuffed mushrooms ($3.50) but tasted bad; the red cabbage was a bitter and jarring addition. And the appetizer of large and small mushrooms stuffed with chopped white onions, garlic and ginger already suffered from uneven mixing, a flaw that made for some big bites of nothing but mushroom and ginger or mushroom and garlic, but rarely all three.
The kitchen was apparently out of red cabbage and carrots when it prepared our B.B.Q. tofu ($5.75), riblet-like rectangles of soybean curd heavily slathered with a dense, chile-infused barbecue sauce. Although the tofu wouldn't fool anyone who's had Sam Taylor's finger-licking--and real--ribs, it was an acceptable substitute. But the side of nicely stir-fried carrots, broccoli and zucchini had been showered with so much thyme, oregano and maybe parsley that it looked like a patch of weeds.
Our dessert, on the other hand, looked like cobblestones. The blueberry cobbler ($3.50) was filled with good intentions and plenty of berries, but they'd been clobbered with a dry, crumby crumble. The concoctions we ordered at dinner were worse: The chocolate mousse ($3.75) was chocolate-tinged tofu pudding; the tofu cheesecake ($3.75) had an even more unsettling consistency and tasted like paste.
The appetizer we tried earlier that meal would have made a much better dessert (minus the ubiquitous red-cabbage-carrot spray, of course). The baked kachori ($3.50) was an Indian puff pastry filled with moong dal (mung beans) mixed with vegetables so soft they'd formed almost a paste and were virtually unidentifiable (but I'm going to bet there were carrots in there); the pastry sat in a puddle of sweet-tart tamarind sauce cloying enough to make the backs of our throats sore. The sauce was so slick and the ball-shaped kachori so crisp that it was tough to eat; a prick of the fork was enough to send the creation flying.
Even more unwieldy were the spring rolls ($3.85), two haphazardly assembled rice-paper rolls that looked like gluttons who'd gorged themselves on basil, mint, cilantro and rice noodles--but mostly rice noodles--before being pelted with grated red cabbage and carrots. Once we got past the end bites, components kept falling from the distended centers into the accompanying bowl of peanut sauce--the same excellent concoction we'd enjoyed with the udon. We finally gave up on the rolls and just fished the scraps out of the sauce.
The Thai masaman curry ($7.50) was a much more successful preparation. A drift of basmati rice and heaps of zucchini, carrots, broccoli and bok choy, as well as strips of tofu, came covered with a superb curry sauce, its thin but fiery creamy-coconut base augmented with a citrusy lemongrass-and-kaffir-lime-leaf tang. And yes, the dish was decorated with grated red cabbage and carrots.
If you're tired of reading about grated red cabbage and carrots, you can guess how tired we were of seeing it. Even the portobello mushroom slices glazed with a reduction of wine came studded with red cabbage and carrot shavings. But the garnish didn't disguise the fact that the sauce--which contained the only alcohol you're going to encounter at Creative Cafe--was watery and lackluster and had turned the greens beneath it into a soggy mess. The mushroom would have been better off plain. And I certainly didn't need to see yet another side of herb-assaulted zucchini, carrots and broccoli. (To Gupta's credit, she uses only organic vegetables.)
For those who choose to sustain themselves solely on non-animal by-products, Creative Cafe is a fortuitous addition to this cow-smitten town, which boasts only a handful of truly vegetarian restaurants. But given the unbelievable variety of veggie ingredients available, Creative Cafe should be able to offer more than carrots, zucchini and broccoli. And whether based on animal, vegetable or mineral components, food should taste better than this.
Hey, given the right amount of herbs, even I might be delicious.
Creative Cafe, 330 East Sixth Avenue, 777-7373. Hours: 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Monday; 11 a.m.-2 p.m., 5-9 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday; 11 a.m.-2 p.m., 5-9:30 p.m. Friday; 10 a.m.-3 p.m., 5-9:30 p.m. Saturday; 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Sunday.
