What is Herbivore?  Herbivore is a vegan restaurant chain in the San Francisco Bay area.  It has three locations — 983 Valencia in the Mission, 531 Divisadero, and 2451 Shattuck in Berkeley.  It’s a great place to go if you are vegan, vegetarian, or trying to minimize your support of factory farming.  (Or — I’m going to come out and say it — if you’re an omnivore who’s trying to be healthy for an evening.)

The good things about Herbivore — the portions are large, pretty inexpensive (for San Francisco!), and there’s a great deal of choice.

The bad things about Herbivore.  First, the food is not gourmet.  There are no delicately balanced flavor.  Most of the food is pretty uninspired (though quite edible — with a few exceptions).  Herbivore gets many negative comments over at the gourmet discussion community at Chowhound.com.  Herbivore ravioli is not handmade.  The pasta sauce is from a can.  (There are some exceptions — Herbivore’s $7.95 green salad with the $2 optional “vegetables” topping is fantastic — the salad is huge, the dressing is really good, and the $2 vegetable topping is also huge and is not just vegetables but roasted vegetables which are incredible!)  Second, the waitstaff can be a little holier-than-thou.  Third, Herbivore does not make its own desserts, and the desserts are usually either a) old, or b) not available.

That being said, I really enjoy going to Herbivore.  What, you ask?  After all those criticisms?  Yes!  I really do enjoy going to Herbivore as a non-gourmet experience.  I go at least once a week, and I can usually convince my omnivore friends to come with me (especially the ones who are trying to be healthy!).  The combination of large portions and a cheap pricetag can get even the most omnivorous of people in there.  (Though one of my omnivorous foodie friends still resents the ravioli he ordered there.  Let’s just say it was uninspired.  I feel he was being a tad ambitious ordering ravioli at a non-gourmet restaurant that also had Indonesian dishes on the menu.)  As I mentioned before, the green salad with the $2 vegetables topping is fantastic. The smoothie with seasonal fruit, bananas, pomegranate juice, mint, and fresh squeezed orange juice is STUNNING ($4.25).  (It really amuses me that the Chowhound review I linked to above is titled “Just order the salad and the smoothie at Herbivore” — I swear I’d never read that review before, but I agree completely.)  Even better, if you’re in the Berkeley area, the Berkeley Herbivore has a FULL BAR with some great mixed drink specials made from seasonal fruit juice — you can eat vegan food and drink incredible mixed drinks relatively inexpensively for this area.  It’s heaven, I tell you!

So, as you can tell my the title, I’m a fan of Greens.  What is Greens?  Greens is a lovely restaurant at Fort Mason near the marina in San Francisco.  I actually first heard of it 10 years ago from an acquaintance I made who was a lapsed vegetarian — she gave up vegetarianism, but she still goes to Greens occasionally.  It’s that good!  I was a carnivore at the time, and I went, and I have to admit, it’s really good.  Now that I’m a vegetarian, I go more often.

Caveat here — I grew up in sleepy California suburb in the late eighties, when the hippie food movement of the sixties/seventies was just beginning to make its presence felt in the far ‘burbs.  I have VERY fond memories of houseplant-bedecked restaurants that served plates heaped high with alfalfa sprouts, were really into whole-grains, and were filled with Berkinstock-wearing people who really cared about granola.  (My parents were not hippies — they just really appreciated the giant cups of coffee those places served all day.)  

Anyway, Greens really reminds me of those places I grew up with.   It has those oak — burlwood maybe?  — tables I remember at my favorite childhood restaurant.  Sadly, that restaurant has really gone mainstream — it lost all its burlwood tables, its numerous houseplants, and its rather risque zodiac paintings on the walls.  But Greens still has the burlwood tables!  Greens has the same vibe my old cafe used to have — the waiters are very earnest about the quality of the food, its vegetarianness, and its wholesomeness.   (I would be willing to bet money that Greens at one time sported all the indoor ferns as well.  Maybe the risque zodiac artwork as well?  Does anyone who went there in the ’70s or ’80s know?)

But Greens has one serious difference from the food of my childhood — Greens is definitely a step above any of the sprout-intensive grainy food I used to eat.  The ingredients, the way the flavors go together, they’re excellent.  At the same time, Greens is not fancy food, it just has great simple flavors.  It’s a little expensive, but it’s nothing like an “expensive” San Francisco restaurant — you’ll pay $15-25 for a plate versus the $100-150 at your average “expensive” San Francisco restaurant.

Greens has a casual atmosphere, and it’s part of a converted warehouse on a pier — the view of the boats in the little harbor is pretty, but not flashy — just like Greens.  Getting there is a little difficult — you park at Fort Mason and then go wandering about the warehouses looking for a small sign that says Greens.  (I recommend reading the directions carefully.)

Anyway, I highly recommend Greens.  It’s very vegan-friendly — half the menu is vegan — and I suspect all their dairy products are humanely raised, and they always do one vegan dessert.  I mean I REALLY suspect all the dairy products are humanely raised — Greens is affiliated with a Zen center and is part of the Slow Food Nation.

Greens Sample Dinner Menu