Vegan Dinner at The Pulse Cafe
This past weekend, my family went out to dinner at a new-to-me vegan restaurant called The Pulse Cafe in Somerville. All of us are vegetarians (leaning towards vegan) and it’s becoming a fun goal of ours to try the various vegetarian/vegan restaurants around Boston. Unfortunately, dedicated veggie restaurants are pretty sparse in the area, so trying them all isn’t a very challenging goal. But, we’re making the most of what’s available, while my mom simultaneously tries to convince me that I should open my own vegan restaurant (thanks, but no thanks).
According to their website, The Pulse Cafe states that they “want to introduce others to the benefits and values of an organic/natural vegan lifestyle”. But despite there being images of colorful, fresh vegetables on their website, their menu is very much typical diner food, with lots of meat substitutes like seitan, tempeh bacon, and Daiya brand ‘cheese’.
We started with the chili ‘cheese’ fries with cashew ‘cheese’, as well as the buffalo tofu bites:
“Cubes of fried breaded tofu tossed with a spicy Buffalo Sauce.
Served with our Chunky Miso Dressing.”
Both were decent, although the almost-fluorescent buffalo sauce was a bit of a turn-off and the miso dressing tasted pretty strongly of tofu and not much else. I love tofu, but I could see this being a negative for some people.
For our main meals, a couple of us ordered the Somerville Cheesesteak, which was essentially shredded seitan, Daiya, and a few small pieces of mushrooms and green pepper. The bread was probably the best part (Iggy’s, I think?).
We also tried the Tempeh Rueben, with marinated tempeh, sauerkraut, and thousand island dressing on rye bread.
And my dad ordered the broccoli ‘cheddar’ soup, which I found to taste slightly off for some reason I couldn’t pinpoint. Maybe it was the spices they used?
I’ll start by admitting that this isn’t really my style of food. Yes, it’s vegan, but vegan does not necessarily mean healthy, and both Aaron and I left dinner feeling really heavy – as if we had eaten at a greasy spoon. I also felt like The Pulse Cafe didn’t do much to enhance the flavors of the tofu, seitan, and tempeh. This was easily a meal I could have made at home (slap some seitan and daiya on a baguette and call it a day), and it all just felt sort of uninspired.
I think perhaps this could be a good place to take someone who is a new vegetarian/vegan and misses eating meat, but the fake meats aren’t so good that you’d fool anyone into thinking they were eating the “real” thing. Personally, I’ll skip the processed mock meats in favor of quality, whole foods that are prepared really well and combined in unique ways. So while I can appreciate that I have the option to go out for vegan diner food (and I definitely do, especially in Boston), it’s probably only something I’d eat once or twice a year.
What are your thoughts on vegetarian/vegan dining? Do you like the fake meats, or are you also not a huge fan? Do you have a favorite vegan dining experience?
