photo/Matthew Filipowich

I have undertaken, in these notes, the challenge that a vegetarian faces every day: not eating meat. I am skeptically hanging up my canines to embrace the molar action that I predominantly deem less important. Not that I am against the vegetarian movement in general – I mean hell, everyone has got to eat something. I simply cannot understand how a human being can willingly look at a monstrously over-sized steak and say: “Not for me.”

Or how anyone could possibly smell bacon sizzling and not sit erect at the table, eagerly awaiting the moment when it arrives, pancakes and syrup a pleasing afterthought. As a direct consequence of a thoroughly healthy suburban upbringing, I can certainly appreciate the inclusion of vegetables into a meal, but will never comprehend the decision to abandon that pure bliss of ripping into a hank of meat and picking the bone down to its last. In spite of this overwhelming condition, I have decided to provisionally pass up my established animal-driven food chain and settle down with some vegetarian and vegan Toronto alternatives.

Vegetarian Haven

I turn onto Baldwin street to enter Vegetarian Haven with Jessica Swanlake for the dinner menu. The dining room contains white tiled tables and while older red brick walls one side of the room, white-edged mirrors dominate the other. Although the Vegetarian Haven logo hangs dramatically alone in the dining room, independent art hangs further down the wall.

When the server comes to seat us he wears a large grin, thriving in the busy dinner rush. He then belts off a speech of such precision that I had to ask him to dictate back to me later:

“Alright everyone move in close, I’ll present the daily specials once for all of you! These are our amazing vegan sushi rolls with crispy seaweed wrapped around our chewy tofu skin center – it’s a light, flaky texture – which is drizzled with our house black bean sauce. The dish rests on a bed of Cantonese chow mein noodles with stir fried green beans, mushrooms and red peppers on the side.”

Yeah, I got that. I could barely even listen when he talked about the soup. When I sat at the table I mulled over a few other dishes, but I had to get that. And get this, I ordered Outrageous ginger ale with my meal based on name alone, supplied by an organic brand name “Real Brew.”

This version has less of a sugary bite than a commercial brand and the waiter pours it from the bottle into a glass for me. Jessica Swanlake has already eaten, but orders an appetizer for us to share, avocado rolls.

The avocado arrives in a light, paper-thin tortilla with sprouts, apple, tomatoes and lettuce. Loosely rolled, these cannons supply a shot of wasabi-mayo countered by the crisp apple strips and the avocado. My meal arrives shortly after, still steaming from the kitchen: lettuce, carrots and bean sprouts weave through the chow mein along with stir-fried vegetables, the black bean drizzle spreading from the tofu into the noodles to give the dish a consistent black-bean base. The dinner special changes every few days, so perhaps you’ll come in one day and they’ll make this again, but if not you’re fucked because it was delicious. But so were the avocado appetizers, demonstrating that there are many other Vegetarian Haven dishes to explore.

Hibiscus

I walk up to the crossroads of Augusta and Nassau in Kensington to reach a small vegan café named Hibiscus. As I enter to a fairly erratic seating arrangement, the oscillating fans spin lazily in the cool weather, swinging above as many tables and benches that can be crammed into the small dining space. At the back of the restaurant, an old Kensington station clock from London keeps accurate time above an assortment of tea that wraps around the wall. The kitchen is tucked away at the back of the café and the cashier’s counter is in front of my table below a wall unit that holds jars of spices and dry pasta. Some independent art on the wall includes local photography and craftwork.

After checking the menu I decide to try a “Mad Crepe,” which is a buckwheat crepe that contains no wheat flour, dairy or egg. From a menu of either sweet or savoury, I choose one of the “savoury gallettes,” consisting of vegan mozzarella cheese, spinach and mushrooms. The menu is fairly scant: with only soup, deserts, coffee and other drinks, the emphasis lays firmly on the crepes, but for good reason because my order arrives packed with basil, garlic, pepper, roasted eggplant paste, and pesto, which I am once more assured is entirely gluten free. The thin crepe is folded with one side open, mushrooms blooming out the top with a tuft of spinach applied for colour, mozzarella and spices generously applied throughout.

The meal was great for late morning –a substantial midday vegan portion to keep you going for awhile without any sluggish digestion resulting from meat consumption. The staff are friendly and diligent; they grin easily on my way out, thanking me for my patronage.

Get Real!

I approach another vegetarian café, Get Real!, heading south on Ossington below Dundas. Upon entering the small sitting room, I catch sight of very colourful abstract art on the wall and green leaf table clothes laid upon every table, all of which hold the smallest potted daisies I have ever seen. The counter at the front sells take-away treats while the cashier counter at the back serves coffee.

The waitress serves water with a single grape which, although I did not taste a difference, is a nice touch nonetheless. I order a crustini with arugula pesto spread, portobello mushrooms sautéed in rosemary, sliced tomatoes and brie cheese, garnished with fresh basil. After my Outrageous ginger ale experience, I decided to try some organic root beer, which is much less sweet than its commercial counterpart and turns out to be completely colourless.

My meal is served open faced directly off the press and the service is quite good, although my server is fairly reserved and does not stand out in the face of the extremely exuberant service I have received at the other vegetarian locations. A great up and coming location, I will return in the summer for lighter vegetarian portions.

Fressen

Under the red puck light of my small upstairs table, I check out the décor at Fressen, which is a large split level restaurant residing on Queen West. The lower level is a full dining room, while a large wooden bar splits the upper level; some trees bridge the gap between levels, creating a dark, subdued atmosphere in the restaurant.

A waitress hails me from the bar and when I cannot supply a satisfactory answer to a menu decision, she insists that I have the pan seared king shitake and honey mushrooms, served on cold spinach with lemon garlic sauce. She avows that she has eaten the dish every shift for the past two years and that the mushrooms are definitively the best meal on the menu. So, with my assent, she promptly submits my order to the kitchen only to return swiftly with three pieces of warm bread, served with an incredible bean dip made with white beans, dill, hemp butter, garlic, olive oil and lemon juice, which is so flavourful that I ask for a second order.

While waiting for my order I continue to peruse the menu, which I turn over to find that Fressen has posted the definition of sharing:

• To divide and parcel out in shares; apportion

• To participate in, use, enjoy, or experience, jointly or in turns

• To relate (a secret or experience, for example) to another or others

• To accord a share in (something) to another or others: shared her apple with a friend

But then my meal arrived and I forget everything I just learned about sharing, glad that I am eating alone because I definitely don’t want to give up a single mushroom. The bed of spinach is well dressed with lemon sauce, yet staving off any notion of sogginess. Garnished with thyme, garlic, leek, white wine and olive oil, the lemon sauce spreads flavour to the entire dish, the honey undercoat barely able to rise through to the surface; while the mushrooms are well cooked, the highlight of this dishes is the sauces. To finish the meal, the waitress brings me an apple ginger lemon juice that she informs me can be made into a great cocktail – the drink certainly has the edge to snuff the taste of the strongest of alcohols.

Perhaps simply because of the touching sentiment of the Fressen menu, I have to recommend checking out all of these locations: Vegetarian Haven or Fressen for a substantial meal and Hibiscus or Get Real! for a midday stop. I may have had a more personal experience with the servers at my dinner locations, yet the café environment has much quicker turnaround, which allots less time to establish even a temporary relationship. Each of these locations have delicious dishes to offer and all of them support the local arts; I cannot imagine not supporting them back. So while this jaunt into vegetarianism is in no way permanent, I actually have had no real problem without meat, although I still find it hard to believe that beans can supply an equal protein supplement to meat; somehow it just doesn’t seem proper. Call me a callous carnivore, or even a malicious meathead if you must, just don’t call me late for a steak dinner. Oh, and that ambiguously phrased bacon reference in my opening remarks can absolutely be taken sexually because that is one hell of a visual.