Mark Mathew Braunstein on vegan vegetarianism, microgreens, cannabis

My 4 favorite VEGAN and VEGETARIAN restaurants

in Eastern Connecticut (includes Middletown and New Haven)

serving NO (or only one) fried foods and NO (or only one) mock meat:

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1)
NINTH SQUARE CARIBBEAN STYLE (Caribbean Style Vegan) in New Haven, CT – all Vegan
www.CaribbeanStyleVegan.com

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Ninth Square is the name of the residential neighborhood that is home to Ninth Square Caribbean Style café. As only residents of New Haven would understand the meaning of “Ninth Square” as a location akin to “Ninth Street,” the café also calls itself “Caribbean Style Vegan.”

When Elisha and Qulen opened their café in 2017, it was entirely vegan except for one or two meat dishes. A year later, they dropped that meat from the menu. Ever since, they’ve been patronized by a steady stream of enthusiastic customers, vegan and non-vegan alike.

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In their food bar, stainless-steel food trays inside a glass case enable you to view exactly what’s on the daily menu. You choose to fit your appetite. The Large combo platter comprises your choice of seven dishes, the Medium platter is five choices, and the Small is three. The five items depicted in the photo of my Medium-size plate are, clockwise from the top, grilled tofu, steamed broccoli, baked sweet potatoes, sautéed green beans with red peppers, and curried potatoes.

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The above descriptions double as the simple names of the dishes. The food does not masquerade behind pretentious titles, nor does it appear flamboyant or pretend to be fanciful. What you’re served are affordable and generous portions of delicious and nutritious food. Real food. Americans call this natural food. In the Rasta lexicon, natural foods are redefined as Ital foods. As you might adduce from the photo, the café’s two owners are Rastas.

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Among restaurateurs, married couples commonly team up as business partners. As the hostess, the wife often serves the public at “the front of the house.” As the chef, the husband typically works unseen in the kitchen at “the back of the house.” Elisha and Qulen pictured here are such wedded teammates. (Zoom in on Elisha’s sweatshirt and you’ll notice the imprinted motif of a man and a woman that auspiciously foretells their very pose in this photo.)

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Both Elisha and Qulen are lifelong residents of New Haven. Born in Jamaica, Qulen has lived in New Haven since age nine. Elisha’s parents were born in Jamaica, while she was born in New Haven. Thus, neither Qulen nor Elisha speaks with a classic Jamaican accent. Both are genuine New Haveners, and their cuisine is authentic Jamaican Rastafari Ital.

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“Ital” is derived from the word “vital.” To provide “vitality,” Ital food on your plate differs little from how it looks on the farm. Ital food is usually vegan, but not always. Only four of the five Rasta cafés in Connecticut and nearby Worcester are strictly vegan. As there is no Board of Ital Cuisine to issue certifications, Ital cooking does vary with the territory.

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The Ital food served at Caribbean Style Vegan is, as its name attests, always vegan. It also is always nourishing, colorful, and skillfully prepared. Nothing is ever too spicy or too salty or too sweet or too oily or overcooked or undercooked. Grilled in a spicy barbecue sauce, even the jerk tofu is humanely spiced. With just the Medium platters, I always feel satiated but never bloated, evidence of the frugal use or total absence of oil. Never drowned in oily sauces, the veggies remain visually recognizable and inherently flavorful.

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Caribbean Style Vegan stands as my favorite of the seven Ital cafés in which I have dined both stateside and in Jamaica. At the two Ital cafés that I visited in Kingston, neither served any mock meats. Yet at some Rasta cafés in the U.S., their varieties of mock meats almost equal their numbers of veggie dishes. I am mystified that Rasta cafés in our corner of New England serve so many highly processed mock meats. Perhaps theirs is a concession to the typically American hunger for meat. 

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In contrast, Caribbean Style Vegan serves only a single mock meat. Elisha and Qulen uphold a higher standard. Grains, beans, greens, and root vegetables predominate. Most veggies are steamed; a few are sautéed; none are deep-fried. My kind of food.

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For in-house dining, you’ll find two sunlit tables along the south-facing wall of plate glass window. Still, the café is more conducive for takeout. I have witnessed a steady flow of regular customers who sometimes place multiple orders of takeout meals to deliver to their families waiting at home. Yet even when other customers wait in line with you, the wait is always short.

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For your first time here, Elisha is very helpful, patient, and informative. Busy with the many challenges of running a mom-and-pop café while also being a mom and pop, Elisha and Qulen seldom find time to update their social media accounts. So view only their website. Yet, the website menu is viewable only during open hours. To place an online order or simply to view the website menu, you must wait until 12 noon, Wednesday to Saturday.

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Unlike elsewhere in New Haven, you’ll find ample parking in this mostly residential neighborhood. The George Street public parking garage is directly overhead and its entrance right next door. Just around the corner, Orange Street offers metered street parking.

Or ditch your car. The café is halfway between Union Station’s transportation center and the city’s epicenter, New Haven Green, only a half a mile from both. As this stretch of George Street experiences little foot traffic, the pedestrians you do see here are probably on their way to or from Caribbean Style Vegan café.

2)
CLAIRE’S CORNER COPIA in New Haven, CT – all Vegetarian
www.ClairesCornerCopia.com 

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Since 1975, Claire’s Corner Copia has served as an anchor of vegetarian cuisine in Connecticut. It deserves accolades for its longevity as a vegetarian eatery. 

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Until twenty years ago, vegans had little from which to choose, and could substitute cow cheese only with unadorned and unflavored tofu. Blah. To its credit, Claire’s has changed with the times. Nut cheeses now are routinely offered as alternatives. It has added so many all-vegan dishes to its menu that they equal or outnumber the vegetarian dishes. Except for the breakfast egg items and some dairy entrées, most vegetarian dishes can be veganized.

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The menus clearly indicate both on the wallboards and online what dishes are inherently vegan and what can be adapted. What’s more, its wide-ranging menus are rooted firmly in reality, not just in the imagination of a wishful-thinking chef. “Out of stock” does not exist in the vocabulary of the menus at Claire’s Corner Copia. Cornucopia indeed. 

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The array of choices can be mind-boggling, even for vegans. It is easy to feel overwhelmed when trying to make choices simply by reading the many listings on its extensive menus. In person, you are better off viewing the display case to the left of the cash register. There you’ll see some of the standard entrées and most of the specials. WYSIWYG, so What You See is far more informative of What You Get.

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You indeed can judge these books by their covers. For example, one memorable special was a veggie loaf with mashed potatoes. It looked far better than it sounds, and tasted far better than it looked! Even the mashed potatoes were divine. What you don’t see is that most entrées come with a cutesy personal-size loaf of house-baked bread, your choice of all-white or half-whole wheat.

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Portions are very generous. When you order a side, you’ll be served what other restaurants might dole out as an entrée. Expect a filling meal and, if you choose wisely, a nourishing meal. Just don’t come here expecting a gourmet meal. The regular menu is familiar Americana with emphasis on eggs for breakfast, and on burgers and pizza for lunch and dinner. Noticeably absent are soups. Ethnic accents include Mexican burritos and quesadillas, and Italian pizza and pasta. 

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Little, if anything, is ever deep-fried. That’s a big plus for your health. Rather than fried potatoes as sides, salads are served as sides. The regular menu does feature roasted potatoes tossed in oil, but not soaked in oil. The breakfast menu includes one mock meat made of ultra-processed wheat gluten that is whiter than white flour. That’s one too many, but only one. Thankfully, several house-made burgers all are composed of grains and walnuts.

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Claire’s makes no claims about serving natural foods, just vegetarian food. Still, because of the breadth and depth of its extensive menu, you’ll find more here that qualifies as natural foods than at most other vegetarian or vegan restaurants in Connecticut.

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During pandemic pandemonium, Claire’s expanded into the corner space that had formerly been occupied by a New Haven tourist office. While tables were added, seating remains just as cramped as before. Somehow, like stuntmen in a phonebooth, crowds still cram into Claire’s, sometimes waiting in long lines just to place their orders. The lines move quickly because few people stay long. Everyone enjoys Claire’s food, if not its ambience.

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As a favorite lunch spot of the Yale community, Claire’s can be considered an auxiliary part of the Yale campus. Little wonder the noise level during midday approaches that of a college dining hall. If such gentle din reminds you of the fond days of your youth, you just might appreciate it as added flavoring to your food. Just don’t meet here for a date. Try to sit by a window where you’ll be entertained by the Yale and New Haven crowds parading by, sure to add novelty to your dining experience.

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Except on Sundays, finding parking can be frustrating in this congested corner where the New Haven Green adjoins the Yale campus, so expect a long walk. Also except on freebie Sundays, expect to pay ransom to parking meters. Despite the cost of parking added to your meal tab, you still will come out ahead because even for a cafeteria the food at Claire’s is underpriced.

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Sometimes even Claire herself can be seen clearing tables or tending to the cash register. She and her staff work behind the counter and in the kitchen that are even more cramped than your seating area. Show them your appreciation through the usual means, your tip. Yet there’s no option to add tips to credit card payments, so bring cash to contribute to the tip jar. They deserve it.

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3)

HEIRLOOM FOOD COMPANY in Danielson, CT – almost all-Vegan

www.EatHeirloomFood.com

 

Perched on a hillside on North Main Street, Heirloom is a café whose charm is matched by the picturesque town of Danielson that it calls home.

 

Catering to all sorts of niche diets, Heirloom Food Company is unique in this Quiet Corner of Connecticut. You want foods that are organically grown? You got it. Gluten-free? Yours for the asking. Locavore? Yes, sir. Vegetarian? Step right up. Vegan? Yes, ma’am. Natural foods? That’s a natural for Heirloom.

 

Only real foods here. GMOs? Never. Preservatives? No way. Hydrogenated oils? Nope. Ultra-processed foods? Not a chance. Salt shakers? Not on the tables. Fried foods? While some anomalous bags of outsourced potato chips appear on the menu maybe to add to lunch boxes, its own kitchen deep-fries nothing. You can see that for yourself because the open kitchen is located four steps behind the order counter. Heirloom has nothing to hide.

 

To outsiders, the two above lists of Do and Don’t may seem to be needless dietary restrictions. To the cognoscenti, these are mindful dietary choices. At Heirloom, choices abound. For cheeses, either cow cheese or nut cheese. For breads from a local bakery, either sourdough or sprouted wheat. All the desserts contain neither dairy nor eggs, sure to make vegans with sweet tooths very happy. Meat eaters, too, are made happy with options containing turkey or tuna. Real meat, not mock meat.

 

All the food here is fresh and wholesome, often organically grown, often locally grown, mostly gluten-free, and almost all vegetarian. Whatever appears on the menu as vegetarian can be veganized because eggs are completely absent. Quote from its website: “At Heirloom all of our recipes begin vegan.”

 

As a vegan foodie, I felt right at home when I visited soon after its debut in 2012. Before I even sat down, I knew I would want to come back. And I’ve done precisely that dozens of times, even though my travels seldom bring me to this corner of the Quiet Corner.

 

Only whole grains are served. That’s brown rice in the veggie bowls, quinoa with certain specials, and whole wheat in the wraps. The veggie bowls and salads are wholesome and huge. Add-ons can make them even larger. My favorite additions are the thinly sliced Smokey Tempeh and the Mock Chick Salad, comprised of tiny cubes of roasted tofu. It’s also sold refrigerated for takeout, so I notch on a container of Mock Chick while waiting for my order. Yet, the wait is never long, partly because the waitperson who takes your order often also prepares it, so nothing is lost in translation.

 

Weekly specials and weekly soups are posted online. The soups are always thick and luscious. The veggie burgers and sandwiches are tall and meticulously crafted. To fully appreciate their contents, I eat them with a fork, drilling down, layer by layer. My favorite is the Beta Burger, made with beans, beets, grains, and almonds whose flavor and nutrition far surpass industrialized mock meats.

 

To my delight, all the meals at Heirloom abide by my food mantra. Delicious and Nutritious.

 

Three idyllic eating areas complement the food. (Even the parking lot is idyllic.) In addition to the sunny central dining room (depicted in the photo), the interior hosts two booth-like nooks that assure an intimate dining experience. Outdoors, the patio by the front entrance and the two-tiered shaded deck in the rear provide al fresco dining.

 

Though the outdoor deck overlooks Main Street, the building is set back from the street and inclined up a hill, so treetops buffer the motorized hum of the passing cars below. And unlike many cafés whose loudspeakers impose music upon you, Heirloom remains peaceful and, except during busy lunchtimes, quiet. Quiet Corner indeed.

 

During summer, the exotic plants outdoors match the esoteric plant-based foods indoors. Year-round, the festive interior is furnished with potted plants, including vines crawling up the walls, and adorned with party decorations, including streamers hanging from the ceiling. If you feel like you’ve walked in on a celebration, what’s being celebrated is the food. And you.

 

You’d think that this eatery on the edge of town would be a little known, but the good word has gotten around. Lunchtime gets very busy, so try to visit at other times.

 

The café is one mile off Exit 38 of I-395. If taking this exit, you’ll bypass Danielson’s quintessential New England downtown. All four blocks of it. This exit does bring you past the town square, which is especially worth visiting around Halloween when it is occupied by an army of homemade scarecrows. Not even any advancing army of scarecrows could scare me away from Heirloom.

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4)

LIFE BOWLS in Madison, CT – all Vegetarian 

www.LifeBowlsCT.com

 

Opened by two natives of Madison, Life Bowls is celebrating its tenth year in their shoreline hometown. Their eatery began as a roaming food truck whose favored stop was in front of the Madison Town Visitor Info Center. In 2019, when the munchies mobile set down roots as a café, it didn’t travel far. It settled a half a mile east on Boston Post Road (U.S. Route 1), in the heart of Madison’s downtown. (In 2020, Life Bowls opened a younger sister café in New Haven.)

 

Life Bowls takes its name from its signature fruit bowls. Consistent with its motto, “Eat, Drink, and Be Berry,” the café’s showpieces are two California-style mixed fruit bowls of fruit pudding topped with various sliced fresh fruits (featuring strawberries), honey (or if you wish, agave), dried coconut (shaved into strips), and crunchy granola (crunchy indeed).

 

Think of the fruit bowls as ice cream sundaes without the ice cream. Instead of fat- and sugar-laden ice cream, the puddings are blended in almond milk with one of two oversized berries, the pitaya and the açaí. I know what you’re wondering. 

 

Açaí is a small purplish roundish berry that grows from Amazonian palm trees. It’s twice the size and twenty times the price of a blueberry. Grocery stores sell açaí berries only as a frozen purée that’s more water than berries. Outside of jungles, it’s served mostly in smoothies and, as you’d guess, in açaí bowls. Don’t ask me how to pronounce “açaí.” I’ve heard it several ways.

 

Pitaya, also called Dragon Fruit, is the size of a Hass avocado in the shape of an ovate mango. It grows on cacti in Central America. Even if you’ve never eaten any, you might recall seeing them in food markets due to their eye-catching purple or magenta skin with horn-like scales that would adorn dragons, if dragons were real. 

 

Perhaps you consider bowls of fruit as suitable only for breakfast or as beach food. Beach food, did you say? By no coincidence, Life Bowls is just a ten-minute drive from Hammonasset Beach State Park, Connecticut’s sandiest, largest, and longest state beach.

 

Because man does not live by fruit bowls alone, rounding out the short but diverse menu are salad bowls, oat bowls, veggie soups, fruit smoothies, connoisseur coffees, and sandwiches on bread from a local whole-grain bakery. The main menu imprinted on a large signboard is prominently displayed, while the daily soup and daily special inscribed on a small chalkboard are easy to overlook.

 

The daily soups, the pesto, the mayo, and the tzatziki are all labeled vegan. Except for whey powder available as an add-on, the menu is egg- and dairy-free, meaning no cow milk, not even for coffee. Except for honey that can be skipped and bee pollen that can be added, everything else is vegan. Life Bowls, however, keeps its near-vegan status a secret. It even seems to veil in secrecy that it’s entirely vegetarian, as that word is omitted from its lexicon.

 

Distinct from other vegan and vegetarian restaurants whose food is just dressed up junk food, the Life Bowls menu scores high grades for nutrition. Sky high. No fried foods, no mock meats, and no white sugar. Everything served here is both delicious and nutritious. 

 

Located on Madison’s picturesque Boston Post Road, the café is across the street from R.J. Julia Booksellers and is next door to the Madison Cinema. The three form a triumvirate of lifestyle enrichment that alone make Madison worth visiting. Adding to the cultural scene are the dozens of contemporary sculptures that dot the downtown landscape called the Madison Sculpture Mile.

 

Two tables and a long counter provide seating indoors, yet nearly year-round most customers choose the outdoor seating on a patio just outside the entrance. Those five outdoor tables are not quite outdoors. An expansive portico stretches overhead across several storefronts to the left and right of the movie theatre. 

 

That portico probably originally served to protect movie-goers during the primordial pre-internet days when patrons could not purchase tickets online, so braved the elements while standing in line outside theaters. It now pampers the patrons of Life Bowls. As though anticipating Life Bowls’ daytime hours, the portico is punctuated with multiple skylights that keep the mood bright and cheery.

 

If you don’t snag street parking in front of the café, the spacious parking lot behind the building can be accessed by a walkway along the theatre. Parking throughout downtown Madison is welcoming and free.

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5)

SHAYNA B’s by the SEA in Westbrook, CT – all Vegan

www.ShaynaBsByTheSea.com

 

Many restaurants offer samplings of vegan or gluten-free dishes, but few are fully dedicated to both. Shayna B’s by the Sea stands among the few. All its food is both vegan and gluten-free, and its owner has skillfully donned both chef hats. 

 

Like many small cafés whose owners serve double duty as head chefs, the singular charm of Shayna B’s can be attributed to its sole owner and master chef, Christine Reed. Veganism and gluten-allergy are two diets that pose unique challenges to restaurateurs. While restaurant goers may follow a vegan diet because they wish to, those who adhere to a gluten-free diet typically do so because they must. When the café owner or chef shares the same diet ethos as you do, her enthusiasm enhances the distinctive flavoring of the food.

 

Christine began her two culinary quests by delivering bakery goods to food stores and by vending at farmers markets throughout Eastern Connecticut. After garnering a faithful following, in 2017 she founded Shayna B’s first home as a sit-down café. In 2021, SB moved from Old Saybrook to expanded quarters in Westbrook. Presently spacious inside and out, its large front entrance veranda offers sheltered outdoor dining with a view of shoreline wetlands and of the wetlands’ abundant birdlife. (Birders, bring binoculars!)

 

Indoors, you’re greeted front and center by long glass cases that display an array of gluten-free bakery goods. Folks who adhere to gluten-free diets flock here from afar for the breads, bagels, cakes, cookies, donuts, and other pastries. Most restaurant desserts, including natural food restaurant desserts, are routinely made with white sugar. As a vegan food snob, I shun sugar, but I do consume maple syrup and coconut sugar. At SB, at least one dessert is sweetened only with those, so worthy of my indulgence. Sweet!

 

The bakery goods that mostly qualify as desserts unjustifiably eclipse the more nourishing food. What you won’t see in the display cases are the made-to-order meals prepared behind the scenes. Wholesome and flavorful, the vegan entrées just happen to also be gluten-free. They include salads and veggie bowls; pizzas and veggie burgers; sandwiches and wraps; smoothies and soups. Breakfast, served all day, features scrambles and pancakes. 

 

The falafel and the tofu in some of the bowls or wraps are pan-fried, but nothing is ever deep-fried. In other dishes, oil (always extra-virgin olive oil, on SB’s lists of ingredients abbreviated as EVOO) is used only sparingly. Salt is added equally sparingly, so nothing ever tastes salty. All the meals served at SB are both delicious and nutritious. No mock meats here, only real foods.

 

Several fully prepared daily specials available for takeout are displayed in a glass case fridge separate from the bakery goods. The many regular menu items intended for dine-in are made to order, as you’d expect. Ignore the menu shown online. It’s merely an outline and anyway obsolete. Better to rely on crowdsourcing. View the photos of the menu signboards that enthusiastic customers have posted with their online reviews. 

 

Among the entrées, Shayna B’s excels in its veggie bowls and pizzas. My favorites are the Nourish Bowl, comprised of roasted seasonal vegetables, and the Hawaiian Pizza. When I come here for lunch, I skip breakfast so that I can satiate my hunger with both entrées. 

 

Unconcerned about gluten, I find bland and chalky the gluten-free bakery items sold elsewhere, yet SB’s pizza crust made mostly of brown rice flour is tasty and exemplary. Mushrooms are among the Hawaiian Pizza’s luscious veggie toppings, and instead of tomato sauce it is adorned seasonally with roasted fresh cherry tomatoes. Its cheese is not primarily coconut oil typical of gooey greasy nut cheeses sold in other marketplaces. Instead, it is made of miso and sunflower seeds. For two bucks more, I order a double dose of the delectable sunflower cheese. I strike it rich when sometimes the sunflower cheese is sold to-go, all on its own. 

 

Almost all dietary allergies and snobberies can be accommodated, including nut-free (hence the sunflower seed cheese) and soy-free (in addition to soy-based tofu, SB makes its own pumpkin-seed tofu). My food sensitivity is to the alliums: garlic, onions, scallions, et al. I’m thankful that here in most dishes the alliums can be omitted. And if you happen to adhere to Hindu or certain yogic dietary principles, you’ll be thankful too.​​

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Almost once a month, Friday night dinners are served by advance reservation. Check Facebook or Instagram about those dinners. Almost every week, live music is featured, usually on Saturday afternoons, sometimes on Sunday afternoons. Phone to learn which local musicians are performing. 

 

Note that its street signage is small and inconspicuous, so the café is easy to drive past. It shares its ample parking lot with a boat showroom next door, so look for its dry-docked dreamboats. If I owned one, Shayna B’swould float my boat.​