Garden Grille Cafe, RI, May 2011

When I think of vegans I think of pasty white skinny deformed people with rickets reading The Guardian while their dog chews on their Doc Martens. I was told by a trustworthy source that the Garden Grille Cafe was good and packed some meat (don't worry, vegans, it is an expression).

8 pm on a Saturday night and the establishment was busy. People were queuing up to eat soy. The waiter who greeted us was a complete shambles. He was as on top of his game as Stoke City were in the FA Cup Final. When we finally got our seats (at the bar) I could settle down and take in the fresh carnivore-free air. The place actually felt warm and inviting - not the usual snooty atmosphere associated with tattooed scruffy vegans.

In terms of food, I always had a negative impression about vegan food. To me, I always feel that the snooty pompousness of the staff at these places try to make up for the lack of flavour and taste of vegan food. However, the Garden Grille Cafe is an exception. The Ginger adzuki bean soup was bloody marvelous. I will quite happily accept the windy intestinal byproducts associated with beans after this soup. It had just the right amount of seasoning to it. Not too salty, it had a bit of mystery to it making me want more. It was as much of a surprise as the winners of the Eurovision song contest. For my main meal, I had some soy based thing with 'yellow gits' (what the fuck that is, I have no idea) and a load of green vegetables. The yellow grits can only be described as a kind of polenta. The tempeh soy thing was meant to be the 'meat' between the two veg and it did a good job fooling me into thinking it was a turkey twizzler - almost as good a job as Jack Warner and Wowari Makudi.  What I don't understand about vegetarian food is that they try to trick you into think you are eating meat by making a bit of soy look and taste like a chicken nugget. The pure pomposity of it... I digress. It must be hard to make good vegan food especially trying to give it good taste (something Princess Beatrice is void of in terms of hats). The mixture of a Mexican sauce of some sort and the lurking sweetness of a mango relish actually went well. Every bite delivered a new interesting sensation like the trickling reports of Bin Laden's take down. We will never know the identities of Seal Team 6, but I do know that I really enjoyed my vegan meal. I will have to reassess my views of vegan food unlike my views on Jedward (twats).

The Ho Down says: I would meat at the Garden Grill Cafe again. But please serve the food on a hot plate.

P.S. Allagash Tripel is a damn good beer. There is nothing gash about Allagash.