Context: My partner and I came in on a Sunday night without reservations an hour before closing. There were a few guests waiting for a table, but we were able to get seats at the otherwise empty bar right away. The restaurant is spacious but was busy at the time.

Food: We ordered a Strozzapreti al tartufo nero ($28), a Moroccan chickpea stew ($18), an organic white bean confit side ($5), and an organic baked tofu side ($4). The strozzapreti is a pasta dish with mushrooms and spinach. It tasted a lot like a cacio e pepe pasta dish, but lacked the punchiness of the black pepper. We asked for hot sauce on the side which added the much needed punch. Otherwise, it was a solid dish, if underwhelming, for what you get - while the portions are large and the flavors good, the mushrooms and spinach don't really add much to the dish, and $28 wasn't a terribly good value for that. The Moroccan stew was all around good. Nothing in particular stood out, but it was just really nice comfort food. The flavors were balanced, there were a variety of textures, the dish was appealing to look at, it was pleasantly salty, and the dish components were coarse enough that you could really appreciate each individual morsel of food. It was rich, but not overwhelming, and nothing was bland. For $18, I would recommend this as an entree, as long as you aren't expecting stew (it was more like a curry over quinoa). The baked tofu was tasty. It tasted and looked like tofu fried in sesame oil. It wasn't oily and the salt level was appropriate, but it was also just missing...something. The star of the meal was definitely the white bean confit. I didn't know you could confit beans, but I was pleasantly surprised. The primary flavors were the robust olive oil and tarragon. While you could tell it was cooked in olive oil, it had more of a stew consistency and wasn't anywhere near what I would call oily. The beans were tender but not mushy. It was so simple, yet so impressive. The price for the flavor and portion is a good value. I highly recommend this side dish!

Upon the recommendation of other reviewers, we got the brownie (a la mode). I was really excited because of the rave reviews, but I ended up being disappointed. The brownie was good...but really nothing special. It honestly just tasted like it was made with Ghirardelli brownie mix, which is actually quite good if you've never tried it, but it was disappointing compared to what I was expecting (especially given the price). Furthermore, if you take a look at other review pictures for the brownie, you'll find that the brownie is actually different from what they previously served! For some reason, the recipe seems to have changed. This is not the same brownie that others raved so much about in the past! Talk about disappointing.

Overall: Good restaurant with a lot of care taken toward highlighting vegetarian and vegan cuisine. Service and atmosphere was calm and nice. Definitely try the bean confit side and maybe the moroccan stew. Food was tasty and decent, but nothing outstanding. Value was okay. I wouldn't mind coming again if I wanted a vegetarian meal. Otherwise, I would probably just try another restaurant. 4/5