Smells Like Green Spirit

I want to start this restaurant review off with this: often times, I do not like vegan food. When I’ve bought vegan cheese at the supermarket, it tasted like feet and death. When I eat fake meats, unless it’s Smart Bacon, it just feels wrong on some level, and tastes either mediocre or bad.

My fella would never have knowingly (I don’t think) set foot in a vegan restaurant, so luckily I didn’t know that’s what this was when I suggested we go there today. A glance at the window, which read, “Karyn’s Concious Comfort Food,” led me to mistakenly believe it was an organic restaurant or something, and it wasn’t until we sat down that we realized what we’d gotten ourselves into. But I’m really glad we did!

The Menu

Nothing on Karyn’s menu has any meat, fish, chicken, dairy, or refined sugars, and they swear “you won’t even miss it!” Appetizers include several pizzas, some hummus and some guacamole, and we ordered the grande taco salad. They have several salads including a wilted spinach salad, several soups including a potato soup, and decadent sounding baskets of deep fried veggies. Entrees include the slab of ribs, the “Southern Comfort” (beans, rice, greens and cornbread), a raw plate and grilled polenta, hot sandwiches like the jerk or steak sandwich, and wraps like the grilled veggie.

The Grande Taco Salad was awesome. I hope heaven has at least one river that flows with whatever they made the soy cheese sauce with, and the guac was pretty killer too. The soy “taco meat” didn’t really imitate real meat, but combined with the chipotle sauce and a jalepeno, I forgave it.

I ordered the spaghetti and meat balls, and though it was good, the meatballs tasted very healthy. I don’t exactly mean that as a compliment, but it’s not exactly a knock either. The “buttered” garlic bread was thick and rich. If it wasn’t clogging my arteries, it had the nice flavor of something that was. I wouldn’t order the meatballs again. They were just okay. they should call them something else: spaghetti and greenballs, spaghetti and healthnuggets. Then I would not have been so saddened by the tempting ruse that I might be chewing on a meatball like substance, when really it was only meatball shaped.

My fella ordered the meatloaf. Again, the “meat”loaf tasted very healthy. It was good, but not the best vegan meatloaf I’ve ever had. The mashed potatoes, however, I wanted poured over my head from a chalice made of gold every evening: they were scrumptious and so good they felt naughty.

From the display of desserts, we chose the carrot cake. It was very very sweet, and very very good. Yum. And yum again.

The Service

Our host, and the gentlemen filling our water glasses were very nice, and very professional. My fella thought our waitress was bad/weird, but I think maybe she hadn’t slept the night before and was just very hungover, and didn’t really care if some people came, sat and waited for a long time and then left, which some people did. I think she was having a bad/weird day. It happens to all of us.

Pros
*C’mon! It’s gourmet, comfort vegan food!! Get in there!!
*Nice location next to art galleries in River North.

(Sort of) Cons
*Although parts of my review might seem harsh, I shouldn’t have expected fake meats to taste real. They didn’t taste real. And that’s not a bad thing.
*I’m hesitant to let one experience decide what the service at Karyn’s is like. I’m going to give the place another shot, because it’s gourmet, comfort vegan food! (Did I mention that yet??)

Contact Info
738 N Wells St
312-587-1050
Website: www.karynraw.com

Share This