Wasabi Burger at the Plant

(photo from user l.c. on yelp)
the plant, steiner & chestnut, san francisco

The Plant is a cafe in the Marina district, on Steiner near Chestnut. They also have newer locations on Pier 3 on the Embarcadero and in the financial district. It used to be called Lettus, now it's called The Plant. I'm not sure which name is goofier. Anyway it's not a bad place to eat if you're stuck in the Marina. Lots of vegetarian/vegan stuff. It's not cheap, but it's not bad for the neighborhood. Actually, the Marina's got (surprisingly) a couple good cheapish spots - I'm thinking of Let's be Frank and What's Up Dog (so goofy these names!), both of which make great veggie dogs. But you have to wade through a sea of strollers to get to them.

But anyway, THE PLANT. I had the wasabi burger, which is a veggie burger with wasabi raspberry aioli, sauerkraut, and the usual burger addons. I really liked the aioli. Raspberry and wasabi sounded like a weird combination to me, but it works pretty well. Spicy, sweet, well-rounded. They make their own veggie burgers and they are pretty unique. Made from (according to the menu) lentils, mushrooms, beets, cashews, and bulgur wheat, the patties have the color of undercooked meat (because of the beets). They look like something you should not put in your mouth. But they taste real good.

Also, the Marina is funny. My "dining companion" (that's what they say on Check Please Bay Area) Katie pointed out that every single other person at the restaurant was wearing yoga pants. OK, that's an exaggeration, but there were a lot of them. And I noticed some people had yoga pants that had like bedazzling and shit.

This place loses points (like Amici's around the corner, who makes a great fake cheese pizza) for adding on a percentage to each check to offset the money they have to pay toward the Healthy San Francisco program (which makes health insurance available to their employees). I understand if they have to raise their prices a little bit, but putting it on the receipt makes it seem to me like they are trying to make a whiny point about how much it sucks that they have to pay toward their employees' health care. And I don't like it.  But the food?  Pretty good.