FARE: just ok

I finally got to check out Fare, a new restaurant in the art museum area. They have several vegan dishes on their menu, and almost anything can be veganized by omitting a dairy component or substituting vegan cheese. I am always looking for a place to take omnivorous friends and family where I can eat a decent meal as well. Fare appears to be off to a good start.

I was very excited about trying the pink peppercorn raw cashew “cheese” with sunflower sprout salad. It was very good. The cashew cheese was thick and creamy and just a bit tangy. It came with four pieces of toasted baguette for cheese-spreading purposes. The sprout salad was very nice as well, dotted with orange segments and unsweetened coconut bits. I would get this dish again. Unfortunately, this dish is where my great experience at Fare began and ended.

I shared a few small plates with my dining partner. The lentils, potatoes, peas, raisins in red wine tomato sauce was lovely, warm, and hearty, but nothing special. Definitely something I'd whip up almost any day of the week with some CSA veggies. The olive oil braised baby artichokes with english peas was nice, but also..nothing special. With this dish, I made the mistake of subbing vegan cheese for the cheese that was supposed to come with it, thinking it would be melted. It was just some daiya sprinkled on top. I do not find cold daiya to be particularly appetizing.

I noticed that most other tables received hummus and bread, but I wasn't sure if that was complimentary or something you had to order. I thought maybe I missed it on the menu. After reading some reviews of Fare, it seems like our server just forgot to bring it to us. Maybe a bit of a bummer, but I can't quite complain about not getting a complimentary item!

My main dish was...far from the highlight of the meal. The spicy barbecued seitan was simply a pile of mushy steamed seitan smothered in sauce, with a blob of tasteless polenta and a pile of broccoli rabe. The broccoli rabe was the only appetizing component of this plate. The seitan needs to be sauteed or grilled before plating to give it some texture. Also, cooking the seitan with some of the sauce would thicken the sauce up a bit and intensify the flavor. The polenta was probably fat-free and sodium-free and all sorts of healthy, but you've got to replace the oil with some flavor somehow.

I'd recommend the cashew cheese plate because it's an original menu item here in Philadelphia. For the rest of your meal, I'd head elsewhere. At least for now.
-beka