Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Saha

Hello, flavor! This place was awesome. From the herb and olive oil dip that came with the bread to my sweet ending of vegan knaffe, it was all delicious. But, I'm getting away from myself. Saha is inside the lovely Carleton Hotel. Great for me, as someone who likes to work for my dinner, because it's about a 25 minute walk away from my apartment. I've actually been trying to get to this place for a while with some friends when, lo and behold, my husband actually had some time to eat with me on a weeknight. Score. We got there for our 7pm reservation and there was only one other table with people. Never a good sign in my book, but after a while the place was packed, so I needn't have worried. The super-nice (and knowledgeable!) waitress showed us to our curtain-ensconced seats. Right off the bat, I was psyched to see they they have TONS of vegan options, and all well-marked. Have I mentioned how much I love a well-marked menu? Well, it gets even better because the menu also indicated a 3 course tasting for $30 (for the all veg; $40 if you want death). I went for it because I'm a little piggy sometimes. I ordered the fattoush salad with no feta, which taught me I need to be using sumac more often. Who knew. Next up was something called fouel, which is like a hummus made from fava beans and tomatoes. So yummy smoky smooth. My main dish takes the vegan cake though. I got the "Crispy Couscous Tower" and it was true to its name. Two couscous patties, lightly fried, are stacked upon each other, with some spinach in between, and then covered in this amazing sauce which seemed to be simultaneously red curry, saffron, and tomato. Amazing. Alongside the tower lay some perfectly cooked asparagus, broccoli, carrots, and mushrooms. Now, normally, I like more veggies than grain (or sauce or tofu or dressing, etc) but in this case, I ate the whole thing. And I was full. But did that stop me from ordering dessert? Of course not. The "Vegan Knaffe" is a shredded phyllo, vegan cream cheese, lemony sugar godsend. 'Nuff said.

So, yeah, the food was good. But, being able to eat it alongside my husband while he thoroughly enjoyed his pistachio-encrusted scallops (which, by the way, are way up on my list of weird things people eat) was priceless. Oh, and before I forget, the Oregonian wine I ordered was so good I looked it up. Enjoy!

Vegans, if your others have adventurous palettes and appreciate good flavor, grab 'em and go!

3 comments:

Joselle said...

Sounds delicious! I'm glad they charged less for the veg courses than the death one. Some crazay ass places charge you MORE for vegetarian stuff, which doesn't make no kinda sense!

Sky said...

I know - I've seen that too. Personally, I think I should get a discount every time I take the cheese out of a menu item - pizza included!

Gary said...

There wil not be enough time on my visit to go to all these places. Too bad-they all sound so good! I've been doing Fuhrman this week (fruit for breakfast, salad and veg soup for lunch and big salad and veg dish plus a liitle starch for dinner) and I feel fantastic!!