The Plant Organic Cafe Restaurant Review, Burlingame

Reviewer: Foodnut.com The Plant Organic Cafe 1395 Burlingame Ave Burlingame, CA 94011 (650) 342-0242 The Plant Organic Cafe Website

Why did we dine here? – The Plant Organic Cafe is a small local chain of restaurants focusing on organic and vegetarian oriented cuisine. The menu features many vegetarian items along with seafood and even cocktails. They have locations in Mill Valley, San Francisco at Pier 3, Downtown, and the Marina. We dined at their Burlingame location. Next door is a cafe where you can get Blue Bottle Coffee, their trademark smoothies, as well as baked goods. We really enjoyed their selection of vegan cookies, cupcakes, desserts. There are few places with this variety.

We noticed that this location’s Yelp reviews were incredibly low due to poor service. Thankfully we didn’t encounter all the problems that were mentioned.

We found The Plant’s food interesting and a nice mixture of vegetarian cuisine along with seafood items for carnivores.

Insider Tip – Make reservations at dinner time as this restaurant is small.

Cuisine – New American
Location – Downtown Burlingame
Opened – 2013

Service – The Plant Organic Cafe had reasonable service. A good number of waiters and bus boys were circling around. They probably had training to fix some of the issues. Clearly several of the servers were on the young side.

Verdict – The Plant Organic Cafe is a pleasant change from the usual California cuisine. Lots of kale and quinoa for those into stylish healthy cuisine.

Is this restaurant worth a 5 minute drive? Yes. 30 minute? Maybe. 1 Hour? No.

The Plant Organic Cafe Signature Dishes – Scallops, Quinoa Bowl, MnM Kale Salad, Banana Bread Pudding

The Plant Organic Cafe’s Menu changes all the time. They have a wide variety of starters, small plates, salads, pizza, and entrees.

Website The Plant Organic Cafe Menu

The Plant Organic Cafe Food Picks:

Crusoe Rum Mojito ($12) initially came far too sour. They added some simple syrup and made it acceptable.

Sambazon C Smoothie ($7) banana, blueberries, strawberries, açaí berries, lemon, apple/oj blend is just a couple dollars more expensive than Jamba Juice. Boy, can you taste the quality. Lots of fresh fruit went into the making of this nice drink.

MnM Kale mixed greens, spinach, dino kale, tomatoes, carrots, broccoli, cabbage, sunflower sprouts, lemon flax vinaigrette ($8) is also a very popular salad. Kale is still hot and the salad makes it shine even more. This was named after the founders.

Quinoa Bowl sautéed seasonal vegetables in ginger miso sauce and shrimp ($15) is their signature dish. Anyone who likes Quinoa should definitely come here. It is one of the IN foods right now.

Pan Seared Dayboat Scallops coconut-lime reduction, cilantro aioli, citrus ($13) had two huge scallops situated in a coconutty broth. Nice carmelization and we found the sauce not too over powering. We were worried because many of the other dishes don’t require much cooking.

Margherita marinara, fresh mozzarella, basil ($12) was about average. Soggy middle, decent cheese. Order this only if you have to.

Raw Raspberry Cheesecake ($8) young coconut, peacan-dates crust, blackberry pepper sauce was an excellent vegan dessert. It was highly recommended by our waiter. Very smooth and fruity.

Lemon Strawberry Vegan Cupcake ($3.50) was excellent. Nice light cake along with a very sweet soy cream topping.

OK: (Order if you like this dish)
Chocolate Chip Vegan Cookie ($1.25) was average. The ones at Whole Foods are better.

Avocado & Grapefruit Salad – wild arugula, shaved fennel, macadamia nuts, black pepper macadamia nut dressing ($7.50) was far too sour. This salad was not very special.

Pans: (We would not reorder these dishes)
None

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