Ubuntu

As a one-time vegan (I tried for a summer), I know how difficult it can be to find any good vegetarian food outside of the local Indian restaurant. Fine-dining and vegetarianism rarely meet so when I heard about the new vegetarian restaurant/yoga studio, Ubuntu, I couldn’t wait to try it out.

Ubuntu’s airy, minimalist interior echoes the simplicity that a yoga practitioner strives for but the photo-collages on the walls of Tibetan monks with pseudo inspirational phrases like “Be Extraordinary” or “Open Your Eyes to the Ideal” are a bit much. So is the chanting music. Still, Ubuntu more than makes up for these mistakes with fun touches like bread served to the table in cute burlap bags and an impressive wine bar.

On the Ubuntu website, the restaurant claims its food is “less about a philosophy of no meat and instead a celebration of our own biodynamic gardens.” Unfortunately, I found myself wishing it was the other way around. I might be uninitiated to haute-vegetarian cuisine but I felt that some of our dishes could have been a little more accessible.

My first course was an intensely algae-colored mushroom and nettle soup which was poured over a locally (and ethically!) produced slow-poached egg. I found myself wishing that there was more of the egg and that the too-subtle flavor of the soup would match its radioactive color. Even so, it was pleasant, and it would certainly make a good winter comfort food. My aunt Jennifer ordered a zucchini “carpaccio” which, though artfully presented, was doused in a strangely sour and bitter soy “marinade.” She did not finish it.

I did finish, and enjoy, my main course of pumpkin flavored risotto-- though I couldn’t really distinguish much pumpkin flavor. It was dressed, however, with fried sage leaves (oh so trendy right now) which I’m a pig for. Jen ordered a cauliflower “crock pot” composed simply of roasted, pureed, and raw cauliflower mixed with Vaduvan curry. I liked the idea of the raw pieces as the “meat” of the dish but I’m not really sure if cauliflower alone can carry an entrée.

We continued to be more perplexed than pleased by our food as we ate dessert. My aunt had the medjool date cake with coconut ice cream and teeccino caramel. The date cake itself was warm, sweet, gooey goodness but it was covered with acrid lime foam which ruined the entire plate. Not to mention, since when does coffee-flavored teecino pair with lime? Yck. My “Green Apple and Goat’s Milk Parfait” was an equally confusing mélange of apple slices and sorbet, goat’s milk whipped cream, quince consommé, and cider gellies.

Maybe I’m too prescriptive of a culinarian to appreciate Ubuntu’s unique “philosophy” but, overall, I found the meal to be more unusual than remarkable. Jen and I spent more time trying to understand our food than we did enjoying it and I think we both left unsatisfied. Nevertheless, Ubuntu provided an out of the ordinary and, at an average ten dollars a plate, relatively cheap diversion from the Napa Valley norm.