The Undercover Vegetarian: Le Ka

It just so happens that my 9-year old son decided to be a vegetarian for the month of January, and it just so happens that the first restaurant we attempted to eat at after the no-meat rule took effect was Le Ka, the subject of this week's restaurant review.

How did it go? Well, my kid threatened that if we got the charcuterie plate he'd cry (he really likes charcuterie). Luckily for us, Le Ka has a fantastic cheese selection, which 6 cheeses of which you can pick 1, 2 or 3. He got 5. And was pretty happy with that. A vegetarian can not live on cheese alone, I realize, but it was his first meat-free restaurant experience, and honestly there's not a lot else at Le Ka that's vegetarian anyway.

That isn't to say you couldn't put together a meat-free meal here, you absolutely could. There are flatbreads, two of which are vegetarian. There are side dishes, like sauteed mushrooms, roasted cauliflower, and sauteed spinach, which are prepared correctly but without much creativity or fanfare — they are sides in the old fashioned sense of the word, meant to go alongside a steak rather than wow on their own. There are a couple of salads: a simple romaine heart one, and a roasted Brussels sprouts one that didn't do much for me — the sprouts were quite crunchy still, with none of the sweetness that can come from roasting till tender. In fact, the piquant rawness tasted kind of like wasabi.

There's no doubt you could get full at Le Ka without partaking of meat. But you will miss the aspects of this restaurant that are great. Unless, of course, you want to stuff yourself with cheese, in which case you'll be just fine.

You can read the full review of Le Ka here.

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