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CHRISTINA COTTER
BROAD STREET EATS
Virtue: The little building at Broad just up
from Hancock most famous for housing the
Arctic Girl and, later, Walter's BBQ, has under
gone a lot of transition lately, turning over
tenants every year or so. But does that mean
the location is cursed? Or has it just been
unlucky? After all, neither hot dogs nor BBQ is
a particularly high-profit genre of cuisine.
Vanessa and Juan Molina, who recently
moved back to Athens (he played in bands
including Time Toy and Squalls), opened
Broad Street Coffee (1660 W. Broad St.) in
the space a few weeks ago, and they instantly
made the tiny quarters their own. Remodeled
to include tables and chairs inside, in unques
tionably intimate arrangement, it is cozy
rather than cramped, with fresh flowers and
many cute decorating details.
The name is confusing. Yes, the restau
rant serves coffee (Counter Culture), iced
tea, homemade hot chocolate, fancy sodas
and crazy expensive smoothies ($6.95!), but
it also serves considerably more. The itty-
bitty kitchen is turning out vegan cuisine
and baked goods for breakfast/brunch, lunch
and dinner, with a sizable menu of organic
produce-based dishes. Technically, Broad
Street isn't 100 percent vegan???Juan says
coffee isn't coffee without real milk???but
that one dairy product is the only exception,
and you can also have your caffeine with soy,
rice, almond or even hemp milk. The bacon is
tempeh, the cheese is made sans milk, and the
"no huevos rancheros" uses tofu as its base.
The restaurant is also toward the virtuous end
of the vegan spectrum, relying little on oil or
easy shortcuts to flavor, much like the dearly
departed Gymnopedie. That makes it a harder
sell to anyone who isn't vegan, like yours
truly.
The plates are cutely put together, sand
wiches arriving on nice serving-ware and
joined by sides of sauteed kale and Asian
cabbage salad. It's hard to do wrong with
kale, one of the loveliest and tastiest, not to
mention healthiest, members of the brassica
genus, and it's not that Broad Street does,
exactly, but the stuff needs a firmer hand,
either a more aggressive saute or a bit of mas
saging to soften up its tough cell walls. Some
of the offerings succeed reasonably well, like
the BLT with tempeh bacon, avocado, lettuce,
tomato, alfalfa sprouts and spicy veganaise
on good homemade bread and the pasta veg
gie bowl, which tosses angel hair with kale,
olives, vegetables and whole roasted garlic,
the latter ingredient supplying fragrance and
flavor both. Others have a little way to go.
The seaweed salad, which combines red
dulse and green wakame seaweed with veggies
and an Asian dressing, needs more protein
than the sprinkling of toasted sesame seeds
can provide and, despite filling your tummy,
will leave you hungry and cranky a few hours
later. The burrito (black beans, rice, vegan
cheese, mushrooms, avocado, tomatoes,
onions, peppers and jalapenos, with sides of
vegan sour cream and a mango salsa) isn't as
exciting as its description; the rice is a touch
undercooked, and you might well be able to
assemble a superior one that would be less
organic but equally animal-friendly at one of
Athens' many burrito joints.
The "We Love Kale" salad is a nice com
bination of antioxidants, with red onion,
garlic, raisins, blueberries and walnuts nestled
among the central green, but the red peppers
it includes take over
the dish, as they tend
to do, and could be
scrapped. The baked
goods are excellent.
The chocolate chip
cookies are as good as
any in town that con
tain eggs and butter,
and the kitchen doesn't
skimp on the chocolate,
which almost runs like
a layer through the
middle of the cookie,
and the coffee cake, if
you are lucky enough to
catch it warm from the
oven, is outstanding.
The restaurant
is young yet, and it
clearly has a devoted
audience, but there are
things it offers that
should please anyone,
and its focus on presentation is welcome. Its
current hours are 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday-
Friday and 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. weekends,
and it takes credit cards.
Indulgence: If, on the other hand, you want
a burger and a milkshake made with beef and
dairy products, Steak 'N Shake is operating
at 2033 W. Broad, just down the street, and
is executing at just the level it should be. A
milkshake with your lunch may leave you logy
later in the day, but it may be worth it, espe
cially the limited-edition peppermint choco
late chip version now pouring. The burgers
are just as you remember them, if you've ever
been to another location: well sized (i.e., not
too big), with nice, crisp edges and uneven
shape, of the flat rather than tall school, and
simple. Yes, you can get lots of toppings,
but you don't have to. The fries are thin and
equally spartan, but reliable. Service is seri
ously trained, and despite the constant stream
of customers, things seem to be running with
impressive smoothness. The restaurant is
open 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day, has drive-
through and take-out as well as eat-in and
takes credit cards.
What Up?: Creature Comforts, a 30-barrel
brewhouse, will open in the 297 W. Hancock
Ave. space recently vacated by Snow Tire.
Hillary Brown food@flagpole.com
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DECEMBER 19, 2012 ??? FLAGPOLE.COM 17