The Plant Café's Plant Burger

John Birdsall

Are the beets supposed to make it look bloody?

Number 26: Plant Burger from The Plant Café Organic

Maybe beet found its way into the house-made burger patty here to suggest bloody juices, or maybe that's a carnivore's gruesome thinking. Whatever it was, its inventor seems to have taken great care to make The Plant's flesh-free burger as unlike as plausible those bland, rubbery factory burgers. Fragile as mashed potato, the soft disc of lentils, mushrooms, cashews, bulgur, and beets must cause the cooks a lot of grief on the griddle. But in sandwich ― er, burger ― form, piled up with supersweet caramelized onions dark as strong tea, on warm grilled whole-grain from Bay Breads (our preference over sourdough ― the one shown above has cheese and avocado, too), the patty's just one element in a harmonious pile, which is the criterion for any burger, when it comes to that, whether seeping actual bloody juices or root-vegetable simulacra.

The Plant Cafe Organic Pier Three (at the Embarcadero), 984-1973; 101 California (at Front), 693 9730; 3352 Steiner (at Chestnut), 931-2777

Hungry for more? Click on the links in our countdown so far:

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No. 81: Gin and Tonic from Pizzaiolo/Boot and Shoe
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