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The options here are varied enough to please just about any palate, from the light and delicate to the rich and hearty. |
 | By Julie Lawrence   OnMilwaukee.com Staff Writer E-mail author | Author bio More articles by Julie Lawrence |
| Published Feb. 3, 2008 at 5:27 a.m. |
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Robin Kasch is opening a vegetarian restaurant in a couple weeks. Not the kind of vegetarian restaurant that has poultry and seafood on the menu; nor the kind that hides beef broth, fish sauce or eggs in the recipes.
Although not totally vegan, Café Manna is slated to be 100 percent vegetarian, falling into an extremely slim category of Milwaukee area eateries. And, in fact, Kasch isn't even opening in Milwaukee; she's opening in Brookfield, at 3815 N. Brookfield Rd.
In a suburb that has in the last year welcomed several prominent meat and seafood restaurants like Bonefish Grill, Fleming's Prime Steakhouse and Mitchell's Fish Market, it's only natural to wonder is she's tapping the right market?
Kasch says absolutely.
"Almost every person I run into says, 'We need that in this area.' I have really received nothing but positive feedback."
The details of her fare show why.
To start, everything is organic (save for the bread, though she's working on that, too.) Secondly, the smorgasbord of options is varied enough to please just about any palate, from the light and delicate to the rich and hearty.
Kasch's menu pulls from a range of places; some recipes are adapted with permission from Real Food Daily, a famed organic vegan restaurant in Santa Monica and West Hollywood, others are from her Chef Jason Stevens, who helped open Devon Seafood Grill at Bayshore Town Center, and others still are her own family's creations that she's perfected since becoming vegetarian 25 years ago.
The "tasty beginnings" start things off with walnut feta pate and cashew coconut hummus, and the ginger macadamia nut carrot cake and banana fig pudding, if there's still room, are delectable ways to end the evening.
But between appetizer and dessert are some of the restaurant's most creative and exotic highlights. Sesame encrusted tofu sits atop asparagus and sun dried tomato in a rich risotto, spiced tempeh mingles with teriyaki soba noodles and sautéed vegetables, falafel sandwiches come baked rather than fried and deluxe salads feature everything from ribboned zucchini and torn herbs to quinoa and fresh mango.
Manna's food cannot be traced to one specific region or ethnicity. Miso soup and stir fry show up alongside baba ghanouj and Middle Eastern vegetable stew while the "meat lovers" vegetarian chili, thickened with texturized vegetable protein, takes a dip into American comfort foods. All seem to marinate nicely together on the full yet accessible menu.
Kasch plans to show off her restaurant's innovation in liquid form, too. Specialty drinks include potassium broth, a combination of root vegetables simmered for hours to extract the nutrients into a hearty, warm broth that ends up red in color from the beets. Other more traditional vegetable drinks are juiced to order.
Café Manna is Kasch's first venture into restaurant ownership, but even as a massage therapist for the past 23 years, food has always been on the front burner.
"I changed my diet over about 25 years ago for health reasons," she says. "I got healthy and it had a lot to do with the food I was eating."
Luckily for us, she's figured out how to match the quality of her food's nutritional value with the quality of its flavor. Café Manna opens Monday, Feb. 18 at 11 a.m.
3815 N. Brookfield Rd.
Brookfield, WI 53045
(262) 790-2340
http://www.cafemanna.com/
Cafe Manna is open Monday through Saturday, from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. and serves lunch and dinner.
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13 comments about this article. Post a comment / write a review. |
Recent Talkbacks ...
Posted by jules6728 on March 9, 2009 at 3:24 p.m. (report)
I just discovered Cafe Manna and am in heaven. Their food is absolutely divine and the dining experience as a whole is wonderful. As a passionate eater and "almost vegetarian", their food is interesting, full of great flavors and made with incredibly fresh, delicious ingredients. To top it off, the service is top notch. Veg heads and carnivors alike will leave Cafe Manna with a full belly and a smile on their face. I hope a second location eventually opens up downtown!
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Posted by iamjessica99 on March 15, 2008 at 5:02 p.m. (report)
Just went back to Cafe Manna for the 4th time in two weeks! LOVE it!!! This time, I went with two meat eaters and two veggies. All of us were left completely satisfied and really enjoyed our meals and service. We will no doubt be back again in the next week to try another of their delicious dishes. Desserts are to die for, but I have rarely had room to try one. As a side note, one of the meat eaters along said that the tofu sandwich he had ordered was better than 95% of all the meat based sandwiches (including burgers) that he had ever had. That should encourage non veggies to give this place a try!
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Posted by Frederik on Feb. 26, 2008 at 4:42 p.m. (report)
To Z-Boy - Comparing Manna to Riverwest Co-op or Beans is like apples to oranges. Beans isn't known for using organic ingredients, and frankly, I'm afraid to eat at Riverwest sometimes because that place is straight-up dirty looking. Beans is decent, but come on, that menu hasn't changed in 10 years, since back when I ate meat. It's old, outdated, overcrowded and overhyped. Maybe if they ever thought that something new would be good I'd go back, but every month or two when I shop there, same old menu again and again. Not only that, but their menu is very, very different from Manna, so it's no comparison. Why wouldn't someone pay $14 for a tofu dish? I mean, meat is cheap, and just because someone pays $20 for a filet mignon doesn't meat it cost $10 to procure it, it just means you're getting gouged. It's like saying that you'd rather go to Sizzler for a steak than to Sanford because the cost is less. It's the preparation, my man, and the quality that makes the difference. If you go to Riverwest, they simply take a pack of tofu off the shelf, fry it up, slather on the vegenaise and put some nachos on the side of your sandwich - tasty sometimes, but not comparable to a dinner that's prepared with better ingredients and done in a much better way. Also, to ask, have you ever eaten at an upscale vegetarian restaurant in areas outside of Wisconsin? I've eaten at veg restaurants in about a half dozen other states, and Manna is actually the cheapest I've come across by far. Go to CA, finding the same meals prepped the same way would cost you $15-30 depending on the place. Even in Virginia, at one of the best restaurants I've eaten at, which is just an all-vegetarian Chinese restaurant, nothing on the entree list was under $13, and appetizers were around $7-10 each. Manna has quite a few things that are reasonably priced - you sound like you picked the most expensive dish, and if you think that tofu is tofu no matter where you go, why pick the one that costs most? Don't mean to rant here, but I HATE, HATE, HATE when people complain about pricing at vegan and vegetarian restaurants, particularly when they're not that bad like Manna. Then, when people decide not to support places and they close, everyone gets all sad and complains about the lack of options for veg dining. People need to understand that it's not just about the food, it's about SUPPORTING THE COMMUNITY and keeping your money in unique businesses that deserve their place in our area. If you want cheap, get a pack of ramen and you've got a 30 cent meal. If you want to eat organic and well-prepared food, support places like Manna that are doing something different. Last thing we need in the city is another freakin' steakhouse - support a vegetarian establishment that rocks and has good food.
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Posted by Z_boy on Feb. 25, 2008 at 9:17 a.m. (report)
Four of us went this past weekend (Sat., Feb. 23). Absolutely nothing went wrong during our meal, but none of us were overly thrilled with the food. For one thing, this place is over-priced. There's no way I should be paying about $15 for something that is tofu-based. I can get meat-based entrees for equal or less than that price. The other thing is that it's tofu. I don't care how well you doctor it up, it still comes out tasting like tofu in the end. We left saying that although nothing was bad, it was simply okay. And when you're dropping wads of cash, "just okay" doesn't cut it. I can go to Bean's & Barley or the Riverwest Co-op for similar tasting food, which is waaaay cheaper. With that, none of us will be back.
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Posted by VegGuy on Feb. 25, 2008 at 4:06 a.m. (report)
Cafe Manna is awesome, no doubt about it. There's getting to be more vegan food in the Milwaukee area, which is good, but honestly, so much of it is deep-fried crap or not made with high-quality ingredients to where I only get the urge to visit those places every few weeks. Manna is definitely different. I was there on opening day, loved it, went back again the next day...and again the next day....and again over the weekend. If a place makes me want to visit 4 times in a week, they've got to be doing something right. Food there is awesome, the staff is very friendly and on top of things, and even the carry-out box, bag and utensils are all eco-friendly. What more could you want? I've had the hummous, the tofu and risotto (which can be made vegan by request), the Jamaican veggie patty, the ayurvedic dahl (twice!) and plenty of sides, and nothing has been less than excellent. I've told a lot of people about it, and I've heard the "Well, I don't get out of Milwaukee much" excuse, but it's straight down Capital Drive. There's no reason not to make the trip on out to see what it's all about. And, finally, don't leave without getting the green limonade - it's SUPER good, and the kind of thing you'd pay $4.00 for somewhere like Outpost, but here you can get it for just $1.75, more than reasonable. No complaints, only praise, so even if you're not vegan or vegetarian but want to try something that's delicious AND healthy, get on over!
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