a meat eater's review of Golden Era

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http://www.sfbg.com/37/14/x_cheap_eats.html

 

cheap eats

by dan leone

 

Tofu to you

 

THERE ARE THREE or four vegetarian restaurants on my list of Things to Do, and

they've been there for eight or nine years, predominant weather patterns in hell

yielding no major surprises in that time. Every day I go to www.weather.com and

type in " 666 " instead of a zip code. Once last week there was a frost advisory,

and I figured it was then or never.

I was figuring figuratively, of course. The real live literal sequence of events

that took me to Golden Era Vegetarian Restaurant began at the beginning of last

week's review. I never read that one, but if you did you may recall an inventory

of meat from my freezer, all thawed out on account of four days of

electricitylessness. I'm fuzzy on the particulars. All I know is from dinnertime

Monday to lunchtime Saturday I was poster boy for the Atkins Diet. Meat, meat,

meat, meat, meat. No potatoes, no salad, not even bread, because every inch of

stomach space was already accounted for.

On Thursday I was in the city all day, because my band was playing two gigs: one

first thing in the morning and one last thing at night. I'd packed a Tupperware

full of pork ribs, pork roast, and sausages. That was breakfast. The later gig

was a chili party, so that would be dinner.

Around lunchtime I reached into my brother's refrigerator for the Tupperware and

it hit me like a heart attack: it was time to review a vegetarian restaurant.

Not that I was sick of meat, mind you. Not that I wouldn't have thoroughly

enjoyed another half-slab of smoked spareribs smothered in Pit sauce. It just

sort of seemed like some vegetables might maybe be in order, like if ever I was

going to be able to give one of those vegetarian restaurants a fair shake ... it

was then or never.

I closed the refrigerator and marched myself, my brother Phenomenon, and our

stand-up bassist Lord B.J. down to the Tenderloin to Golden Era, which was one

of the ones on my list. In fact, it was Phenomenon who put it there. He loves

the place, and he's not even a vegetarian.

" It's a meat-eater's vegetarian restaurant, " he said.

I took one look at the menu and both knew what he meant and that he was dead

wrong. Almost everything on the menu was " meat. " Fake chicken this, fake beef

that ... they even have fake fishes, fake shrimps, and I think I saw a fake lamb

thing. Tofu, gluten, soy protein. In other words it's a vegetarian's vegetarian

restaurant. Meat-eaters don't need none of that stuff; they need vegetables.

I found one dish out of 70 or so that was just vegetables, no none-of-the-above.

It was #42, curry vegetable ($6.50), stir-fried broccoli, cauliflower, celery,

snow peas, and maybe even some other stuff in a coconut curry sauce that just

needed a little bit of salt, or MSG. No MSG at Golden Era.

Did I mention this was Chinese and Vietnamese-style food? They even have hot and

sour soup, which they call " spicy sweet and sour soup " ($7.25), only without

" shrimp, " so I guess that's another thing I could have ordered. But I didn't

have to 'cause Phenomenon did. Lord B.J. got sweet and sour chicken ($6.25) and

a steamed Buddha bun ($2.25), which was like a pork bun but with tofu and soy

protein instead of pork. Guess what? I liked it.

The pot stickers ($4.75), with tofu instead of pork, I wasn't so crazy about.

The hot and sweet and sour soup ... I'm always going to love that soup, shrimp

or no shrimp, on account of celery, tomato, pineapple, sprouts, and that tangy,

tamarindy broth.

As for the sweet and sour " chicken " (the quotation marks are theirs), I tasted

it twice, but, being a proud and devoted farmer of proud and devoted chicken

chickens, I refuse to dignify fake chicken, or " chicken, " with even one tiny

adjective. Adjectives modify nouns, and nouns are things that tend to exist

(e.g. chickens, donuts, Lord Exister). Lord Exister bit into some fine-tasting

breading and it was like eating donuts. Not the flavor; the hole in the middle.

The absence. The void. I might as well have been eating sweet and sour Santa

Claus, or sweet and sour God.

Speaking of atmosphere ... " elegant " " pillars, " with ornate " gold " trim all over

the place, " chandeliers, " vegetarian " art, " classical music, and a one-bookshelf

" library " of " spiritual " " books, " " videos, " and " tapes. "

The food's pretty cheap. If you don't eat meat, or if you do but you're not as

religious about it as I am, you might just love Golden Era.

Golden Era Vegetarian Restaurant. 572 O'Farrell (at Jones), S.F. (415) 673-3136.

Wed.-Mon., 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Takeout available. No alcohol. Discover, MasterCard,

Visa. Wheelchair accessible. Dan Leone is the author of Eat This, San Francisco

(Sasquatch Books), a collection of Cheap Eats restaurant reviews, and The

Meaning of Lunch (Mammoth Books).

 

 

signature: FAQ on vegetarian resources

 

SFBAVeg/

http://www.vegdining.com

http://www.sfvs.org

Living Foods: SFLivingFoods/

due to my high amount of emails, I am unable to answer everyone's emails on

vegetarian questions.

 

 

 

 

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