I strongly admire restaurants with lofty goals that attempt to break the mold of the usual dining experience. And it doesn’t surprise me that Middletown is home to It’s Only Natural (ION), given the spirit of the student body and the popularity of the Vegan café. Also unsurprising, unfortunately, is that the food is “only natural”; it just doesn’t taste good enough to be anything else.
This quirky restaurant has colorful art adorning the yellow and purple walls. The restaurant has something of an underwater motif, with fish wall-hangings and colorful surfboards standing upright in the main dining room. Flowers and shells enclosing small candles scatter the wooden tables. These tables are well-spaced, creating a rare dining experience where it is possible to actually hear your neighbor. The calendar set on the table, which includes the special events and dress-up nights hosted in the restaurant, indicates that ION is not just an eatery, but also an entertainment venue.
I’d recommend ordering your food quickly after arriving, since the service is notoriously slow. The pricey menu offers vegan and vegetarians takes on many classic dishes. Unfortunately, for the most part, these dishes only make you wish you were eating the real thing. The main dishes include salads, pizzas, entrees and sandwiches. The sandwiches all come with sweet potato fries, one of the finer aspects of ION’s menu. Soft and sweet on the inside, crispy and salty on the outside, these fries are fabulous, especially when dipped in smoked ketchup. Unfortunately, on one visit my fries were over salted. These fries also can be ordered as an appetizer.
The Cajun Tempeh sandwich, served on toasted wheat bread, was interesting on first taste, but as I continued to eat I couldn’t help but wish for more soy mayo. With little in the way of condiments, a basic fondness for tempeh is essential when ordering this hearty sandwich. The Cali melt, a frequently offered special, contains avocado, hummus, roasted peppers and a choice of chedder or mozzarella cheese baked on thick bread. Two of my friends ordered this sandwich, and neither sandwich arrived with the avocado. The kitchen offered to make up for their mistake with two free desserts, which proved more than adequate since my friends got their avocados in the end. Still, a Cali melt without avocado seems like a tough mistake to make.
The Caesar salad, with its nori or flavorful Cajun tempeh strips, barely resembled a traditional Caesar salad. The angel pesto pasta, in conTrast, was garlicky and needed salt. Served with vegetables, beans and pine nuts, my picky friend had a hard time finding the pasta underneath the vegetables and sauce. The pretty noodle bowl arrived chock full of goodies, the most flavorful of which was the tofu and vegetable dumplings. The soup needed more broth, and the broth itself needed a kick. The vegan pierogis, lightly fried and filled with potatoes and spinach, were soft and worked well with the garlicky greens and sweet apple butter served along side.
The special of the day was salmon and sea scallops served with potatoes. The salmon was well cooked but lacked some flavor, and the sea scallops were slightly chewy and could have tasted sweeter and fresher. None of these dishes were especially tasty or distinct, and the kitchen fell short of letting the vegetarian ingredients shine in a misguided effort to make them taste like the original.
Memories of soft, chewy vegan chocolate chip cookies at Mocon tempted me to sample the homemade vegan desserts. All of the desserts are vegan variations of classic cakes. The large piece of chocolate hazelnut cake looked like the real thing, and almost tasted like it, too, since the creamy and rich chocolate icing covered up the fact that the actual cake was dry. Topped with raspberry sauce, this vegan dessert would satisfy any chocolate craving. The moist carrot cake was unfortunately overshadowed by a cream frosting that contained too much coconut for my taste. Equally disappointing was the “scrumptious” warm apple crumb pie, which was less sweet than most. The surprisingly good desserts were heartier and not as rich as most cakes.
I wasn’t fooled into thinking that my food was meat, although I also wasn’t fooled into thinking that the food was out of the ordinary, or anything but natural.
The bottom line: Pricey vegetarian and vegan food resting mostly on the uniqueness of the restaurant.
It’s Only Natural, 386 Main St.
Hours: Mon-Thurs 11:30-9, Fri-Sat 11:30-10, Sun 11:30-3
Price: Dinner entrees (including salads) range from $8.00 – $20.00
Best bets: sweet potato fries, cali melt, Cajun tempeh sandwich, angel pesto pasta, sweet potato enchilada, chocolate hazelnut cake, apple crumb pie.
2 out of 4 cardinals
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