Sunlight Café

Favorite Bites:
Food: (poor) 1 2 3 4 5 (excellent)
Service: (poor) 1 2 3 4 5 (excellent)
Appearance: (poor) 1 2 3 4 5 (excellent)

Sunlight was one of the first vegetarian restaurants in Seattle and has continued to serve basic, good, functional vegetarian fare over the years: lots of salads, soups, stir-fries, pasta dishes, veggie burgers and sandwiches. Think American with some of your standard international influences.

They have lots of vegan and wheat-free options and are very accomodating. The night we went one person in our group asked whether the veggie nutburger could be made vegan, which they could, but the server also offered to put avacado on it for him. We also had someone in our group that couldn't eat wheat or gluten and our server was very helpful in letting us know which of our options would work for her.

We started out with the hummus plate that came with fresh veggies and optional whole wheat pita, which came warmed up, for dipping. For those with allergies, do note that they sprinkled paprika on the hummus. After devouring that, those of us who had ordered salads shared bites around the table. They make the best dressings served over fresh salad fixings. The favorite was the basil vinegrette dressing, which wasn't too heavy on the balsamic vinegar and had just enough basil, ,but the lemon-tahini was also considered really good too because it wasn't overly tart, but not bland like tahini sometimes can be. For the main course, one of us ordered steamed veggies and tofu in a soy ginger garlic sauce, which can also be made with stir fried veggies. It tasted really great and felt like a really healthy option. I had the herb risotto with organic veggies served over spinach and really enjoyed it. Another person ordered roasted vegetarian lasagna, which was good, but not amazing. The final entree, a veggie burger, was pretty good, especially with the avacado and mustard.

When it came time to dessert, even though we boxed up quite of bit in their paper (not styrophone!) to-go boxes, we still ended up sharing a few things since we were already pretty full. The chocolate peanut butter pie was pretty good, but the vegan apple crisp was a bit on the heavy/dense side. We also shared bites off of a vegan peanut butter cookie, which was ok, but not very memorable.

In additon to the regular dinner menu, they also have a daily specials board to let you know the day's special soup, salad dressing, entree and desserts.

I have heard good things about their brunch on the weekends, but I have yet to make it there. It's unclear as to whether it is from 9-2 or 10-2, as I have heard both times when calling them up, but I will verify this the next time I can get up early enough on a Saturday or Sunday to go try out their brunch I will update this review.