Book Lovers' Cafe

Book Lovers' Cafe: Four thumbs up.

Menu Highlights: Tempeh Reuben, Lasagne, any of their vegan salads

Price Range: 10 bucks for a meal and a drink/cookie.

Book Lovers is always a good choice when you are at a total loss of ideas for a meal out. It's not always the first thing that pops into my head, but it rarely disappoints. A bonus is that the cafe serves as the figurative heart of a used book store.

Now, I've had discussions with friends about what makes a book store a "good" book store, and we've all agreed that the number one essential is ease of access/presentation. In other words, can you discover potential treasures without scouring through dozens of shelves? Do you feel the urge to just pick random books up? Unfortunately, this is only half the case with "Books Inc." (the name of the bookstore portion). The building features several rooms with varying content from antiques and new releases to worthless novels and bizarre sci fi crap. Fortunately for them, however, the cafe keeps foot traffic heavy as they serve up some great vegetarian/vegan food.

Most meals are made of local/fresh produce and ingredients. Some of my all time favorites are the Tempeh Reuben which in no way makes me feel that the tempeh is a substitute for anything. Also, their lasagna is actually better than any other local Italian restaurant's. If you don't know what to get, try the 3 salad sampler which you can create from the daily selections (get there early so they don't run out). Their eggless egg salad will cause you to wonder how the hell they did that, while the plumber's pasta salad features an ingenious usage of ramen noodles.

I like this place. It's always good to great. Don't bring a first date here or even your parents (unless they're vegetarian), but do eat here often.