It’s often said (and it’s true) that if you live in New York that you can eat in a different restaurant every day, with no repeats. Of course, most of us fall into patterns and have favorites, particularly around where we work. Sometimes it takes a little extra push to get me to eat at a new restaurant; Brooklyn Goes Veg! is just such an excuse. I’ve had more bad experiences at vegetarian and raw food restaurants than good ones, but I’m always looking for a good meal.

My first stop was at Jill’s Cafe in Cobble Hill, just a short train ride away from my apartment. In honor of the Brooklyn Goes Veg! week they are offering a $25 prix pixe menu; they actually have two different menus, one raw and one cooked. Each of those menus offered two choices each for the appetizer and the main. Those bad experiences I mentioned led me to the cooked menu: I chose quinoa rolls (pictured above), raviolis, and a thumbprint & tea for dessert. $25 is quite a bit more than I typically spend on lunch, but I figured it was for a good cause and hoped that I would at least get plenty of food.

Then the quinoa rolls came out and I was blown away. Not only was there a lot of food but it was presented beautifully. Jill’s has only a handful of tables, they have a ready-made food display full of salads, cookies, and more, and throughout my meal it became apparent to me that they weren’t used to having very many people actually sit down and eat. So it was a pleasure to see them take so much pride in the food. The rolls were good; quinoa is very different than rice in many ways, and when packed into a sushi-type rolls it gives you a completely different mouth feel than rice. You can really feel each individual grain. The vegetables (carrot, cucumber, avocado) tasted very fresh, the whole dish was very refreshing. My only complaint was that the ginger and wasabi, though they looked fresher than what you get at sub-par sushi restaurants, didn’t have much flavor.

For the main the menu says simply “raviolis” and nothing more. I was not prepared for the plate that arrived halfway through my appetizer. Garnished with barely steamed baby bok choy, the raviolis were wrapped in transparent rice paper wrappers, which were nicely chewy and sticky. They were filled with squash and broccoli, which were not quite mashed up and lent a bit of texture on their own. The raviolis sat in a light curry sauce, which was another surprise. The dish has an Italian name, a Chinese look, and and Indian taste. It’s not the best thing I’ve ever eaten, but it was interesting and the three large raviolis were very filling.

For dessert I was offered a choice of three “thumbprints,” a tiny hybrid of a cookie and a cake (I got the pumpkin spice one). I chose the green tea (again I was offered a choice), which was very good but came out with a dish of honey that was placed on top of the tea cup where it fit so snugly that it took me about a full minute to fish it out. The thumbprint may look small, but it was full of creamy pumpkin goodness.

Jill’s Cafe has gone a long way towards redeeming vegetarian restaurants in my mind. The food was all good, and it was obviously prepared by people who cared about it. I would definitely return; some of the choices I didn’t go for sounded good, even those from the raw food menu, and I’m excited to see what the people at Jill’s Cafe will come up with next.

Jill’s Cafe — 231 Court Street, Brooklyn

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