San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Best vegetarian dining in the Mission
Vegetarians carved out space for themselves in the Mission well before gentrification set in, which is how so many restaurants serving plant-based food zeroed in on the neighborhood and why so many more omnivorous places provide ample choice for vegetarian and vegan diners. For those of you who don’t eat meat (or even eggs or milk), it’s possible to stroll up Valencia Street with no particular destination in mind: If A is booked up, and B has too long a wait, there’s always C, D and E. Famous among vegans, less so among the meateating rabble, Shizen proves that in the era of 30-ingredient sushi bedecked with squiggles of sauce, the presence of raw fish is not needed. A cluster of Japaneseinspired small plates — grilled vegetables, small salads, tempura and croquettes — culminates in either a bowl of ramen or a procession of nigiri (which may appeal more to vegans than lovers of hamachi) and baroque, populist rolls like the Scarlet Smile and Colonel’s Pipe. It’s open for dinner (warning: no reservations).
370 14th St., at Valencia Street
Newly reopened after a long remodel, this soccerdevoted Salvadoran restaurant still serves one of the best under-$10 meals in the Mission, provided your pupusa demands aren’t Brobdingnagian. Not only does Balompie make the traditional bean-and-cheese and cheese-and-loroco pupusas, served with a heap of oregano-flecked slaw, the menu lists vegan pupusas (filled with beans, or spinach and zucchini) that are inherently gluten-free.
3349 18th St., at Capp Street
Not a fleck of meat will be found at the Valencia Street location of this chain, which serves Southern Indian food. Its dosas (rice-and-lentil crepes) are reliably crisp, particularly the paper dosa, which is practically the same length and width as one of Kevin Durant’s pant legs, and the restaurant is familiar with requests to make sure its idlis (steamed rice cakes), vadas (fried lentil rings) and dosas are vegan. The thali provides maximum variety: puffed wheat breads, coconut-coated vegetables, spiced chickpeas, tangy rasam, pickles and rices aplenty.
1007 Valencia St., at 21st Street
Like Delfina, Barzotto and Locanda down the street, Beretta is one of those restaurants at which it is so easy to bring vegetarians and omnivores together that it may slip your mind. Pizza is a vegetarian staple. Pizza with great cocktails, not so much. Pizza with great cocktails after midnight: a unicorn in San Francisco.
1199 Valencia St., at 23rd Street
Cha-Ya’s Buddhist vegan food is far from ascetic: Topped with carrot flowers, zucchini rings, sprouts and lotus root half-moons, its noodle and chirashi bowls were designed to be admired long before Instagram. The Kinoko noodle soup, full of mushrooms, is particularly savory, one of those meals that leaves a body feeling benevolent and warmed.
762 Valencia St., at 18th Street
Though Brett Cooper would never think to advertise his Michelin-starred restaurant as a vegetarian destination, Aster offers what may be the best meatless tasting menu in San Francisco — and not an overpriced one, either, at $85 for four courses.
Cooper, an alumnus of Coi and Outerlands, has always had a particular talent for plants, and even some of his meat-bearing dishes use the protein merely as a central touchpoint that enriches the flashier ingredients in its orbit. There is a perennial lightness to his food, which is not to say austerity.
1001 Guerrero St., at 22nd Street