Lunch at Bay Leaf, Portland's newest vegetarian restaurant

Our adventure at Bay Leaf: A Review by Jess and Tommy~

Tommy:

I think the first thing you notice when you walk in is that it is the cleanest place you've eaten in a long time. On top of being clean the dining area is spacious and has cherry stained tables. The service is friendly and quick. When It came down to ordering, JD and I deceided to split two dishes and try the spring rolls for an appetizer. I never had a spring roll that wasn't soggygreaseshit inside. I recognized what I was tasting and found it nice to find fresh vegetables still crisp and delicious inside the hell fried shell. It was a first for me and frankly I want more of them just thinking about it.

Jess:
My lunch special was served with a bowl of brothy corn chowder (sounds bad, but wasn't). I'm not a corn chowder fan so I graciously gave it to Tommy, who ate practically every last drop.

Tommy: The Sesame Tofu came with a seemingly out of place but good corn chowder. It wasn't too thick and had an asian accent to it, but still corn chowder.

Jess:

Spring Rolls. Fried just enough (unlike Vege Thai, where they're quick but tend to underfry just a bit) Delicious fruity & sweet, slightly thick, dipping sauce. The only thing I didn't like about the spring rolls was the few strands on dark mushroom, a personal preference.

Tommy:

For main courses We got Sesame tofu and "Vegetable" tempura (i'll touch base on these " " later). The Sesame tofu came in a brilliant orange sauce with the seeds mixed into it. I don't like seseme seeds if something is covered in them, but this added a nice texture. Since I'm on texture I have to bring up how soft the tofu is. It's effortless to chew. The stuff practically eats itself. If I ever had to jaw wired shut I would suck this stuff through a straw day and night.

Jess: We decided to sample dishes and ordered the sesame tofu with brown rice, which was actually purple/black. It also came with broccoli, that was the teeniest bit overcooked, but still scrumptious with the sauce. The tofu was amazingly slightly crispy yet tender. And the sauce..sesame citrus magic. The crispy white noodles softened just enough in the sauce as well.

Jess:

Along with this we had an order of vegetable tempura, which was tasty and lightly fried but was all potato and sweet potato. This was served a soy dipping sauce.
Tommy: My only real problem with the whole meal was the "vegetable" tempura. It was tasty, don't get me wrong. But it was all potato (I think all sweet potato), and that's all well and fine. But I was expecting maybe broccoli, carrots, etc. You know, the usual stuff. If I had only ordered that I could See this review going very differently.
... Tommy:

All in all the meal was great and well priced. An appetizer, cup of soup, two main dishes, and two satisfied customers all for under 20 bucks.

Service: Good to Very Good.
Food: Very Good
Bathroom: Fit for surgery.

Jess: My classiest veg meal in PDX so far.

And a couple blocks after we left, we heard music..which was Good Clean Fun performing at Food Fight! I'm a geek who's very out of touch with the music scene, especially the music scene circa my teenage years when I listened to a lot of Weezer and The Beatles above all else, but I knew who they were by pop culture reference (whoa) and Tommy's music history lessons/conversations.