I’ve never participated in the nationwide phenomenon known as #MeatlessMonday. I don’t even know if there’s a hash-tag, but I liked the way it looked. And I like hash-tags. And everything has it’s own hash-tag. I just like my meat. What can I say? But yesterday, my mom and I were missing each other (aww) and decided to meet up for lunch. She suggested I look up something unique, but not too out there with “unapproachable food,” and somewhere we’d never been before.
After some quick Yelping, I found a little place called Mother’s Cafe & Garden in Hyde Park, and the menu fit the bill. Aside from the usual cafe fare, Mother’s had a huge selection of enchiladas and I noticed there were a TON of ultra fresh sounding dishes with tons of gluten free and other special diet options available. Not that we’re gluten free, or have a special diet, it just says something about a restaurant when they go above and beyond in their consideration for their diners.
We arrived just as the sun was coming up and drying the streets after a huge hail and thunderstorm that rolled through Austin, and the bright colors were super welcome. I LOVED the exterior, with the cute chairs, and the cool mural. The cafe is situated on the corner of Duval and E 43rd street, across from Asti Trattoria, another cool little lunch spot in Hyde Park that makes me happy.
We were promptly seated, and left to go over our menus. We also received a bowl of chips and house-made salsa. The salsa was to-die-for. Nice and spicy, it tasted super fresh, and had tons of flavor. My mom and I kept going back for more, to the point that our noses started running from the heat. But we couldn’t stop.
Once again, I was more than impressed with the menu, and still had yet to realize that Mother’s was a vegetarian restaurant. I just hadn’t noticed that nothing had meat. I don’t quite know how I missed all of this, but I did. My mom and I both decided to start with a Garden Patch salad, a salad made with green leaf lettuce, carrot, cucumber, purple cabbage, red onion, tomato, and sunflower sprouts. I chose the homemade blue cheese dressing, and my mom went with the lemon basil vinaigrette. I also decided to get some papaya juice, because they had it on the menu, and I love that stuff. So scrumptious!
Bright. Crisp. Flavorful. Delicious. And the dressings were both spectacular. I liked my mom’s vinaigrette better, but they were both delicious. We both couldn’t quit talking about how great the sunflower sprouts were! They reminded me of arugula, but weren’t as bitter/peppery. Yum. And the juice was bold, bright and delicious. Just like I remembered it from Puerto Rico.
For our entrees, my mom decided on their soup of the day, which was a basic veggie soup, made with a variety of veggies and a simple broth. I went with the Capellini al Greco, Organic angel hair pasta tossed with extra virgin olive oil, fresh basil, garlic and roma tomatoes, with feta cheese, capers and kalamata olives, topped with parmesan cheese.
My mom loved her soup, saying that even though it was simple, it was ultra flavorful, and had lots of layers of deliciousness.
My pasta was gorgeous. The sauce was super fresh, bright, acidic, sweet, and perfectly balanced. The pasta itself tasted really good, like it was well seasoned, and it was cooked nicely. Basically, it was delicious.
But like I mentioned before, Mother’s Cafe & Garden has a ton of enchiladas on their menu, including some super unique ones, like their Artichoke Enchiladas. Have you ever had these before? Being the curious women that we are, we decided to throw some of those into the midst, and were pleasantly surprised.
Note our carefully positioned and placed phones. We both got fancy new phone cases, and decided to show them off like teenaged girls. It’s fine.
Their artichoke enchiladas are filled with artichoke hearts and jack cheese topped with fresh sliced mushrooms, ranchero sauce and black olives.
The sauce was pretty incredible. My mom and I both agreed that it tasted smoky, deep, dark and seductive. We also loved the pairing of the artichokes with the sauce. It wasn’t a pairing we would have ever thought of, but it worked. I personally thought there was too much cheese, but otherwise, we really enjoyed it. I brought the left-overs home to my husband, and he cleaned the box. Good sign. Since we were taking our time and just enjoying ourselves, we decided to indulge and get dessert. Some warm apple pie and Amy’s Mexican Vanilla ice cream with fresh sliced strawberries sounded just perfect, so that’s what we got.
What a perfect ending to a delicious meal. My mom and I have added Mother’s Cafe & Garden to our list of favorite places, and neither of us missed the meat, that’s for sure.
