Garden Grille, 77 East Ave.,Pawtucket

 

Jane here! Happy fall!  Wanted to let you know about our latest gastronomic discovery.

Apparently, Garden Grille has been open since 1996 and no one told me!  To be fair,  I don't venture into The Big City (which is what many of the locals here in southern RI consider anything north of Coventry) very often in search of sustenance.  But I came across Garden Grille while roaming around Facebook and it has been on my radar for about two years now.

So a couple of weeks ago my bestie and I were prowling around that end of the state, and decided to check it out.  First of all, there are a couple of things about a restaurant that impress me before we even get to the food; the water and the napkins. If you've read some of our other reviews you might have noticed.  The water in some places is just vile, full of chlorine or whatever.  Not here! good water, and they bring you a bottle so you can refill your own.  Napkins: high quality.  There's nothing more aggravating when you're trying to eat a quesadilla or something equally messy and the napkins are flimsy and useless.

Speaking of quesadillas, that's what my friend and I went with that day.  I had the butternut squash quesadilla, and she opted for the mushroom with smoky tofu.  They came with either dairy or vegan cheese; we both opted for dairy.  Both of our meals were fantastic!  Whole wheat tortillas with crispy edges which I never have encountered on a quesadilla, but they were great.  I sampled hers and although it was delicious, I found it quite a bit saltier than mine.  Not a bad thing, unless you're watching your sodium. 

Then today I was finally able to bring Average Joe in for lunch.  I must admit I had the same quesadilla again...it was just that good.  He loved it also, and was impressed that butternut squash lent itself so well to a Mexican dish.  This time I decided to try the vegan cheese.  I have never had any vegan cheese (on the East coast) that was worth eating, but I honestly could not tell the difference. It was delightful.

I also had to try the Island Sweater (I was tempted by the Grille's facebook post), a delicious warm concoction of hot cider, rum, and assorted other delights.  Yum.

I need to mention also that two doors down from Garden Grille is the Wildflour Vegan Bakery Cafe & Juice Bar.  My friend is gluten-free, and we were delighted to find a LOT of gluten-free goodies in there...although we were stuffed with quesadilla so we didn't take full advantage.  That's going to be a separate excursion!

There don't seem to be a lot of vegan/veggie restaurants in Rhode Island but I feel like it's becoming more and more of a thing.  I'll be seeking out other places, just because we're from the other end of the state, but we will definitely be back to Garden Grille when we're in the area because there are a lot of pretty interesting dishes on that menu (like the pizza) that we need to try!