I was very impressed with the Zeitgeist Arts Cafe. Upon our arrival, we were greeted by the friendly host. The cafe has a very modern and clean look to it as you enter the bar area, which is highlighted with a great painting by local artist Adam Swanson. We were seated immediately. Our host walked us to a table adjacent to the floor-to-ceiling windows, giving us front row seats to the large snowflakes dancing around and quickly burying the street outside from the freshly brewing snowstorm.
The first thing I read on the menu looked very appetizing and I thought I had made up my mind immediately. However, as I read through the menu, I quickly realized that I was going to have to make several return trips to the Zeitgeist in order to try all of the great looking dishes on the menu. I had trouble deciding which meal(s) I wanted to consume during my first visit.
We started out with an order of Spring Rolls and Thai Peanut Sauce. Not generally being a huge fan of the spring rolls I have ordered at most restaurants, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that these were very good. I can safely say that they were the best tasting spring rolls I have eaten. Our server was friendly and helpful with any questions we had about the items on the menu. I finally decided that I would try the Thai Chili Bowl ("Thai Chilis, pea pods, shiitake mushrooms, carrots, and tofu sautéed with sesame oil and served in a seasoned mushroom broth over fresh rice noodles and topped with roasted peanuts") and the Coconut Curry Rice Bowl (Sautéed red bell peppers, broccoli florets, shallots, Crimini mushrooms, and housemade coconut curry broth on brown basmati rice"). We were informed that the Thai Chili Bowl was a bit spicy and figured that would be a good option on a chilly night. Unfortunately, the Thai Chili Bowl was quite bland and flavorless. This was surprising based on the variety of ingredients it contained. Hopefully this would not be the case with the other entree. Upon my first bite of the Coconut Curry Rice Bowl, I knew there was going to be a problem... the portion was not nearly big enough. The flavor was excellent and I knew I would want more as soon as I finished! The meal was served hot and the vegetables were fresh. I would definitely recommend the Coconut Curry Rice Bowl. It will be hard for me to order something different the next time I visit, as I will be very aware of the awesome flavor I will be passing up to try something new.
We decided to go big and sample a couple of their desserts as well. We picked the Deconstructed Banana Cream Pie and the Flourless Chocolate Cake. I assumed that the dessert portions would be tiny, considering the fairly small dinner portions. As I watched the server walking across the room with a large dish on each arm, I hoped that the two distinct items on one of the plates was our server's decision to consolidate both of our desserts onto one plate, and that the other gigantic pile of whipped dessert in the other dish was destined for another table. Nope! They were both headed straight for our table! The plate with two items was the flourless chocolate cake along with a pile of whipped cream (which I previously hoped was the deconstructed banana cream pie). The gigantic, fluffy, whipped pile of deliciousness in the big bowl on her other arm was the banana cream pie. So, unfortunately the dessert proportions were way too big and the meal portions were a bit too small for my liking. I would give the flavor of the banana cream pie a giant thumbs up! The bananas were very fresh tasting and the cream and banana "filling" were also quite good. The cream pie came with graham cracker, cookie like, pieces in the bottom. These bites were quite sweet and there were way too many of them for me. We had more than satisfied our sweet teeth with the deconstructed banana cream pie, so we decided it would be counterproductive to indulge in the rich looking flourless chocolate cake. So, we boxed it up to save it for a future post-meal indulgence.
My 2nd visit for dinner wasn't quite as impressive. There were a few sandwiches on the menu that looked good. I decided to ask what kind of bread they used for their sandwiches. Unfortunately, they only had white bread. I was quite surprised by this, as I figured a restaurant that offered high quality ingredients for many of their dishes would have an alternative to white bread sandwiches. I ended up ordering the Yellowfin Tuna Wrap. I was hoping the wasabi caper cream cheese would give the wrap a bit of a kick, but it did not. There was way too much cream cheese for my taste. However, the flavor of the Tuna itself was awesome.
BRUNCH: Pretty disappointing that they only serve brunch on the weekends. Another thing that was disappointing about brunch is they only had a total of 6 tables open. So, it ends up being quite a wait to be seated. I ordered the Huevos Enchilada and it was quite good. read more