Restaurant Review: Root

I am not one for city living. Considering I’m just a 20 minute drive from Boston, I hardly ever go into town. I find the streets utterly confusing, I suck at paralell parking and I lose my mind when I’m forced to pay upwards of $15 for fancy drinks in most bars.

There is only one thing that drives me out of my suburban comfort zone. I will gladly attempt the trickiest of parking maneuvers to make my way to what is known as “vegan street” in Allston, just outside of Boston.

We make the trek to our favorite spot, Fomu when we’re having sweet tooth cravings. Doesn’t matter if it’s 10:00 PM, we will happily speed down the Pike to score some salted caramel, cookies & cream or peanut butter ice cream from the greatest non-dairy ice cream place we’ve ever been to.

And now? Now Root has opened it’s doors right beside Fomu and gave us a reason to loathe the city a little less. Because out in the burbs, incredible vegan food is non-existent hard to come by

We’d LONG been awaiting the opening of Root and we excitedly stopped in on opening day before the Paul McCartney concert at Fenway (AWESOME show!). I was giddy with anticipation and was literally jumping up and down in line as I waited to try all the delicious dishes Root had been teasing me with via Instagram pictures. The spot itself is super cute and very earthy. A local artist constructed some wall decor made out of bicycle wheels, fresh potted herbs were scattered around the spacious windows and mason jars full of daises adorned the gillmering bronze (copper?) tables.

Oh, and the food? Seriously unreal. For now, the selection isn’t too extensive, mostly salads and various vegan burgers, but it’ll all blow your cruelty-free mind. We feasted on a quinoa black bean burger, an eggplant caprese burger, mountains of addictive herbed fries with homemade garlic aioli and their already famous jalapeno and corn hush puppies. And even though I usually give eateries without liquor a thumbs down, their stellar juice bar (specifically their awesome orange gingerade) was satisfying enough to make me not miss my usual alcoholic dinner beverage. All this amazing, yummy vegan food only cost us $27. That’s how much we would later spend on three watered down shitty beers at Fenway Park that night!

The absolute highlight of Root may not actually be the food though. My favorite part was the trash. Yes, the trash. Instead of chucking everything is the garbage, they have a separate bin for composting. And that my friends, is the way to my heart.

So what did I learn? Incredible food, plus an enthusiastic staff, plus a compost bin in your restaurant equals us possibly relocating to the city. If it gets me amazing food like this, I’ll glad start working on my parking skills.