Café Manna

I could barely get my mouth around the triple-layer Garden Vegetable Sandwich at Café Manna in the Brookfield Town Center. The sandwich, served on grilled rosemary-olive bread, overflowed with crisp zucchini, yellow squash, cucumbers, paper-thin sliced radishes and tomatoes. It came with an unusual red potato salad, dotted with spinach and seasoned with wasabi scented mayonnaise. My friend loved her Falafel with Citrus Tahini and Kalamata olives, a unique blend of flavors stuffed in a whole wheat pita.

Don’t look for a burger — at least not one made with beef, — at the café, but don’t be surprised if you find tofu in more than one entrée. You can have it marinated and grilled with seasoned veggies, pan-fried with sundried tomato risotto or tucked inside the Grilled Herbed Eggplant and Tofu Sandwich. When lentil soup came garnished with tofu sour cream, I finally noticed the absence of animal products on the menu: no cheese, no eggs, no meat. I asked owner Robin Kasch what inspired her to open this almost vegan restaurant and she said, "If I wanted to eat out I had no place to go. I’m a longtime vegetarian."

Now Milwaukee has a version of Greens, a well known San Francisco vegetarian restaurant, a mecca for people who choose healthful, creative, delicious, artfully presented food served in a restful setting. We don’t have the Bay but Café Manna has an environmentally "green" interior, including unusual bamboo floors, furniture, lighting and counters made from recycled materials.

At lunch our server set a plate of Cashew Coconut Hummus with three kinds of bread on the table and said, "It’s complimentary. Please help yourself." Kasch explains, "I wanted to do something different."