Organic, home-cooked vegetarian cuisine sits atop PETA-postered tables, tattooed arms reach over pink vinyl booths, local artwork finds its way over glittery walls, kids twirl on barstools and couples laugh as they share organic fair-trade coffee shakes. Berkeley, meet Saturn Café. If you haven’t been already, the spacey Saturn Café on  the corner of Allston and Oxford is home to one of Berkeley’s most up and coming foodie haunts.

Dedicated to sustainability and vegetarian comfort food with a dash of controversial politics, Saturn Café satisfies the health conscious, the vegan and the just-plain-picky. Offering everything from Organic Eggs Benedict to a Fakin Bacon Chicken Avocado Club Sandwich, Saturn strives to make everyone feel at home. Waiters and waitresses are encouraged to get to know their customers’ palate and experience before suggesting entrees, and are even given “menu tests” to ensure quality recommendations. Allergic to gluten? You have your own menu. First-timer in the world of vegetarian? Start with a simple organic cream of tomato soup. Expert in all things vegetarian? Try to wrap your head around the butter-less crust of a homemade vegan berry pie.

Saturn’s commitment to their customers is just as prominent as their commitment to staying ‘green.’ As an accredited green business, Saturn’s green pride is apparent in more than just the ‘local’ and ‘organic’ identifications that almost always preface a fruit or vegetable description. Water isn’t served unless requested, take-out boxes are compostable, and the kitchen’s oil is recycled for biodiesel. Additionally, Saturn has recently embarked on a quest to remove high fructose corn syrup from its premises just as thoroughly as it has removed meat. According owner Ernesto Quintero, they are “99.5% there and the only thing left is ketchup.” Once ketchup can be packaged in large quantities, it too will join the long list of fructose-free products, right next to pure cane-sugar sodas.

In addition to sustainable responsibility, a dedication to creativity seems to emanate from Saturn’s specialized menus. An admiration of invention serves as a backbone of Saturn Café, inspiring both chefs and customers alike. It is common to hear something is ‘in the works’ as chefs experiment with new vegetarian options or try to turn a popular vegetarian dish vegan so more can enjoy. Making everything from soups to salad dressings in-house, Saturn understands the value of patience and care. Sometimes, Saturn even shares the invention process with its customers. In particular, Saturn’s thick, creamy shakes are a famous outlet of customer creativity. Owner Ernesto Quintero recalls a request he received once, to mix a slice of chocolate cake into a customer’s shake. Admiring the combination, Quintero happily complied, providing the customer with their very own cake shake.

Although I didn’t participate in the creation process, I fully enjoyed the products of creation when I visited Saturn Café one hot Thursday afternoon. My time spent at Saturn Café was a happy whirlwind of entrees, drinks and desserts beautifully prepared, lovingly described and carefully whisked away to make room for more. I remember a blur of sights, smells and vegetarian creations sitting before me as I sampled a bite of this and a sip of that. Luck for you, I managed to take a few notes during my afternoon of gastronomic exploration…

Found on the new Brunch Menu, the Vegan Breakfast Burrito is an adventurous but surprisingly satisfying leap into vegan cuisine. The exceedingly hot tofu scramble is heavily spiced, curing the common problem of bland and taste-less tofu. Served with hearty home fries and three side-sauces, the meal is more than enough. The side-sauces of this dish are worth noting – an interesting combination of creamy guacamole, jalapeno salsa and a homemade vegan tofu spread that works despite its eccentricity. For the less-adventurous breakfast-goers I would suggest the more traditional Banana Pancakes. Served with a wonderful presentation of sliced bananas and chopped walnuts, the pancake lies perfectly in the space between gooey and dry, chewy and tough. Overwhelmingly banana-y in flavor, this dish is reserved for only the true fans of this popular fruit. Additionally, the pancakes are served with non-distilled syrup, a thinner but healthier alternative to the corn-syrup rich maple syrup.

For those of you who are seeking a more sophisticated breakfast and happen to be over the lucky age of twenty-one, consider paring Saturn’s very own Spiked Hibiscus Kombucha with the Eggs Benedict for a delightfully posh Sunday morning. (Other notable drink options include the newly introduced Vegan Bloody Mary, or the wonderfully refreshing mint Mojito.)

If breakfast passes you by and you find yourself in need of a few appetizers, I would highly recommend the Organic Vegan Cream of Tomato soup. By far my favorite appetizer, the classic dish is made from scratch, combining a light, understated flavor delicately seasoned with a tender puree. If soup isn’t your thing, the Spicy Sampler is a runner-up; offering award-winning fries sprinkled with garlic, deliciously crunchy beer battered jalapeno bottle caps (which can also be found in the Jalapeno Burger for an unexpected treat), classic jalapeno poppers, hand-cut chips (made fresh each morning), spicy although refreshing salsa and your choice of two dipping sauces. Once again, the sauces make this dish – vegan ranch, vegan wasabi, spicy chipotle, BBQ, blue cheese or spicy buffalo.

In the realm of entrees, The Cowgirl Blues Salad stands out as an example of vegetarian cuisine that is surprisingly approachable for the weary meat-eating crowd. An organic green salad tossed with fakin bacon and sliced buffalo wings, topped with blue cheese dressing and buffalo sauce, the vegetarian concoction arrives surprisingly close to its meatier counterpart. The fakin bacon offers a startlingly smoky, greasy crunch so often missed in most imitation foods. This salty, meaty topping pairs with the creamy blue cheese dressing to offset the organic greens, creating an addicting balance that will last through the salad.

The amazingly accurate fakin bacon can be found in multiple other entrees, notably within the dangerously messy Chicken Avocado Club and the nouveau-classic Space Cowboy Burger. However, the Chicken Avocado Club should be reserved for those who are experienced in the field of artificial meats, as the chicken falls short of the bacon’s imitation success. A particular restaurant favorite, the award-winning Space Cowboy Burger (loaded with sweet onion rings, fakin bacon and cheddar cheese) has beat out other meat burgers to win second place in a national burger competition. Next to its star-studded neighbor, the California Burger is also notable for its homemade patty, a mixture of organic veggies, brown rice and black beans. If imitation meats are not for you, try the Spicy Man n’ Cheese, a perfectly grown-up remake of a kid’s classic.

In addition to food and drinks, the neighboring Space Lounge hosts all-ages Karaoke and comedy shows on Thursday and Friday nights. If you didn’t have plans after next week’s midterm, now you do! Stay tuned for a CampusCred coupon this month, and that next jalapeno popper might just be on the house.

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