Whole in the Wall offers a health-conscious, trendy menu with its variety of delicious vegan, gluten-free and locally grown options. Lacking in pretentiousness, its food is homemade with care and respect.
Although Whole in the Wall is usually only open Thursday through Saturday, the restaurant will be open Tuesday through Saturday for Restaurant Week. A three-course lunch is available for $12. The dinner menu is available for either $25 or $30 for a three-course meal or four-course meal, respectively.
We opted for the four-course dinner. Although mostly an abridged version of the typical menu, the Restaurant Week menu was full of options for both myself, as well the photographer, who is a vegan.
As an appetizer, we split the falafel bites and the mini-tempura broccoli florets. From their crescent-like shape to their creamy interior, the falafel bites were not your average falafels. The velvety texture of these bites allowed for the falafel to hold its shape, providing a more enjoyable experience. The broccoli tempura tasted exactly how you would expect it to taste with a slight al dente crunch underneath the crispy tempura batter. Dipping into the tofu-garlic dressing added a needed flavorful bite to the florets. We just wished that there were more of them.
For our second course, we sampled the minestrone, which was the soup of the day, the creamy mushroom soup and the vegan-friendly Japanese miso soup. The minestrone was delicious and delightfully hearty, and the creamy mushroom soup was rich and flavorful. The miso soup was less salty and better than the average, despite the lackluster tofu cubes.
The entrée section of the menu was the largest and most varied, with options ranging from enchiladas to a pierogi lasagna. Being that Whole in the Wall is famous for its pesto, we had to get the pesto pasta. This pesto was much thicker than your typical basil sauce and full of flavor. The dish could have used more salt, but being served at a health-conscious restaurant, its absence made sense.
The vegetable stir fry can be ordered in a variety of ways — with chicken, tofu, or tempeh — we tried the tempeh, a meat substitute similar to tofu but made of fermented soybeans. Lightly cooked zucchini, broccoli, carrots and onions were served over a bed of brown rice, dashed with tamari and garnished with a lemon. Though tasty in the first few pieces, the large tempeh cubes overpowered the dish with their nutty, fermented taste.
For dessert, we tried the only two Restaurant Week options — the raspberry chocolate chip brownie sundae teaser and the fat-free mango sorbet. The raspberry brownie sundae stole the show. The contrast between the warm and gooey brownie and the cool raspberry and whipped cream topping was extremely pleasing. The only vegan dessert option offered was a mango sorbet that lacked the care of the previous courses, having an artificial mango taste delivered with overt sweetness. This aside, the cold, smooth sorbet was refreshing after the meal.
Overall, we left feeling stuffed and satisfied from this good dining experience.