California Vegetarian

George and I took my youngest sister to Latitudes for her birthday. Really, it was just an excuse for me and George to go back. We love Latitudes!

Latitudes is a locally-, chef-owned restaurant located in a lovely old white house across the street from the courthouse. The building is quaint from the outside and cozy on the inside. The walls are decorated with local artists’ work which is rotated out periodically. All this gives Latitudes a welcoming and sophisticated and yet homey feel for dining guests.

The restaurant devotes about half its regular menu to vegetarian options. In addition to the regular menu, each month Latitudes chooses a country to focus on for their ‘specials’. The special latitude menu lasts a month, and always includes at least one vegetarian entrée option. It usually also includes a vegetarian appetizer option, as well. All soups at Latitudes, except their clam chowder, are vegan, and absolutely outstanding!

On this particular occasion, the special latitude was Italy. We ordered several things off the special menu, and a few things off the regular menu. Honestly, a vegetarian cannot go wrong at Latitudes. This restaurant is a destination location, slightly off the beaten path in Northern California’s Gold Country, in Auburn, but certainly worth the drive.

Latitudes also has an excellent wine list and a full bar. The bar is located in the lower story of the building, but the servers will bring anything to the table. On this trip, we started the meal with Lemoncello Iced Tea ($7 each), one of their drink specials for the Italy latitude.

For our first food course, we shared two appetizers for the table. The first one was an order of brushetta ($6.50), which followed the standard, traditional menu of slices of baguette grilled and smeared with roasted garlic and then topped with Latitudes home-grown vine ripened tomatoes and basil, drizzled with balsamic vinegar. It was tasty and fresh. The second appetizer was Risotto Stuffed Peppers ($8.50). The roasted peppers were stuffed with a mushroom and grana padano risotto and topped with a fresh tomato and garlic sauce. I, for one, really enjoy stuffed peppers, but I was a little disappointed in these. The peppers were a little… well, mushy… as was the risotto. So, honestly, I’d not order the stuffed peppers again, but this did not take much away from the meal as a whole.

Next we each had a cup of the soup of the day, a South Western Tomato Polenta Soup ($4.95 each). The soup was more like a chunky stew, including corn and charred peppers. It was extraordinary!

We each had different entrees. My sister chose Eggplant Roma ($19) of the special menu. Eggplant Roma at Latitudes is layers of breaded baked eggplant slices, Italian seasoned tofu, mozzarella and parmesan cheeses, and marinara sauce which are baked together and then topped with sautéed mushrooms, bell peppers and onions served with creamy polenta.

George had Tofu Florentine ($17) off the regular menu. This is tofu grilled with cashews, spinach, green onions, soy sauce and sherry and topped with cheese and sesame seeds served over fettuccini. You can choose organic brown rice with wild rice instead of the pasta if you’d prefer. But George and I have both had the Tofu Florentine with the pasta many times over the last several years. The menu doesn’t say so, but we’re sure that the cheese is a ‘smoky’ variety, but perhaps it is just the tofu. We like this dish so much that I have attempted to recreate it at home. I’ve never gotten it completely right, which is no hardship since it gives us a reason to go back to Latitudes.

This time around, I chose East Indian Curried Tofu ($19) off the regular menu. It’s grilled tofu stewed in a creamy curry and coconut sauce. They serve it with sides of papaya and raisin chutneys, riata, East Indian style rice, and a chapatti (a fancy tortilla). The tofu, the chutneys and the rice were excellent! I’ve had this dish before and I have never been disappointed. This time, however, the bread was dry. It would have been better left off. Still, I’d order it again, just next time, I’d send the dry bread back as I should have this time.

We had a lovely Seghesio Old Vine Zinfandel with dinner. We’ve been drinking a lot of old vine wines lately. These tend to be undervalued wines made from vines that quite frankly are in danger of all being ripped out because of the lower yield than that produced by newer vines. If you have the opportunity to enjoy some of old vine zinfandels, I highly recommend you take the chance.

For dessert, we each had Polenta Pound Cake with Peaches and Ricotta ($8 each). This cake was practically perfect! Not too sweet, just moist enough. The cake is an Italian style rich pound cake made with polenta and almond paste. The peaches are local and the ricotta is fresh from Italy. Super tasty! Oh, we chose to have a Lemoncello Cream ($7 each) dessert drink—Lemoncello shaken with cream and vodka.

Oh, as a final note, I’d like to comment on how thoughtful Pat, the chef and co-owner with her husband, Pete, is about taking care of her customers. During the evening, our server, Pamela, clearly got behind on her tables. Instead of leaving us forgotten, Pat herself became our server, bringing us drinks from the bar, as well as more than one of our courses. She did all this without making any big deal about it. She didn’t even tell us who she was. We only knew because of previous visits and because of news reports that included her photo. It is this sort of attention to detail and customer care, shown in the food and service, that keeps me and George driving back to Auburn to eat at Latitudes. This is an excellent restaurant for vegetarians. It is also an excellent restaurant for omnivores, as many of our friends who eat meat can attest to after eating at Latitudes with us over the years. We highly recommend Latitudes to you.