It's easy to be queasy about a place called Veggie Planet, but this restaurant's not all carrots and celery sticks.
In fact, you'll be hard pressed to find any raw veggies at all in this vegetarian, gourmet pizza place - it may be meatless, but the veggies come piping hot and piled high.
The scheme is more meal-on-pizza than meal-as-pizza, since the toppings could actually stand alone as entrées. So, it's no coincidence that the Planet's pizza varieties are all offered as rice dishes in lieu of the flatbread pizza base at no extra charge. We'd recommend going for the flatbread though, because this crust comes with a good cause. The South End's Haley House provides all of the Planet's organic pizza dough while at the same time providing services to Boston's homeless citizens.
While the crust might be good for your karma, the oven it's cooked in is good for the environment. Ever heard of an ecological infrared oven? Well, as Winston so astutely pointed out, you can infer from the name that it uses infrared heat to cook the food.
More importantly, though, this is how we managed to stroll in five minutes before closing time (which is 10:30 p.m., seven days a week) and still get our pizza to go. They assemble each meal-pizza to order, and then send them to the oven for a quick three-minute bake. It's pretty cool to watch - they leave the oven door open. Unfortunately, Winston spent his three minutes worrying about radiation exposure...
While there's a certain "je ne sais quoi" in descending into the Veggie Planet's basement digs, we'd come for the takeout, not the ambience. The second they handed us the boxes, we made a run for the Harvard library steps.
Why the Harvard library steps, you might ask? Well, why not?
Ordering to your dorm room is not the same thing as taking out. We booked it to the yard for a (two-man, vegetarian...) pizza party. Good thing we brought forks though, because when we opened the boxes, all preconceptions we had about how to eat a slice of pizza vanished. These babies were only pizza in name.
We tip our hats to the menu as a whole, but these two stuck out in particular. First, the Dinner for Henry; picture roasted butternut squash, caramelized onions, sage, Asiago and loads of velvety goat cheese. The second, the Vegan Peanut Curry pizza, really calls for the piled-high-with-veggies image, but with some rice as well. Coconut rice, topped with tofu, broccoli, peanuts, and a spicy-ish Thai red peanut curry sauce are all so good when heaped together on an organic crust.
So good, in fact, that when Charlotte dropped her piece on the stone steps, she picked it up and kept eating without missing a beat. The Harvard student who happened to be passing at the time, however, didn't seem to appreciate her pizza-passion, scoffing as he power-walked by.
We recognize that if you're a vegetarian - or, just a hipster - there's little chance this place has escaped your radar. With a name like Veggie Planet, how could it? But it can be a bit hard to find if you don't know what you're looking for.
It's hidden just down an alley - Palmer St., if you can find a sign - right across from Harvard Square's Border Café. For those of you who still think "vegetarian" equals "healthy," give the dessert of the week an earnest shot. We happened upon a superb lemon poppy seed coffee cake. It's always stellar, and it's always vegan. Now, that's the real V-word.
If you want to take them out to dinner, email Winston.Berkman@tufts.edu or Charlotte.Bourdillon@tufts.edu
