Brunch with a side of exercise [restaurant review]
Line cook Desirae Santiago with Cafe Vida enchiladas. Photo by JP Cordero
My passenger knew we were going out for brunch, but as we drove past corporate hives in the Continental Park office complex he got more and more puzzled. “There’s a restaurant here?” he asked as I drove up to the corner of Douglas and Park Place.
“How many business offices have you seen with fire pits out front?” I replied, pointing at the terrace right next to us. We were right in front of our destination, and there was no other sign of it.
Café Vida is inside the Bay Club, a gym that has adopted a country club atmosphere since moving into the space three years ago. The restaurant has upscaled too, and now looks something like a business-class airport lounge. The space is huge and a bit impersonal, and given the location and décor I was ready for health smoothies and standard American favorites with calorie and protein counts for everything on the menu.
I was half right. They do have a health-oriented focus – the burgers and meatloaf are made with turkey instead of beef, the omelets with egg whites rather than whole eggs, and you can indeed get smoothies. Nevertheless, the reason to visit this place is their interpretation of Mexican specialties, because they make them remarkably well. Despite the fact that most Mexican restaurants use a lot of lard, this isn’t as much of a stretch as it might seem, as the ancient forms of that cuisine conform to a lot of our ideas about healthy dining. Contemporary reports state that the Aztecs ate relatively little meat, and that was mostly birds, rabbit, fish, and insects. They ate a lot of slow-cooked vegetables and grains, and didn’t deep fry things because both metal frying pans and cooking oil were foreign ideas.
The first thing I tried at Café Vida was chicken enchiladas topped with a tomatillo sauce that was fruity, spicy, and complex, over a layer of a gently smoldering red sauce. The filling inside included roasted poblano chillies and onion along with the chicken. Fresh guacamole on top added another layer of goodness. Also on the plate were Spanish rice and some slightly smoky black beans, creating a balanced lunch hearty enough for a weightlifter. I have to note that I didn’t see many people in workout clothes on this or a subsequent visit, so either the gym aficionados had changed to something resembling office casual or a lot of the customers here were from neighboring office buildings.
The next day, I came back with another friend, and again had the exchange described at the beginning of this article. He was still shaking his head as we went inside. When we got to the front of the line, we went back to the back again because we couldn’t figure out what to have. There were many attractive choices, including a blackened salmon and quinoa bowl, that sounded intriguing. We ended up ordering an egg white omelette de Yucatán and a jalapeño turkey burger, coffee and a smoothie to round out the meal.
The Yucutan omelet at Cafe Vida. Photo
That taken care of, we headed to the attractive outside patio to see if we could find a space near one of those fire pits. Unfortunately, all of these were taken, most by people who had settled in with laptops and showed no sign of departing. I don’t blame them, because if I had work to do, I probably would’ve done the same thing. We went inside and found a table with comfortable furniture and settled in for the short wait. A server brought our food within about 10 minutes, and everything had obviously been made freshly; the sweet potato fries that came with the burger were too hot to eat, and the omelet was steaming.
That turkey burger was the best one I can remember having, well-seasoned with herbs mixed in the meat and very moist, an achievement because turkey dries out if even momentarily overcooked. The jalapeños seemed to have been slightly pickled so did not have the fiery crunch of freshly cut raw peppers, but they packed plenty of spicy heat. These were served on a whole wheat bun with lettuce, tomatoes, and cheese, red onion, and just a bit too much red chile sauce. This contributed a nice flavor, but made things soggy and difficult to eat neatly. There was a substantial pile of sweet potato fries on the side, making it a very substantial meal.
The Yucatán omelette was made with egg whites, chicken sausage, rajas (roasted green peppers), mushrooms, spinach, and jack cheese, then topped with guacamole and more of the tomatillo sauce that I had liked so much on the enchiladas. I don’t usually go out of my way to have egg white-only omelettes, but they do come out a bit lighter and fluffier than those that use the whole egg. They are a little less rich in flavor, but that was simply not a problem when there were this many other things going on. The chicken sausage was on the mild side, which was fine because we liked being able to taste the various vegetables and cheese.
Cafe Vida is hidden away inside the Bay Club. Photo by JP Cordero
The omelet was offered with either fresh fruit, breakfast potatoes, or an organic green salad, and even though we knew the fruit or salad would’ve been the healthy option we had to see what they would do with the breakfast potatoes. We were not disappointed. They were crusted with spices before being fried along with a little bell pepper and onion to the point of being delicately crisp.
The coffee was a good dark roast, the banana-berry smoothie a little too sweet for my tastes. I noticed the same sweet tendency in the strawberry lemonade I had the day before, and the next time I order a smoothie here I will ask them to use a little more of the tart fruit. That’s a minor quibble, and I really enjoyed both meals here. My companion was converted as well, and said, “This isn’t on the way to any place that I regularly go, but I would come back in here again.”
Café Vida is excellent but on the expensive side, so you should figure on spending around 20 bucks a person for your meal with a non-alcoholic beverage. I consider that well worth it for food of this quality made with organic ingredients. Next time I’ll hope to stake out one of those spaces on the patio, and maybe even bring my laptop so I can get some work done after brunch.
Café Vida is at 2250 Park Place in El Segundo. Open 7 a.m – 9 p.m. Mon. – Fri., 8 a.m. – 4 p.m. Sat.-Sun. Parking lot, convenient to Douglas Metro stop Wheelchair access good. Low to moderate noise level. No alcohol served. (310) 643-6205. Cafevida.net. ES