Restaurant review - Rhizome

Well, we finally made it! I wanted to go to Rhizome ever since I read a review on the Vancouver Courier (I think that was the case) about a cafe with a penchant to empower disenfranchised people and building community. Besides, I wanted to see if their chilaquiles were just as good as my Mom's. So HZ and I went there this morning... we had to walk around and wait for about 30 minutes in the rain! This is Vancouver! Darn it... On that note, we walked to East 8th Avenue and discovered "The Nice Cafe", where apparently they do have brunch (and boy do they have customers!)... I was looking for SoMa but they don't seem to have moved yet to their new location. So I guess I'll check "The Nice Cafe" sometime next week and see how their brunch fares. The prices (from what we could see) were fairly reasonable.

At any rate, the service was excellent, I think it was one of the co-owners who brought us our food. She was keen that I ordered chilaquiles the right way (I hate cheese, so I tend to cook them without cheese). So I accepted and ordered "chilaquiles, but easy on the cheese". H did enjoy the real chilaquiles with lots of cheese (I think he is still bewildered that I hate cheese).

The food is excellent, the decor is absolutely cozy and you can't really beat the food choices. They have vegetarian, vegan and for those of us who admit to being meat eaters, they have organic options. I can't imagine my breakfast without sausage, for example. But Rhizome carries organic sausage so that's awesome.

I didn't have coffee but I had a variety of Cola drink that is neither of the two major competitors. I had to go and find the name, and it fits perfectly with Rhizome's theme. My drink was Blue Sky Cola. After brunch we had a short conversation with the co-owner and congratulated her for actually living up to our expectations! I'd seriously recommend Rhizome not only because they have a social responsibility slant to their activities, but also because their food is great. And the prices are really reasonable.

I read somewhere that you can actually stay at Rhizome and do work on your laptop but I'd find that hard. They have an excellent selection of salsa music and my own instinct would be to start dancing. I am still tempted to check it out as a "work on my laptop" kinda place.