power plant

I’ve been meaning to get out a review of the new vegetarian restaurant, Power Plant, for a while. Now that I’ve been there four times I suppose I should share.

Power Plant is located at the corner of Boulevard and Edgewood. That makes it now the closest veggie restaurant to my house. And it can be on the way home from work if I need it to be. Good things. They don’t have their own parking, but I’ve never had trouble parking on the street within a block and usually legally. There’s a pay lot across the street if you feel desperate, but I’m almost 100% against paying for parking in Atlanta. There’s almost always free parking to be had.

My first visit I had the Funky Soul Chicken Sandwich…basically a fried fake chicken sandwich. The menu gives you the choice of cole slaw, potato strips or salad but so far every server has allowed me to substitute their sweet potato fries for the side. During this visit I was told by the server that everything was vegan, even the honey mustard. (today the server said the honey mustard wasn’t vegan) This was a really good sandwich. Nice roll. The chicken was almost too chicken like. It did that kind of stringy thing that animal muscle tissue does. Really freaky. And the sweet potato fries rock.

Next visit I tried the Catch Fish and Chips. The fish sticks weren’t in any way reminiscent of fish except maybe the shape. But they tasted good. Kind of a spongy texture inside with the crispy battered outside. Cole slaw was fine. The chips/steak fries were weird. They weren’t quite cooked long enough so they were a bit too soft. And they had a strange flavor to them. Like they were sprayed with a fishy flavor or something. And I would love to report on the hush puppies, but they were absent.

Third visit I ordered the Greek Veggie Pita. The pita was nice and fresh. Inside was mixed field greens with a little dressing on them, what seemed like fake chicken breast pieces and tomato. It was supposed to be seasoned with rosemary, mint and garlic and have a cucumber sauce. There was definitely no mint and if there was cucumber sauce, it was the bit of dressing on the greens. On the side I had the sweet potato fries again.

Today our vegan lunch group met there for what we hoped would be brunch. But when we got there we found out that they haven’t started brunch yet. Even though it’s on the menu. Everyone at the table seemed to try something different. I had the Chicken and Waffles…two whole grain waffles each with a fried chicken breast on top, onion gravy and four asparagus spears. The chicken was the same kind that is on the Funky Soul Chicken Sandwich. I’d order this again. Someone else had some hot wings without sauce that were pretty good. Same kind of chickeny stuff except drumstick shaped and on a stick. Several people had Thai Rice Wraps that appeared to be good. The Caribbean Salad didn’t sound like it was very Caribbean. There seems to be a running theme of dishes not quite being as described. Another issue we had today is that the food took forever to come out. It wasn’t packed so I think the kitchen staff might have just been having trouble multitasking. I’ve never had that trouble when dining alone so maybe a table of seven was overwhelming.

So I’ll keep giving them chances and trying more dishes. The menu it pretty large and there are definitely a few more things I want to try. Hopefully they will get everything worked out as they get more experience. The waitress today said they were waiting for the new menus to come in so maybe those will be more accurate.