Restaurant Review: The Pulse Cafe- Somerville, MA

Over the long weekend the Hubz and I made a quick overnight trip to the Boston area for a little getaway and to visit a few stores in search of items for our new apartment.  The first night we were there we decided to try The Pulse Cafe; a vegan restaurant in Somerville that was rumored to be good.

The cafe is a small cafeteria like place with table service, we were greeted and seated immediately as there was no one else there.  After looking over the menu we decided to ask our waitress which two items she recommended and based on her recommendation we went with the BBQ Seitan with slaw and cornbread and the Veg Burger with a mixed green salad.

At this point we are seeing the food and thinking wow this looks pretty good….however our eyes were deceived.  The seitan was like eating a sponge, the texture and consistency was awful and I couldn’t finish my half it was that bad. The bbq sauce on the seitan was like sweetened tomato paste, the cornbread was dry, and the slaw was AMAZING. The slaw was the highlight of both dishes which is pretty disappointing considering it is just a side.

As for the burger it was was bland even with the chipotle mayo which you couldn’t even taste.  The burger was mushy and with the bun and tomato there was a real lack of great texture, it needed something crunchy and more seasoning.  The greens were boring and under a few leaves we found a piece of tomato and red pepper.  There was dressing on the salad leaving it very bland as well; just a little lemon juice, salt and pepper would have made the salad 100x better.

The food was disappointing, the prices were expensive ($13 for a veggie burger? come on) and to top it all of the seating was horrible.  The dining area has two levels that are separated by a railing; we were seated on the lower level.  A group of 3 people came in and were seated on the upper level right next to us so the only thing separating us was the thin railing.  The group then proceeded to look down on us and watch as we ate which made both of us extremely uncomfortable.  To top it all off we were the only people in the cafe so there was no need to seat someone so close to us.

Overall I would not recommend or visit this cafe again. I found that there was as lot of hype on the internet over this place due to the pure fact that it was vegan. All though it is vegan the food and prices were not worth the visit, especially with a number of great vegan friendly restaurants nearby. To top off the whole experience both the Hubz and I left hungry since we were unable to finish our food.

Ratings:

  • Value: 0/5
  • Food: 2/5
  • Vegan Friendly: 5/5
  • Atmosphere: 1/5

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