A Husband and Wife's love with healthy
and organic food sprouts the Seedling Cafe.
Our
Seedling offers you and your family innovative and exciting
cuisine, using local and organic produce and products. This
belief is one that is a foundation of our cafe, it also means
that we serve you only the freshest and highest quality
possible. We have unique and creative vegetarian selections
that are sure to please you. We offer organic salads, homemade
soups (most made with our homemade vegetable stock), light
breakfast items, daily innovative specials, paninis, and made
to order heaping sandwiches.
Our menu includes
vegetarian selections, as well as our specials which change
daily.
We also offer gourmet prepared heat and serve
meals using all NH products and produce.
We use local
artisan bakers for our bread, local organic farmers for our
produce, and have our very own Seedling blend of organic
coffee, roasted right here in NH. We also have a rotating
selections of locally made desserts for those with a sweet
tooth. The Seedling offers organic drinks, natural chips, and
many other treats for you to savor.
We pride ourselves
in providing you and your family with the highest quality
food, exceptional service, and a relaxed and inviting dining
atmosphere. We also offer a catering menu as well using the
same ideas as our cafe, sticking to our idea of fresh, local,
organic, and seasonal products. We hope that you will come in
and experience our love and our passion for
food.
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CHECK OUT OUR WRITEUP IN THE NASHUA TELEGRAPH
Healthy fare blooms at Seedling
CafePublished: Thursday, Sep. 8,
2005
****½
The Seedling Cafe
9 Water St., Nashua.
594-4002.
FOOD: **** ½
SERVICE:
*****
VALUE: ****½
GOOD FOR: A healthy
kick-start to your day or nutrient-packed
lunch.
HOUSE SPECIALTIES: The Seedling Café offers
soups, salads and sandwiches using only ingredients
grown locally by N.H. farmers.
PRICES: Prices range
from $5.75-$6.50 for the deli’s sandwiches, which come
with organic potato chips and a pickle.
HOURS: 7
a.m.-3 p.m. Monday-Wednesday, 7 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Thursday,
7 a.m.-3 p.m. Friday and 8 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday.
ITEM
TO TRY: All the lunch entrees look great, but I’d
suggest trying one of the many specials, as they feature
unique and tasty combinations of seasonal
ingredients.
ALCOHOL: No.
SMOKING:
No.
HANDICAPPED ACCESSIBLE: Yes.
PAYMENT: Accepts
Visa and Mastercards.
VEGETARIAN FRIENDLY: The
Seedling Cafe is sure to delight every vegetarian, as
the regular menu features several vegetarian options,
and there is at least one vegetarian special each
day.
I recently purchased Mireille Guiliano’s New
York Times bestseller, “French Women Don’t Get Fat,” on
the recommendation of a friend, who rightly assumed I
would appreciate the book because Guiliano tells us we
can eat bread and chocolate, and we don’t even have to
exercise.
Of course, my friend failed to mention
the guiding principle behind Guiliano’s diet,
“Everything in moderation.”
There’s always a
catch.
In her book, Guiliano also details the
benefits of organic foods. Americans, she says, eat way
too much prepackaged, heavily processed food. That may
be true, but I’ve always equated organic food with
health food, and if you’re going to eat health food,
well, you might as well eat cardboard, right?
A
recent trip to the Seedling Cafe in downtown Nashua
proved me wrong, and I don’t mind admitting
it.
The Seedling Cafe is a charming, little place
tucked into Water Street, about halfway between Main
Street and the Clock Tower apartments. It has just five
tables and a counter along the back wall, but what it
lacks in size it more than makes up for in quality food
and personable service.
Two things set the
Seedling Cafe apart from the pack. First is its
insistence on using only ingredients grown by local N.H.
farmers. Whenever possible, the cafe’s proprietors buy
organic. Second, these proprietors, the husband-and-wife
team of Joshua and Danielle Enright, are clearly
passionate about their business. That passion resonates
throughout the cafe.
I met my sister and a friend
one afternoon on my lunch break. Joshua, preparing meals
behind the counter, and Danielle, manning the cash
register, gave us plenty of time to peruse their
innovative menu.
The cafe’s unique sandwich
offerings include the Heidi, with fresh-roasted chicken,
Romaine lettuce, bacon, tomato, Parmesan cheese and the
cafe’s own Caesar dressing in an herb wrap ($6.25), and
the Bonnie, a mix of roasted red peppers, cucumbers,
baby field greens, tomato, caramelized onions and
homemade hummus on whole-grain bread ($5.75).
A
chalkboard on the wall listed the specials of the day.
After much debating, I settled on the Marc ($6.50), a
delightful concoction of smoked turkey, smoked bacon,
mozzarella cheese, organic corn, organic baby spinach,
caramelized onions, tomato and a tangy barbecue sauce.
These ingredients were all rolled into a red Southwest
tortilla and grilled to perfection. I’ll go on record
that the Marc was one of the tastiest sandwiches I’ve
ever eaten.
My friend ordered the vegetarian
special, dubbed the Jose ($6.50). His sandwich was
filled with organic refried beans, organic black beans,
organic corn, pepperjack cheese and salsa, all rolled
into a flour tortilla and lightly grilled. My friend was
pleased with his out-of-the-ordinary lunch, though he
wished it had been grilled a little longer as the beans
were still a bit cold.
My sister opted for one of
the cafe’s more traditional offerings, tuna fish, which
she ordered on whole-wheat bread ($5.75). Without
exaggeration, her sandwich was a good 4 inches
thick.
“It’s like Panera Bread,” she said, “but
better.”
The portions were more than ample, and
all three of us ate only half our sandwiches. (I saved
the other half for dinner.)
Lunch entrees are
served in terra-cotta plates lined with brown paper, and
all meals come with a pickle and a heaping pile of
organic potato chips.
So good are the potato
chips, in fact, that I actually witnessed the following
exchange:
Diner: “I have a bone to pick with
you.”
Joshua: “With me? Why?”
Diner: “You
served me those salt-and-pepper kettle potato chips, and
then I saw them at the store. I bought them, and now I’m
hooked!”
One could easily get hooked on the
cafe’s desserts, too. The Enrights serve a rotating
selection of cakes and pastries purchased from the Dutch
Epicure on 101A in Amherst, but they also offer cookies
and brownies baked on premises.
I ordered a
chocolate brownie to go, and it provided a great
pick-me-up as I was watching the clock later that
afternoon at work. So thick was that brownie, I was
inspired to measure it with a ruler: 1¾ inches thick.
Now that is what I call dessert!
I work not far
from the Seedling Cafe, and I have a hunch I might
become a regular. So if you decide to drop in for lunch
– and I think you should – you might just bump into me.
I’ll be the one with the contented look on my face,
murmuring, “Who knew healthy could be this
good?”
Got a restaurant you would like to see
reviewed? send suggestions to
epicure@telegraph-nh.com.
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