Quote: One of the best-known restaurants in America, the Moosewood Restaurant has spawned some 10 cookbooks and is credited with popularizing the vegetarian cooking movement. Thirty years after this unpretentious restaurant opened on a side street in this quaint college town, it has remained modest. Cookbook author Mollie Katzen has moved on, but the restaurant remains a local cooperative where you'll often see the 19 owners themselves waiting and busing tables.

The photocopied and dated menu changes twice a day (lunch and dinner) and features 5 or 6 entrees. The menu also offers starters, a daily special and kids' plates. Local and organic wines and beer are available. The Sunday night menu is dedicated to a particular ethnic cuisine.

The restaurant has entrances on Cayuga and Seneca streets. The Cayuga entrance (its legal address) can be found by entering the DeWitt Building and going down to the basement level. We had to ask a passerby where the restaurant was since there we didn't see any signs once we entered. C'mon, folks--if you can publish cookbooks, you can provide a sign and arrow pointing downstairs! Since my last visit 10 years ago, the restaurant has doubled in size with a dedicated bar, ample indoor seating and an outdoor covered patio (at the Seneca entrance). Decor is attractively done in golden Tuscan shades. A wall display offers the popular Moosewood cookbooks and T-shirts for sale.

My party of six, including three children, visited for lunch one recent day. We were seated promptly on the patio. Our menu that day included White Bean & Sun-dried Tomato Spread Pita ($5), North African Split Pea Soup, Country Moussaka, and Ragout Provencal (vegan). Kids' choices included Cheese Toast (a toasted cheese sandwich), peanut butter and jelly and a pasta. All the children's entrees were $4 or less.

Our meals arrived promptly and our waitress/owner cheerfully allowed two of us to split the moussaka entree and thoughtfully brought an extra plate. Serving sizes were adequate. Everyone enjoyed their meals, although the teen didn't like the "natural" peanut butter on her sandwich, declaring it "sticky".

Overall, the food is much like its cookbooks: practical and accessible, but not very adventurous. Spices were at a minimum--the moussaka seemed a little bland, for example--as it seems the menu is designed to serve the largest possible population.

The total for six (without beverages) came to $27.

My recommendation? Visit it once to support its worthy cause of supporting local farmers and healthy organic foods. Then go to some of Ithaca's better restaurants.

Menus and other details can be found at the Moosewood's website: www.moosewoodrestaurant.com.
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