Vegetarian Four Seasons Has Dishes To Please Every Eater

The hot and cold buffets change daily, but there are several dishes that make a regular appearance. On the cold bar, try the udon noodles, steamed kale and a protein -- often baked tofu or tempeh -- with a peanut sauce available to ladle over them. The tempeh was nicely seasoned. The tofu I tried was a tad bland, but, hey, who cares if you can smother it in peanut sauce. A little more heat in the peanut sauce would have been nice to balance out the sweetness. Still, it was very good.
There is usually a seaweed-salad selection, and the two that I've tried were delicious. A crisp lettuce salad can be jarring on these increasingly cold days. Winter weather lends itself to softer salads with sea vegetables, which are either cooked or soaked to tenderness. The arame salad with corn and carrots was light and yet surprisingly filling. Hijiki is more substantial than most seaweeds, and it's heavy, almost woody flavor makes a great base for a winter salad. Four Seasons' version featured hijiki and carrots with a fairly traditional mirin and soy sauce seasoning. The only problem was the carrots, which were raw and cut into large, fat chunks. They were clunky in the mouth and would have been better cut longer and lightly steamed so they could absorb the flavors around them.
Make sure to sample the humus, which, unlike a lot of health-store versions, was smooth and creamy. The flavor popped bright, as if someone had just switched on the lights in a dark room. Lovely.
The sushi roll had a nice combination of vegetables brought so alive by a salty sour hit of umeboshi paste that I almost didn't care that the nori had grown a bit limp from sitting on the buffet line.
Four Seasons' gourmet approach is both its strength and occasional weakness. The more complicated dishes -- a wonderful artichoke heart salad with parsley and capers, for example -- show a rare level of precision with flavors. Some of the more pedestrian staples of health-food store fare didn't always show the same attention to detail. The brown rice was rather tasteless and a little soggy. Some of the beans -- a pink bean stew, for example -- were wonderful, while other bean dishes were undercooked.
Health food desserts have a bad reputation, but there are gems to be found at Four Seasons. The oatmeal-chocolate-chip cookies were so good I managed to get raves from a co-worker who won't touch vegan sweets. (I didn't tell him until after he'd tasted it.) A vegan pear pie with a nice crust and fragrant pieces of pear was undone by the heavy use of an arrowroot thickener, which gave everything a chalky taste.
How much you pay for a meal at Four Seasons depends on how much you pile on your plate, but I managed a hearty lunch for between $7 and $10. If Four Seasons were near my office, I would eat lunch there once a week.
Celina Ottaway writes about food and life at CelinaBean.com. She can be reached at Cottawaytimesunion.com.
Four Seasons Natural Foods Cafe
33 Phila St.
Saratoga Springs
Phone: 584-4670
Web site: http://www.fourseasonsnaturalfoods.com
Cafe Hours: 11:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily
Credit cards: All major cards accepted
Parking/access: On-street parking and pistachio pudding salad adjacent city lot; not accessible to wheelchairs.
Atmosphere: A buffet bar in the back of the health food store. There is a small but cute dining area to eat in, as well as take-out containers. At night, the dining tables have candles on them.
Prices: The buffet bar is $7.49 a pound. Soups are $2.50 a cup; desserts, breads and focaccia pizza slices are sold separately.
Extras: There is a wide selection of condiments on top of the buffet, including umeboshi vinegar, tamari, Saratoga balsamic and broccoli salad with raisins and sunflower seeds honey concentrate, and Melinda's Original Habanero Hot Pepper Sauce. The cafe also offers a wide selection of made-to-order juices and smoothies.
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