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• Brunch at Zenith

Zenith Tea Room is an eclectic mash-up of antiques, pop-art and meat-free food, located on Sarah Street between 25th and 26th, two blocks from East Carson. On Sundays Zenith offers their famous vegan friendly brunch from 11 am until 2:30 pm. They do serve eggs and dairy but also have multiple plant-based options, and the buffet is 100% vegan, including an ENTIRE TABLE of CAKE & PIE! (Let that sink in…) The food at Zenith is fun but inconsistent. Some of the sweeter dishes were way too sweet. The black bean salad was fresh but the salt was heavy-handed. However, the experience isn’t about the cuisine so much as the atmosphere and having a shared moment with friends and family in a visually engaging environment. And the price is unbeatable, $11.50 gets you brunch with bottomless coffee! The only real flaw with Zenith’s system is that you must order an entree to get the brunch, and unfortunately all the POP and food-fun happens in the buffet. The entrees aren’t fully realized, they’re typically stodgy without as much pizzaz. We get it, the idea is to stuff the patron with the entree and they won’t eat as much of the all-you-can-eat buffet. But this could conversely lead to food waste, as most people like us are there for the buffet salads, fresh fruit and cake. The entree is secondary and we end up eating way too much so we don’t waste the food. But as we mentioned before, the Zenith buffet is where the magic happens! A nice balance of salads, grains and pulses. Vegan picnic foods like traditional macaroni and potato salad. The spinach strawberry and sesame seed salad was lovely, as well as they the tossed chop-salad with fresh green grapes. The cold peanut noodles are a favorite of ours, perfectly executed toothy noodles in a rich peanut sauce. Lovely sweet and salty! The cherry pie is alway a go-to, we love it. Sweet tart cherry filling, summer aromas, fresh and luscious. The best part of a good pie or tart is in the bottom crust after it becomes oversaturated with fruit. Toothy, luscious and chewy. Indeed! The chocolate lavender cake was really interesting. We were unsure how that would turn out, but it worked really well. The lavender was understated and married nicely with the spongy dark cake. Well done! ecoRDN.com