Fresh vs. Fressen

I was talking with someone today about two popular vegan* restaurants in Toronto, Fresh and Fressen. Fresh has been around for ages, and I really appreciate what they've done to popularize healthy, nutritious, good vegetarian food. You can bring most meat-eaters to Fresh, and they won't notice anything missing. Fresh is pretty good, and does some things really really well (sweet potato fries anyone?). I do find, though, that everything tastes pretty similar; it all has this "Fresh" taste, which is ok, but gets kind of boring.

Fressen on the other hand is one of my favourite restaurants in the city. What they lack in generally-being-on-top-of-the-situation, they make up for with interesting food that tastes like it's fresh from the dirt without actually tasting like there's parts of dirt still in it. And I love the sharing menu. Usually, being pseudo-vegan I don't get to try anyone else's dish, but here, everyone gets a little taste of everything. The reason I don't go to Fressen more often is because it feels out of the student budget. In fact, I'd be more inclined to grab dinner at Fresh, but how much cheaper is it really? Let's find out. Typically at Fressen you order 1-2 dishes per person. For dinner for 2, I pretty much always get 3 dishes. For 4, it's usually 6.

Average main course at Fresh: $11
+ tax and 15% tip: $14.29

All dishes at Fressen: $9
* 1.5 dishes/person: $13.50
+ tax and 15% tip: $17.54

Total difference: $3.25

Hm. So $15 is more than I would spend on a regular meal out because I'm cheap and I would rather cook, but if I were going to spend $15, I would much rather shell out the extra $3.25 for the deliciousness that is Fressen, even if $3.25 does equal several chickpea doubles, or a couple cups of coffee.

The only problem, of course, is that the dessert at Fressen is irresistible, so you are unlikely to get out of there for under $20.


*Fresh does serve some cheese and such