Restaurant Review: Blue Sage Vegetarian Grille in South Hampton, PA

For my sixteenth birthday the other week, Valentina and I decided that it was the perfect time for us to drive a little further to try out an extremely recommended restaurant. Blue Sage Vegetarian Grille in South Hampton PA, located in a quaint shopping center with its pleasant service and delicious food, turned out to be all that we'd hoped for, and then some. They serve a variety of vegetarian and vegan dishes that are marked according to what they are, and the simplicity of the restaurant offers an entirely new take on how we eat.

To start, we went with Organic Stash tea. Basically, they bring out boiled water to you in a cool layered tea kettle, along with packets of different Stash teas, and you can choose them and pour your water at your leisure. We really enjoyed this for a few reasons. One, we could try out flavors we didn't normally drink. Two, we didn't have to ask the waitress for more drinks when we ran out. Last, it was delicious! Nothing is more calming than enjoying warm tea and a chat with friends in a bustling restaurant.

There were tons of appetizers to choose from, but we decided on the only vegan one available-the Mediterranean Sampler. Four small bowls (hummus, falafel balls, guacamole, ??) plus pita bread made this appetizer extremely tasty and extremely filling, pretty much to the point where it should have ideally been our meal. The pita bread, salted and most definitely white bread, was delicious but not desirable for vegetarians and vegans. I came here expecting everything to be prepared to the utmost health standards, and I was disappointed with the bread with this "vegan" app.

 Now, silly old me accidentally deleted the pictures of our main meal without sending it to myself...looks like you're going to have to imagine what it looked like!
For our main meal, we got the Blue LT to split. It consisted of metropolitan whole grain, yellow tomato and avocado crispy Asiago "bacon," pea leaves, crumbled Maytag, green Tabasco aioli, served with the house root chip mix. This was available to order dairy-free (omits the "bacon"), but we also screwed that up and ended up ordering the full meal and taking off the "bacon," which we both found too strong and unsettling. The "chips," which consisted of potato and beet mixtures, were tasty but too greasy to be our idea of "vegetarian." Once again, we had a hard time calling this a fully vegetarian restaurant when half the things we ordered were fatty and full of grease. However, we both finished our meals and called it a day. 

So, what exactly did we think of this restaurant as a whole? Well, the food was delicious, I will tell you that. We disliked the overuse of grease, but we enjoyed the simplified vegan/vegetarian/dairy-free menu that fit so many diets. The service was slow, but they were busy and the meals were beautifully prepared. The staff was extremely kind, and the small, homely setting made the restaurant a one of casualty. Out of ten,we'd reward it a seven. If you ever find yourself in South Hampton, PA, we'd highly recommend checking it out! 
-Jaimee