Earth Day at the Northstar Cafe

Northstar Cafe is a staple for young hip people in Columbus with some extra money to spare. Its expensive, local, organic brunch and lunch treats are absolutely delicious and very healthy-trendy. On its website, Northstar is described as having "an imaginative menu of New American cuisine with a healthful emphasis on organic ingredients." In any case, the cool, hip person in me occasionally enjoys a lunch date with my friends at the pleasant, if pretentious, cafe, so when my friends told me that there were FREE VEGGIE BURGERS for Earth Day yesterday, I was all in. 

The best thing I've ever ordered from the menu at Northstar at going a total of 4 times is their ginger ale. Ginger Ale is already my favorite soda, but this ginger ale is made fresh at the cafe. (Side note: I've been having an internal struggle of staying true to my Ohio roots and saying pop instead of soda versus using the more universal word "soda." I feel like I'm betraying my natural linguistic tendencies, but then I also feel hokey saying it since there are so few people who use it here at the university, even though it's in Ohio. A silly thought.) The ginger ale has a lime and mint leaves floating in it, and it's particularly spicy. It's a dream. 

This is my friend Amber. She's great, she was trying to catch the straw in time for the picture. Also, she ordered the Shooting Star, which is orange, carrot, lemon and ginger juice. I tasted it; it was weird. 

The free burger usually costs 14 dollars. FOURTEEN DOLLARS. That is so many dollars for a lunch item. I wouldn't normally order the burger, because I've sort of been off veggie burgers since my three-year stint as a vegetarian in high school. However, they were free on Earth Day, so I got one!

On the menu, it's described as "Just made with organic brown rice, black beans and beets, topped with white cheddar, kale, tomato, pickle & onion + simple salad." The burger itself was a lovely reddish color from the beets (you know how I feel about beets), and the salad was really nice, with a light dressing, croutons and some sort of bitter greens.

All in all, I'd say it was a successful Earth Day! I got to enjoy a fantastic lunch with some great friends. I'm really enjoying getting to spend time with them as the weather gets nicer before I become a jetsetter this summer.

P.S. Look how pretty Mrinali is, also my little point-and-shoot camera did this. I'm only sort of impressed with myself.