Restaurant Review: Little Lad's Bakery & Cafe

[Edit: Were you instead looking for a recipe for Little Lad's herbal popcorn?]

Little Lad's Bakery & Cafe, 482 Congress Street, Portland ME.

Ok, so when I said that the Green Elephant might be Portland's only fully vegetarian restaurant, I completely forgot about Little Lad's. Little Lad's is a family run, completely affordable, totally vegetarian, quirky restaurant and pusher of the infamously addictive Little Lad's Popcorn. The place is part buffet, part short order restaurant, part ice cream stand, part grocery store, part snack emporium. I often see the wait staff from the Green Elephant eating there. Best part: when I walk in, I am invariably greeted by a "Hello brother!" It sort of makes my day.


The food is of the old school vegetarian style—mostly one pot dishes. But that's what this place is all about: super affordable, completely accessible, healthy, simple. Filling a plate from the buffet will cost you less than $5.00. The dishes may not all be whole foods, but they mostly are. The only drawback to the place is that you have to prepare to be indoctrinated by the VCR in the corner, which plays speeches by, oddly enough, vegetarian Christians, and documentaries about religion and nutrition. But somehow, it's not too in your face. The family running the place is so sincerely nice, that's it's really hard to be bothered by anything while you're there.

There are other Little Lad's too: one in New York City and one in Corinth, Maine, of all places. And another about to open (I think) in Boston.