Copper Branch = Where you eat if you’re craving poutine or a burger…and you’re gluten free or vegan – because what you’re left with when you get rid of the bun, the cheese, the gravy and the burger at a regular snackbar is, essentially, a piece of lettuce.
And that’s awfully sad.
To remedy that unfairness, Copper Branch has launched as a new chain restaurant that’s 100% vegan and mainly gluten free. They do Tex-mex rice bowls, Mediterranean quinoa bowls and Asian-inspired noodle bowls where you choose your protein and grain or seed base, plus a couple of vegetarian burgers (hurray for offering more than the standard mixed grain or tofu patty), sandwiches, and that poutine I mentioned (baked fries with a portobello-carrot juice-coconut sauce and Daiya mozzarella style shreds). They also do juices, banana-banana loaf, smoothie bowls, granola and amped up quinoa porridge for breakfast.
It’s expensive compared to La Panthère Verte and it’s not all organic like Crudessence, but it’s convenient (there are multiple locations) and the food is generally eco-responsible and non-GMO.
I’ve made recipes for healthy-ish versions of poutine at home before, and lots of baked black bean or sweet potato burgers, but when you need to grab something quickly, you’re not about to hit up the nearest La Belle Province for a feed. Besides, the idea of a cheeseburger without the stomach ache and days of queasiness is pretty tempting.
But how does it taste?
1. MEDITERRANIO bowl with quinoa and basil olive oïl dressing. Those sundried tomatoes and eggplant, zucchini and sweet potato aren’t deep-fried, but they sure are drenched in oil, which soaks into the chickpeas, broccoli, beets, sprouted mung beans, turnip and lettuce before you even think of pouring on the basil olive oil dressing. After eating this, it took me four months to return to the restaurant to try other items. But if I’d just asked for less oil and for the dressing on the side, I think I would have been okay.
2. AZTEC bowl with Brown rice, tempeh and Basil Olive Oil Dressing. This was much better. There are a ton of flavours going on thanks to that roasted (still super oily) sweet potato with guacamole and vegan sour cream. But why you need a basil olive oil dressing on top of those is beyond me. I saved it for salad dressing for the rest of the week. All this bowl needed was a corn tortilla and it’d be a fiesta, thanks to the above and the corn and mango salsa and black beans. It also came with pumpkin seeds and the same veggie mix as the other bowls (broccoli, beet, turnip, lettuce, organic sprouted mung beans) for heft.
3. MUSHROOM GALAXY BURGER on gluten-free bread. I’d heard the burgers were the bestsellers. This oozing, gluttonous creation came with a toasted gluten free bun and heaps of balsamic vinegar-caramelized onions so thick that it took three bites to get to the portobello mushroom, with those onions pouring out of the bun every time I took a bite. Daiya vegan cheese went everywhere, I used 10 napkins, and I didn’t think it could get any greasier until I hit the aioli sauce, which is clearly superfluous.
That lettuce never stood a chance.
There’s apparently also some eggplant in there, but you wouldn’t know it, overwhelmed with cheese and onions as you’ll be. This may sound like it was awful, but it was actually amazing. I could only eat half of it for fear that my stomach might mutiny, but when you really want an indulgent vegetarian burger, this is it.
4. Another time (not after the burger…), I tried the BANANA BLUEBERRY LOAF. It was about as greasy as everything else, but that made it soft and chewy and, overall, pleasant. It’s nothing fancy, with banana, blueberry, organic cane sugar and brown rice flour, but when you want an inexpensive vegan, gluten free loaf, it’s a good call. There really aren’t many other options around Montreal.
Verdict?
I like it. I wouldn’t eat here every day. I generally prefer the crack sweet potatoes in the mixed salad plate at the Green Panther (that’s not their official name, they’re just crazy addictive). But sometimes you just really want a cheeseburger.
And know what else? They have multiple locations and they deliver.
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