I've been waiting for years to try Laughing Seed. Friends from Asheville and vegetarian publications have showered it in praise, and when the opportunity to visit Asheville and give it a try arose, I jumped to try it. I was really suprised by the dismissive and rude servers and the deeply mediocre food. My soup, a lavender potato leek soup had a lovely texture, but it was massively oversalted. My entree was a tempeh cuban sandwich, and though it had a decent flavor, the overwhelming number of moist ingredients on the bun undermined the crunchy batter on the tempeh, leaving the sandwich with a mushy texture and a homogeneous mustard flavor. My boyfriend ordered one of the daily specials, a spicy ginger tofu dish. The tofu was delicious, but the vegetables were overcooked mush swimming in a cloyingly sweet, vaguely Asian sauce. Our waitress disappeared for a very, very long time after delivering our food, so when we finally caved and asked a neighboring server for water, we were surprised when she looked and us like we'd just asked her to take her top off and do a bellydance on our tabletop. She snarled at us and when we thanked her for giving us the water, she gave us the most hateful, insincere ""thank you"" I've ever heard. Laughing Seed left us wishing we'd tried any of the other excellent looking restaurants in downtown Asheville. We certainly didn't stay for dessert.
Pros: All vegetarian menu, nice patio
Cons: Worst service ever, mediocre food, and terrible service. And rude service, btw.
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