Spoon & Sprout Cafe: Health Conscious and Delicious

You could stand on a corner and look around until a restaurant sign draws you in. But we've got a better idea. Each week, Bridgewater Patch picks a great restaurant either in town or nearby that is worth checking out. Here's this week's choice:

Spoon & Sprout Café

There’s a secret about Hillsborough’s Spoon & Sprout Café—and it’s not that the two-month old restaurant, located in the Kingsbridge Center, serves vegetarian food.

It’s that only the die-hard carnivores might miss the meat.

Opened by Basking Ridge resident Geetha Jayaraman, the menu is both gluten-free and sans meat, and will expand to include more items in the coming months such as spring soups, Jayaraman said.

The menu currently includes breakfast items that are available all day, like oatmeal with seasonal fruit, sandwiches—including a roasted tomato sandwich—salads and hot dishes.

“Just when I think something is not going to be popular, someone comes in and says that’s just what I wanted,” Jayaraman said.

The restaurant also sells Jayaraman’s homemade plantain chips, Grab ‘Em Snacks, and take-out is available by emailing DinnerToGo@SpoonandSproutCafe.com.

Overview: The two-month old café specializes in healthy gourmet food, with multi-cultural influences.

Décor: The café combines open spaces with brightly colored walls, creating a fresh façade that works with its healthy food.

Drinks: Freshly brewed coffee and assorted teas cost $1.95, while sodas and water are $1. The café offers specialty sodas for $1.75.

Entrees: Entrees include breakfast items, like steel-cut oatmeal and traditional fruit or an egg and cheese sandwich, salads, including a roasted beet salad and a quinoa salad, stir-fried quinoa, vegetable hot pot, Morrocan stew and Indonesian fried rice.

Desserts: It’s a choice between apricot bread pudding, caramel brownies and assorted pastries, muffins, cookies and biscotti.

Service: Service is friendly and helpful, and included a conversation with owner Geetha Jayaraman. Everything is fresh and made to order, and Jarayaman intends to shift the menu according to the season, she said. The café will also accommodate special requests.

Spoon & Sprout Café

Address: 378 South Branch Road, Hillsborough, NJ

Hours: Tues-Fri, 11:30 a.m. to 6 pm.; Saturday, 10:30 a.m to 4 p.m.

Phone: 908-333-3229

Website: SpoonandSproutCafe.com

Cost: $