Photo courtesy Peter MumfordA couple weeks ago, I posted what I thought was a fairly innocuous piece about vegans, vegetarians and the search for some decent cruelty-free barbecue. What someone should’ve reminded me of was that, these days, there is simply no such thing as an “innocuous piece about vegans and vegetarians.” Everyone on the sprouts-and-berries side of this argument has such a hair-trigger temper and a willingness to go totally fucking nuclear over any perceived slight or threat to their delicate constitutions that simply mentioning the word vegan in any post is enough to get the trolls all in an uproar. And on Team Pork Chop? Sorry, but things aren’t much better. Getting any kind of discussion going between these two antagonistic parties is kind of like that joke about the optimist and the pessimist: The pessimist says, “Woe is me, isn’t this terrible… Things can’t possibly get any worse.” And the optimist replies, “Oh, yes they can.”In this initial post, I asked what I thought was a simple question: Since every time I write about barbecue it seems that there are hordes of vegans telling me (not asking me, telling) that I ought to really try meatless barbecue, would it be possible if some of these helpful folks actually offered me a suggestion where such a thing as “meatless barbecue” could be found?What I got was a lot of scorn, a lot of name-calling, but not a lot in the way of useful answers. All I wanted was a place that did proper barbecue (offering something smoked and presented in at least a vague approximation of the real thing) for vegans, and I’d asked with the intention of actually, you know, going there and eating said barbecue to see if it was any good. Like any restaurant critic or food writer is supposed to do. Like and curious and open-minded gastronaut might. I wasn’t looking to pick a fight. As anyone whose read me for any length of time already knows, I’m not coy about my likes and dislikes. When I’m looking for a (literary) scrap, you’ll know. This was a question posed out of honest curiosity and leveled in the hope that a consensus answer could be reached.What I got was two suggestions. Total. And one of them was for a place in Portland. Over the course of 50 or 100 comments and emails, what emerged was only that a vegan with a taste for smoked soy products had, essentially, one choice: Sage Cafe on Capitol Hill.But hey, one is better than none, right? So I set out to give Sage a formal review, working under the same rules that I always do when doing formal criticism: how well does this restaurant represent the canon or cuisine it cooks from? How does it stack up against similar restaurants that I’ve visited over the last ten, twenty or thirty years? What sort of surprises does it offer for the engaged, interested eater, and what does it do for the average Joe on the street? And most importantly, how is the fucking food?In the back of my mind, I was also considering it in terms of the specific question I’d posed way back in that first blog post: Is there vegan barbecue here and, if so, how does it stack up? Not against other vegan cuisine, but against other barbecue. I wrote a tease for the review yesterday in which I gave very little away in regards to my final opinion of the place. Unsurprisingly, the kind-to-animals crowd went totally batshit crazy–assuming without evidence that I’d hated the place simply because I am a man who likes a bit of meat now and then. And when I admitted to sometimes smuggling in my own bacon or chicken with me when reviewing vegan and vegetarian restaurants, the troops went double batshit crazy–demanding, among other things, my arrest and/or immediate firing.All of which just made me laugh. The reason for the bacon-smuggling? It’s simple. Of all the foundational canons and cuisines out there in the great, wide world, it is only the -isms (veganism, vegetarianism, et cetera) which base their style around lack–around that which can’t be had as opposed to all that is available. And because I am of the opinion that restaurant reviews are only worth a damn when each restaurant is reviewed straight up, comparing food to food absent all other concerns and conditions, any cuisine based around copycatting existing foods while concerning itself primarily with the willful dismissal of whole families of ingredients must be compared primarily to the foods being copied. Is the Buffalo chicken sandwich any good when it is made with fried seitan? The only good way to determine that is to compare it to the same thing when made with chicken. And because no chicken is being offered to me, sometimes I will bring my own.This isn’t a game I play in Indian restaurants, by the way. Or when eating dosa, or when enjoying a plate of snow peas in black bean sauce at a Chinese restaurant. Though equally vegetarian, none of these are attempting to ape a Philly cheesesteak or a hotdog. The protein wasn’t deliberately removed, just unnecessary.Anyway, those of you who have read the review now know that I actually liked Sage a lot. I didn’t really expect to. And I might’ve walked into the place with my expectations down around my ankles. But this is a restaurant which, in some ways, has risen above the scrum and the battles over moral and ethical superiority and concerns itself simply with making good food that happens to have no meat in it. It’s got cooks who behave like cooks–doing good by whatever ingredients are at hand–and a mindset that while protein might be one of the major food groups, it is only that: ONE. Removing it still leaves plenty of options for a smart, creative and committed cook. And that is something that I will always respect.As for the barbecue? Sage wins, specifically with its “D’s BBQ Joint” barbecue wrap. It operated within the very loose rules I set up weeks ago. It was totally vegan. And it tasted better than the worst pork or beef-based barbecue I’d ever had–which was all I asked of it.But again, Sage surprised me. Because the D’s BBQ Joint? It was significantly better than the worst barbecued meat I’ve ever had. Matter of fact, it was better than some of the middle-of-the-road stuff I’ve eaten. True, it was messy. Wrapped in lavash and soaked down with an overly-sweet barbecue sauce, it was difficult to eat in any civilized fashion. But taking it to pieces and eating it with my fingers, I found that the smoked seitan and tofu that made up the heart of the thing were both, in their own way, rather delicious. The tofu had weight and solidity–a mass that gave it a texture similar to brisket. And the seitan held onto the smoke flavor well, stood up to the sweetness of the sauce, and pulled apart in a way that was not wholly different than eating pulled pork.I was impressed–enough that I ate the entire sandwich and still kinda wanted some more. What’s more, I was happy. I was glad that there was a BBQ option out there for those who don’t believe that 14 hours in a smoker is the highest achievement to which any pig can aspire. I am a proud carnivore but, more importantly, I am a man who loves food and loves knowing that other people love food. To live a life without any kind of barbecue had always seemed an unjust cruelty to me–one suffered by those whose strength of conviction is more powerful than their appetite. So knowing now that there is a place for the vegans to get their fix was both a relief and a victory for BOTH sides of this debate.