Marco Polo has a great reputation as the place to go for vegetarian and vegan fare. I've recently gone on a full vegetarian diet (see June 17th's Salem Weekly for my first person account of being a vegetarian for the past 30 days) and Marco Polo has remained at the top of the list for places to go and check out.

My lunch companion and I arrived at Marco Polo in the middle of what would be normally considered lunch rush. The restaurant was quite full, but we were seated very quickly and handed a single page, but two-sided menu. The front of the lunch menu is split between Chinese and Vegetarian. The back of the menu includes sections for European, appetizers, salads, and side orders.

The prices are considerably cheaper than one would guess based on the appearance and reputation of Marco Polo. I was expecting to plunk down $15 for lunch, but was happily surprised to find that lunch starts at $6.95. You get a choice of entree, dessert, and appetizer of the day.

I ordered the sweet and sour tofu lunch special with noodles and a cup of hot and sour soup. The waiter told us that the egg flower soup uses a chicken base, but that the hot and sour was vegetarian, but not vegan. From this new vegetarian's standpoint, bonus points were awarded for the waiter taking the time to acknowledge the difference.

The soup arrived quickly, but the food arrived even faster. We had both barely touched our soups before the food was on the table. This is a positive (hooray, food!) and negative (boo, cold food!) as we both finished our soup before starting on the entrees.

The sweet and sour tofu was very strong in pineapple. There were a handful of broccoli, a single cauliflower, and a number of spiral carrot slices. There was a large portion of tofu, much larger than other Chinese restaurants. The only thing that was more abundant on the plate were large chunks of pineapple. The consistency of the tofu was just about right. It was drenched in sweet and sour sauce, which again was mainly pineapple. Hours later, I was still tasting pineapple.

My companion ordered General Tso's chicken with brown rice and egg flower soup. The presentation of the meal was appealing to her. She was also impressed with the selection of different rices. She ended up choosing the brown rice. It came in a conservative portion, in a flavor that wasn't consistent with the expectation from homemade rice. The portion of chicken was large, and the pieces of chicken were ample.

Also included my meal was a samosa, which was the first time that I had one. Not to downplay the entire entree, but the appetizer was one of the highlights. It's similar to a spring roll, but triangular in shape, filled with a variety of vegetables.

The dessert was a small piece of cake. It was a chocolate swirl with no icing. It was a good portion for the large meal that was just consumed. There was a slightly different taste, but both my companion and I wrote it off as something that was "healthy." I suspect that the cake was gluten-free after seeing an award for a gluten-free association while checking out. The menu nor waiter made mention of gluten-free desserts.

Our waiter seemed to get busy sometime between entrees being sat down and the end of our meal. Both of the table's iced teas remained empty for the majority of the meal. At some point, the dessert and check were sat down beside the two empty glasses. I'm willing to write it off as being swamped during lunch rush, but it was an exclamation point to the other problems with the food.

As the premiere vegetarian restaurants, Marco Polo didn't disappoint. There is, however, room for improvement both in the customer service after ordering and in the food itself.