The Chilean sea bass is plump and moist but the fish in the cioppino seems of varying quality and the vegetarian pasta is unrelievedly dull.

Chicken quesadillas, vegetarian pasta and pan-seared trout taste mighty fine here after a day's outing.

The vegetarian pasta, pappardelle with seasonal wild mushrooms, tomatoes, asparagus and fresh sage in a mushroom broth, was earthy, tender and fully satisfying.

Compensating for diet-sized tagines and no alcohol licence are ample vegetarian pastas and a decadent bastilla chocolat, filo pastry lined with apricots and almonds and doused with chocolate.

The bean burritos are real winners, and the vegetarian pasta a treat for those suffering from a surfeit of meaty Cameroonian stews.

You might also try the rabbit and rattlesnake sausages, or vegetarian pastas.

SOME go there for the vegetarian pasta.

Even a vegetarian pasta, so often a nonevent, was a flavor-packed treat: fresh green and white linguine with chopped orange and red cherry tomatoes, a healthy dose of roasted garlic and a blizzard of grated ricotta salata.

Restaurants offering the ones a lightened Italian cuisine make salads of shrimp and artichokes or vegetarian pasta combining artichokes with garlic and ricotta cheese.

Later, over plates of steaming mussels and vegetarian pasta, and a bottle of a very fine Bordeaux, she asked the question that was burning in her mind.