Mrs Winston's Green Grocery: Have your eco-salad bar and compost your container too

Mrs Winston's Green Grocery has what I believe is the greenest, tastiest salad bar in the greater L.A. area.

The huge salad bar at this unassuming Santa Monica spot boasts everything from vegan chili to organic produce to curried tofu to tuna salad to noodles to vegan Caesar salad dressing to all manner of sprouts. Mrs Winston's also has a sandwich bar and offers a number of quick, healthful snack bars and drinks -- including a couple brands of chilled kombucha -- as well as more decadent items like vegan and organic cookies.

Around noon today, a couple friends and I joined the growing but fast-moving lunch line, picked up  compostable containers and filled them up with fresh, healthy yumminess. We then tried to guess the weight of our containers at the counter; on Fridays, if you guess the cost of your meal down to the cent, you get your food free (we failed). Then we took a seat in the sunny courtyard outside and enjoyed our meals.

Afterward, we composted our containers! While most places that offer compostable containers don't actually provide composting bins for post-meal disposal, Mrs. Winston's  has green bins lined up -- with clear signs pointing out what goes where.

Mrs Winston's Green Grocery. 2450 Colorado Ave., Santa Monica. (310) 315-2777.

Photos by Siel