Ganesh and some yantras add color to the tea room.

What’s beige on the outside and all kinds of colorful inside?

It would be easy to drive right by the bland façade of Boise’s Shangri-La Tea Room, but vegetarians should do themselves a favor and make a U-turn into the lot. You’ll find a huge selection of teas prepared by an herbalist, vegan and raw options, and a gift shop area where you can buy black cumin oil and other possibly hard-to-find items in Idaho.

Don’t be fooled by the beige facade.

Last year, the Shangri-La won the “best local vegetarian food” title from the Boise Weekly. It also bagged the title every year from 2009 to 2012. So we decided it was worth setting the GPS for a little detour on our way north to Stanley.

Curry wrap

I almost got a DLT – dulse, lettuce and tomato – sandwich. Dulse is a new superfood seaweed that supposedly tastes like bacon. But since we were headed for the wilds of the Sawtooth Mountains, I decided to play it safe and get a curry wrap. Quite delicious, with big chunks of tofu and well-cooked potatoes. My partner tried the Mediterranean pizza – which he said was good, but wasn’t very big – and we shared the Asian salad, which is made of raw cabbage, sesame seeds, carrots, peppers, green onions, sesame oil and other good stuff.

Asian salad