I HAD called once to make my reservation, and then again to confirm it, but it wasn't until I telephoned to say I was running late that I really heard the greeting.

"Thank you for calling Ubuntu," a woman chirped, pausing for a comma before adding, "restaurant and yoga studio."

And yoga studio?

Somehow that hadn't sunk in before. And the way she said it, putting the lotus on a par with the lettuce, filled me with skepticism about this promised vegetarian Eden in the Edenic Napa Valley.