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I was invited to review the new vegan and vegetarian menu at the Ritual Café – I took up the invite without further ado – simply because it is right up my alley – vegan and vegetarian. Johannesburg – Vegans & Vegetarians this is a little gem that will most certainly satisfy your appetite when it comes to tasty, flavorful vegan and vegetarian foods

I am not easily impressed with vegan and vegetarian dishes and just find that very often – people sacrifice “flavour” when catering for vegans or vegetarians, and the other thing that really bugs me is that most people don’t take the time and effort to understand what being vegan and vegetarian is all about. Don’t even think this – ‘ask a vegetarian person – to just take the vegetables of a platter or dish that has meat as well” – because this is definitely a “no-no”. Being a vegetarian means – just that – Vegetarian – which means not eating meat, fish, chicken or egg – so we can’t just take the veggies out the meat.

Sean the owner and chef at “Ritual Cafe” is vegan himself – Yippee!! Bonus – he actually understands what being vegan or vegetarian is all about and he has respect for the vegans and vegetarians choice of lifestyle. There is no mixing of utensils in his kitchen – vegans and vegetarians can have a delicious meal with full confidence that their meal is authentically vegan or vegetarian – no corners cut and no compromises made.

The starters we ordered were divine – a vegan samosa with a creamy cashew nut and chick pea filling- was a first for me and bursting with flavour, my son had the blue cheese pancake – which he enjoyed and my main was a bean and potato curry served with basmati rice (cooked to perfection), tomato and onion salsa + a crisp poppadum for sheer authenticity – it was a typical Durban curry – but just with a hint of “hot”. I generally do not enjoy curries at restaurants – but this was just a good bowl of authentic vegetarian curry. My son had a quinoa, spinach, avocado and cashew nut salad served with a soy dressing – this dish was perfect in every way – no shortage of quinoa or avocado or cashew nuts on the plate – there really was one gripe that we had with the food – and that was the portions were far too big – unbelievable value for money.

For me the dessert was the very best – a vegan coconut and lime panna cota – my first time eating a panna cota and I loved it – I will be most certainly returning and this time I am going to order the dishes the “Guajarati” way – dessert first for sure!!