The food and atmosphere all provide a sense of comfort, while the all vegetarian or vegan menu provides tasty, fun options.
The staff are reasonably attentive, and are all bilingual in French and English, and the food represents good value. In Moncton, which like all of Atlantic Canada provides few options for vegetarians, Calactus Cafe provides a very important option in a region that has very few such options.
Loved the veggie burger!
Pros: great food, good serviceA perhaps vegetarian accompanying my vegetarian daughter. Amazingly good soup & sandwich. Not cheap - but not unreasonable. A return is definite.
Pros: friendly service, quality offering, pleasant atmosperePassing thru Moncton. Came across this great veg restaurant. Very busy which is a good sign. Dined there two days in a row. Loved it!
Pros: Friendly, Great menu, Will work with your diet perksAs a vegan there are almost no places for me to go out and eat at. I am so happy to have at least one really good restaurant to go to. Calactus has a very nice atmosphere, always having a fresh flower on the table and candles lit. The food is amazing, I am able to veganize almost all items on the menu. Instead of cheese on the lasagna or mushroom cannelloni they bake tofu cream balls. It's absolutely delicious! The veggie quesadilla appetizer with tofu cream instead of cheese is yum, the lasagna yum, the pakoras with prune chutney yum, the marc burger yum, the garden salad yum, the fruit smoothie yum, need I go on? The only problem is the price. It's definitely a treat when I go there, because it adds up fast if you are getting appetizers and desserts or drinks. You get what you pay for though. Healthy, good quality meals. I will be back soon. :)
Pros: Vegan friendly, Options to alter meals, HealthyWe were recently in the East coast of Canada and were very pleasantly surprised to find the Calactus Cafe.
It was a nice night and we sat on the patio which was very relaxing.
Our waitress's name was Andrea and she was a delight and was very knowledagble about the menu. The restaurant is ovo lacto but every thing can be made vegan.
My husband started with the minestrone soup which he said was great.
He then had the enchalada with soy meat and cashew "cheese" and it came with guacamole and rice salsa & chips . It was a huge plateful and was very good and welcome in a province that only knows from lobster every where !!!!
I had the black bean borrito with tofu "cream "and it came with guacamole salsa and chips and ahuge mound of rice.
It was all very yummy.
We even had a choc brownie for desert which was a delight.
I would return to Calactus Cafe if I was in Moncton again.
Calactus is an excellent restaurant.
The food is all veg and very vegan friendly.
I highly recommend it and we are actually eating there again tonight..
My favorite is the Indian pizza with Tofu cream instead of cheese with the shalome salad
And of course the pakoras as an app are not to be missed.!!
Great spot!! Very veg and raw vegan friendly.
Food is not gourmet, but we enjoy eating there non-the-less. Their salads could use some work. Highly recommended! Best vegetarian restaurant in Moncton.
All vegetarian menu!
We arrived in Moncton at the end of our two-week vacation in Atlantic Canada, and this was our first stop in town. The inside of the restaurant is lovely and the service was warm and attentive. We arrived between lunch and dinner and so the restaurant was not too crowded. My kids loved the decor and were very happy when the waitress brought coloring pencils and paper.
My children ordered the mini lasagna bolonese, a kids' veggie burger and a small falafel plate. My husband had a veggie burger and I had the "Calactus Club," if I remember correctly. We also ordered some green salads. The restaurant does not offer non-dairy cheese but the cheese can be omitted from dishes if requested. We also ordered the fruit smoothies (blueberry, strawberry, banana) which were a hit. There was a nice selection of wine, and my husband and I each ordered a glass.
I can completely understand why people love this restaurant. The food was very fresh and carefully prepared. However, I did not love the dressing on my salad or my sandwich. There was a very pungent herb used in both--I think it was the rosemary--that gave it a bitter flavor. My girls did not like their lasagna with the chunks of zucchini and vegetables, although they did pick out the noodles. I am told the veggie burgers and the falafel plate were tasty. We ordered two desserts, and both were tasty.
I forget what our bill was, but I wasn't that surprised. It was comparable to what we would have paid in New York, and we had ordered a lot of food. Of course, we were not in New York, but during our entire two week vacation I found there were not many bargains at restaurants in Canada. We would have returned but we were only in Moncton for a short time.
Pros: good food, friendly staff, pleasant interiorWe came here on an east coast trip b/c we'd heard so much about it and waited outside til the restaurant opened (we waited with two other groups - that's how popular this place is).
It's in a nowhere section of industrial Moncton in an unremarkable building, but the interior is warm (feels tropical) and inviting. The staff was friendly (some were of the French Canadian family who owns it). But food - oh my - was everything people said it would be.
We had a massive hummous platter, a falafel plate, and a curry sandwich. The hummous was robust and fresh and came with unforgettable pesto-infused pita bread. The falafel was, without exaggerating, the best falafel I've ever had (tiny, crispy, with chunky bits of chickpea in it and a magical flavour with garlic overtones), and I live in downtown T.O., where you can't throw a pita without hitting a joint that serves it.
We ended up taking the sandwich home we were so stuffed.
Not cheap, but reasonable considering quality and quantity.
Pros: beautiful atmosphere, tastiest place in the province, friendlyWho would've thought the best food we'd have on our Canadian vacation would've been in Moncton, NB? I wish I could eat here everyday. The salads are marvelous, the sandwiches and homemade breads are amazing. We went there on the way in and on the way out of Canada. Taste, presentation, service, setting--this place has it all. I think you have to go outside of Atlantic Canada to find a better veg meal.
Pros: Taste, Healthiness, Service
Jeffrey
Hi Patrick, I thought your review was great. I'll definitely try it the next time I travel up the coast.
I consider myself to be a pretty good vegan cook, so I am often deeply dissapointed in restaurant "vegan" meals. Imagine my elation when I sat down at my table at Calctus and opened the menu to read that all choices were available in vegan options!
I would have been happy to try any dish on the menu. That's a first for me. Every single dish appealed to me.
I drooled over the options and finally chose a simple cup of coffee, pakoras for a starter then an entrée of a falafel and hummus flute with a side garden salad.
The coffee arrived at my table freshly made a la espresso style: still steaming and foamy. I actually put the cup under my nose and inhaled deeply. The scent was perfection. The best cup of coffee I've ever had in a restaurant.
Shortly after my pakoras with prune chutney arrived. This was my first taste of pakoras, a snack of shredded veggies, dipped in a chickpea flour batter and deep-fried.
I had my first bite: so yummy! I admit, I was intimidated by the prune chutney. But I figured as long as I was trying pakoras for the first time, I should just give the chutney a little taste too. I am glad I did. It was the perfect accompaniment to the pakoras. Note: the pakoras were cooked immediately before serving, none of that pre-cooking of food here.
My entrée, the falafel and hummus flute was huge. I mean there was no way I could have eaten it all in one sitting even if I had forgone the appetizer.
The "Flutes" at Calactus are huge wraps: filled to the brim with the freshest ingredients. My falafel and hummus flute was served with the just cooked & crunchy falafel, cool veggies and the most amazing hummus.
The salad was a fresh combination of recently chopped veggies. This was not some bagged lettuce combination "salad" like one you'd receive from one of those national chains.
The atmosphere was beautiful: lightly coloured walls and artwork, happy music playing (perhaps Punjabi?), and every customer I observed had a smile on her or his face.
This meal was bar-none the best meal I have ever had in a restaurant.
Service was friendly and calm. They have obviously found the perfect people to work in this little piece of culinary heaven.
Herbivore, omnivore, I encourage you to stop by this friendly, casual restaurant which I'm sure will leave you completely fixated on your next trip to Moncton, NB.
Pros: quality, freshness & taste, wide selection, atmosphereCalactus you have grown so much, some lunches we are lined up waiting. The best part we get to see what the patrons are ordering. We get to smell all the wonderful aromas. We get hungry; but thats ok after all its not McDonalds!
We know good food takes time, enjoying it takes time, and you let us you serve with a smile you make mistakes with a smile and you correct them all with a smile. All my years coming (even the original yellow house) Calactus I love this restaurant, are prices steep on some things but the menus states the prices! Please don't ever change!
This is one of my favorite places to be in Moncton. The atmosphere, first of all, is pleasant and calming. The decor is leafy-green, slightly reminiscent of the East, not too fancy, but beautiful, especially the central fountain. The waiters are friendly without exception. Once I went and ordered some pizza, but realized with the stomachache I had I really didn't want to eat it. So I asked for some soup instead, and they just gave me the pizza to take-out, no questions asked. The menu is varied and priced comparatively to any decent restaurant, with better food than the average. Anything on the menu can be made vegan, and whatever I order, I make sure it has some of their incredible tofu "cheese"! I've tried quite a large portion of the menu. Everything has been unquestionably delicious. I really love the 1/2 pizza, 1/2 salad option, which is so customizable and great if you don't have a huge appetite. Also, I think that even though they have grown in popularity, the service is faster. When I went with a big family group, even though the restaurant was full, we all had our meals within 15-20 minutes of ordering. It's truly excellent in every way. Go to Calactus, you'll love it!
Pros: Reasonably priced, Delicious, FriendlyI absolutely love everything about this restaurant! Everything I've ever had from here has been phenomenal; end of story! Even the coffee they serve is wonderful! Seriously, I would drop by just for the coffee alone. The service is good, the prices are reasonable. The only tiny suggestion I would make is to make the place a little more kid-friendly; the addition of a small playroom perhaps? Or, even some crayons and a coloring book would help. Although, my daughter always loves to check out the water fountain when we're there. I'm not even vegetarian and this is my hands-down favorite place to eat.
Pros: excellent food, healthy cuisine, wonderful coffeeOk, the food in this place ... really frickin'good. We make special trips to Moncton just to go to Calactus. Unlike many vegetarian restaurants, who sometimes forget that "bland" is not a flavor, the food here is always fresh and tasty. The other nice feature is the variety in menu items. For a vegan living in a city without a vegetarian restaurant, menu variety usually means deciding what kind of salad dressing I would like.
They will do just about anything on the menu vegan, (ask for the cheese to be replaced with tofu cream). I usually get the pizza / salad combo, since getting a half-decent vegan pizza or salad at a chain restaurant is nearly impossible. My wife loves the Indian entrée.
The staff is friendly and helpful. The prices were more or less consistent with what you would pay at a good non-veggie sit-down restaurant.
Pros: excellent food, reasonable prices, variety
The place is outrageously expensive. I think it was ~13.00 for JUST a veggie burger!!! I ordered a disgusting appetizer to go! I refused to pay those prices. They gave me some pieces of raw celery and carrots for like 6 bucks!!! with a dip and a little bread(which tasted awful) Ridiculous!! For someone who likes to eat out at a vegetarian restaraunt at least a couple times a week, this is completely unaffordable so I never eat there. There's not much in the way of selection for vegetarian food in moncton. I'd highly recommend zen gardens. Its a very peaceful little cafe house with affordable prices. 6 bucks for sushi.....4 dollars for dumplings(which is not enough alone for a meal at lunch!) Also, there's a descent new indian restaurant at killam and mountain called asian garden. They have a lunch special for chana masala and rice for only 4.99!
I've eaten at Calactus once, and frankly, I was disappointed. The food was great, but the portions were tiny and although the menu seemed reasonably priced, the portions were too small, so you had to order more food to fill yourself up. I'm not sure if it's the particular time we went and they skimped on food because they were very busy or whether it's like that all the time. As an active vegan, I eat quite a bit although regular restuarant dishes leave me stuffed, so as you can see I have a reasonable opinion.
Pros: good food, vegan friendlyI currently live in Toronto but am in Moncton a lot. I love Calactus. The food is amazing and the people who run it really care about what they are serving. The parfaits are amazing (my favourite dessert -- it's made with a whipped tofu). Soups are very good.. I love the falafel there and they make the BEST hummus ever! I also like the Mexican platter and the "Marc" burger but the place is not vegan it is vegetarian so they will some items vegan by omitting the cheese (this works better with some items then others). Lots of vegan choices though. Their patio is nice and they serve beer or wine. No problem getting service in French or English here.. Entrees are about $8-12 or so...
Pros: Food, Atmosphere, QualityI recently dined here with a couple friends it has an amazing atmosphere including a waterfall fall! The staff are friendly - although they do have heavy french accents they are amazing! I ordered a Marjerita pizza , but because I do not eat cheese they allowed me to sub it for any other item-I picked brcolli-and they did not charge me extra! The price was really good too I had water that pizza ( which was large) and brownies for around $12 would definitely go there again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Pros: Good Food and Atmosphere, Excellent Food and Staff, Clean
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Pardon me for suggesting that, but on such a dull, rainy day and given Moncton's unforgiving architecture, it certainly felt like it. :-)
The reviewer below wrote "a nowhere section of industrial Moncton in an unremarkable building." Calactus is actually located within walking distance of downtown and the university. It's about a 7 minute walk to Main Street.