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• Creative veggie fusion food in a non-veg place

When we planned our day trip to Maastricht we had some difficulties to find a vegan-friendly place for lunch - which is quite astonishing for a city which is famous for its number, quality and variety of restaurants. "Umami" was not listed on Happy Cow yet. Eventually we found a vegan blog with a positive review of "Umami" and we decided to give it a try - also because of its convenient location right across the central station. We arrived at noon and were the only guests at that time, maybe because having warm lunch in a restaurant is not so much a Dutch tradition. The first pleasant surprise: the friendly waitress was a vegan! The lunch card is not big but has 4 vegan dishes: "Chuka Wakame" (Japanese seaweed salad with cucumber), "Tropical Beetroot" (beetroot salad with tropical fruit), "Buddha Mix" (three kinds of mushrooms with celery) and "Spicy Monk" (zucchini served with tofu in a spicy tomato sauce). The dishes are small and are supposed to be combined and shared. A combination of the four vegan dishes including white rice costs EUR 14.95 which is really not expensive. The food was of the kind I often miss in our veggie restaurants: delicious, creative, fresh, colorful, with surprising combinations, nicely arranged in little bowels. We did not try the dinner card, but for sure "Umami" is a good alternative when no veggie places are around - or when you just want to try something new.