• 2
• Disappointing for vegans

I went there twice on a recent trip to the Coromandel. I rang before I came and was told they had vegan food and it was not a problem. The first time I went there, it was late afternoon. I was told the cook had finished and there was no vegan food. The restaurant still had customers coming in and buying counter food. I asked if there was anything in the vast array of goods on the counter that I could eat. I was at first told no and then shown a jar of greyish biscuits and told they were vegan. They looked the most unappetising biscuits (hard and greyish) I have ever seen so I just left. I came back and tried again the next day for lunch as the wait person told me there is vegan food during the day. Sadly this time all there was on offer for vegans was felefal or a bagel and hummus. It seems this is all they ever have on offer. I was so disappointed. Falafel and bagels and hummus is basically standby vegan food – something you eat when you can’t get anything else and you're so hungry. I ordered the burger and although it was alright, the overload of chick peas both in the burger and in the hummus on the bun was not great and the meal had no creaminess (such as a tahini sauce or vegan mayo on the salad) so it was quite harsh on the stomach. I would not order this again. I felt really chick pea'd out afterwards. I was surprised again to see no vegan baked goods - I mean, how hard is it? They could do a milkshake as vegan though and so I ordered it and that was very nice. I am not a grateful vegan (i.e. one who is so delighted to be served boring and basic vegan food and grateful that a restaurant will take my money and give me food at a much lower quality) so sorry if my review seems harsh. I just think in this day and age a vegetarian restauarant should do better. Add to that a really rude counter person (he was rude to everyone, not just the vegans) and the fact that while we were there, I overheard two other vegan dining parties being given the same boring food, and it tells me that this is a vegetarian restaurant who really doesn't give a stuff about vegans and has no interest in doing interesting food for us. After I left I actually wrote to the restaurant a really nice letter asking them to reconsider their vegan choices and gifted them a vegan baking recipe book. They never responded. I don't like posting bad reviews of vegetarian restaurants, but I have given the owners an opportunity to sort it but with no response.