1 Filtered Review of Orchid Vegetarian Cafe

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Avatar Robinson

Robinson

Points +23

Vegan
08 Jan 2018

Worst ever expereince at a so called vegetarian restaurant

Had a chance to be at Gold Coast in dec 2017 along with my wife. We were quite eager to try out a new place for dining and were searching for a 'All Vegetarian' restaurant. Were were delighted to know that what we were searching for was just 50 meters away from where we were staying and we thought it to be a blessing that we will be able to eat all 5 days at an 'All Vegetarian' restaurant.
But it was a weird moment for us when we saw 'Poached Egg' on their menu.Upon inquiry, the lady owner gave a lame response 'it is just served as part of our breakfast menu' , we are 'All Vegetarian' for the rest of the day. We could not get across this response but still we tried to ignore it for a while as we were super hungry. we had a quick glance at the menu she had put for us on the table and then chose to eat pizza.I requested the lady owner if she could bake us a Pizza but she need to make sure the cooking ware she will use doesn't have any traces of egg or items that contain egg. She didn't understand what i meant and kept on clarifying what exactly we needed.
We decided to let her make pizza for us , her own way.
While she prepared to bake pizza for us, we realized, she didn't had the raw material to make Pizza for us and she did quite a few rounds to the shop just next door (a Sudanese shop that sells every possible meat based delicacy) to gather the mozzarella cheese, chilli sauce. We asked for Chilli flakes, she said she doesn't keep those. And we wondered what sort of restaurant that was.The pizza made for had a pizza base with a weird taste and smelled like a rotten veggie.
We somehow managed to eat what was presented as Pizza but we ended up with an upset stomach.
I strongly suggest not to visit this place unless they change their definition of a 'Vegetarian Restaurant'

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CarlaVieira

15 Jan 2018

Dear Robertson,

I'm truly sorry to hear about your experience, especially knowing that you looked us up for being Vegetarian. Yes, we are 100% Vegetarian according to the Vegetarian Society definition of being Vegetarian: "A vegetarian is someone who lives on a diet of grains, pulses, legumes, nuts, seeds, vegetables, fruits, fungi, algae, yeast and/or some other non-animal-based foods (e.g. salt) with, or without, dairy products, honey and/or eggs. A vegetarian does not eat foods that consist of, or have been produced with the aid of products consisting of or created from, any part of the body of a living or dead animal. This includes meat, poultry, fish, shellfish*, insects, by-products of slaughter** or any food made with processing aids created from these."

We offer fantastic vegetarian meals with or without eggs anytime of the day, not only breakfast. It is also our policy to check with our customers their dietary preferences, as we know that some vegetarians do not eat egg. We do have a wide range of egg and dairy free meals as a big part of our regular customers is vegan. I'm really sorry that having egg on our menu has offended you so much, it was never our intention.

Would you be able to tell us the date you visited the store? I'd love to find out who looked after you, "lady owner" doesn't ring the bell as the owner is a male.

I'm also very surprised to hear about the pizza. Ensuring our food is always fresh is our priority, hence our 5 star rating from the local council. We have inspections fairly regularly and their assessment reveals that we comply with the highest standards of food safety.

I really hope in the future if you come to the Gold Coast again, we are able to be of your service.

Kind regards,
Carla
Manager