Reality Bites Cafe

We had lunch here. Good cabinet food selections for Vege & Vegan. Vegan curry vegetable pie, salads, wraps & various desserts are offered. Moderate pricing and tasty, fresh ingredients.

This cafe has gone out of its way to cater for vegetarian, gluten free, paleo and vegan diners. Lots of choices for great lunches and also cakes/sweet treats. I had a very nice 'vegan pie and salad' which was a veggie curry filled pie and salad. The pie was particularly good. My wife had the vegan salads. I was tempted by the vegan cheesecake to finish on which was also very nice. The cafe is located in a mall on the main street, fairly basic surroundings but ok. This place is definitely worth a visit if you are in Rangiora.

What a delight to find this cafe in the heart of a rural town where you wouldn't really expect 'real' vegan food. Situated in a little mall, next to the New World supermarket with lots of parking behind the arcade, it is easy to find and spacious. Lovely helpful staff and lots of clearly labelled vegan and paleo options. Excellent range of organic juices and they even make their own cashew milk for coffee (thought they offer soy too). On the day I went, the (vegan) soup was roasted tomato. I skipped soup as I wanted dessert later so started with the mains. We shared the vegan curried veg and cashew pie which was lovely. I ordered it with salad as all the salads are vegan. But I could have had it with wedges or fries. The vegan burger was really good - big fat tasty burger patty served with excellent fries that looked home made. It was a very generous serving. For dessert, we ordered a raw chocolate avocado cheesecake, a cappuccino pie and a cardamom apricot coconut cup. I liked them all but my fav was the cappucino pie. They sell Nice Cream tubs so we got one of the mini tubs of vanilla ice cream and ate that with our desserts.
I spoke to the owner who is lovely and so passionate about bringing vegan and raw options to this community. The other diners were very mixed - don't think I have ever been in a cafe that caters for me alongside the 'typical' NZer. Wonderful to be able to all eat together and to expose the everyday person to a range of foods they wouldn't otherwise ever know about.