It was still in the same place on Davie, adjacent to the Shoppers Drug Mart. We showed up in the early afternoon and had our choice of tables. It is still not a completely vegan restaurant as I guess there is egg in some dishes.
The Deep-Fried King Oyster Mushrooms were the first interesting menu item we were moved to order. We don't do much deep frying at home during the week, so we are partial to crispy hot treats when we dine out. These may look like scallops, but they are just firm mushrooms with a crispy coating and served with vegan mayo. Simple and perfect!
Eggplant is not prized for its attractiveness when cooked, but it is a very nice platform for additional flavours. The Smokey Eggplant is on the Shareables menu and boasts Impossible meat, saline (fancy salt, I assume?), peanuts, dried shallots, and pineapple sauce! I'm not sure exactly where the smoke comes from (maybe the salino?), but it was subtly present. Very nice!
We were quite excited to try the Vegan Crispy Duck with Pancake for 2! The crispy duck itself was some kind of tofu skin (cooked crispy on the outside), and mushroom. It was a pretty impressive mock meat. Take a pancake, add some 'duck', veggies, and the Peking sauce, and you are happy. There was enough for 2, but that didn't mean we weren't going to order something else!
Despite my making a fuss about cordyceps in my last review of this place (the concept of carnivorous mushrooms definitely freaked me out), this time we ordered the Cordyceps Chicken Claypot. I was assured by our excellent server that these were not strictly speaking, the cordyceps that I had read about that murder and consume ants, but more closely related to the fraudulent health food version of the shroom. It was veggie chicken that was tasty enough, but not made out of the mushrooms as you may guess. The chicken was not deep fried but in tasty Asian sauced chunks that lent a sweet flavour to the pot. With greens, lemongrass, more veggies and rice, this was a fulfilling bowl and the cordyceps were really just an accent. Little skinny novelty topping guys that really didn't taste like much but didn't seem scary either.
Having started off our meal rabidly hungry, we even had room for dessert. We had the Hestia Banana Roll which was a little fruit spring roll with some vegan ice cream. Nice idea and the perfect end to a wonderful meal.
The place is only empty as we tend to dine at odd hours. It is quite comfortable here. Our server was very informative and close to being vegan himself. We don't hold that against him but encouraged him to go all in. After 2 visits, there are still we things on the menu we woould like to try and plenty that we would try again.
Food 5 out of 5
Vegan Options Available 4.75 out of 5
Comfort 4 out of 5
Service 4 1/2 out of 5
Value 5 out of 5
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