If you've been to Sadhana Kitchen, you know they do raw vegan best (in my personal opinion!). Dat lasagna... Dem cakes.....
Maz Valcorza, the owner of the cozy, but hugely popular cafe, not only works with a few other very creative chefs to make the best meals on the menu, but also offers an utterly mind blowing raw vegan degustation experience.
Looking for a new experience to share with my S.O for our anniversary, I decided to give the degustation a look, and woop woop- they were on sale for half price! My friends from the world renown food blog (JK, they're not there yet), the Bunny Bloggers, also joined us for dinner that night.
An intimate, candlelit dinner with wonderful combinations of flavours and textures, and an interesting experience. I would recommend anyone give it a go (especially since the sale is still on)! Read more about my experience.
After walking in, I noticed that the usual bright and open aura of the cafe was switched up with an intimate dim candlelit setting, with a communal table in the middle.
We were served our first course, which was technically a drink (mango strawberry probiotic tonic), and literally so delicious and refreshing I felt it was more of a hot tropical holiday appropriate drink not worthy of the very ugly Australian weather.
Our second dish was a 'melange of seasonal fruits' aka plate of fruits. But the prettiest, and most intriguing plate of fruits I've ever tried. On the plate you can visibly see there are single slices of strawberries, watermelon, kiwi, mango, coconut flesh, and half a passion fruit on a bed of papaya. The thing that made this fruit salad pretty exciting was the dressing, which the strands of papaya were also drenched in: a vanilla lemon and agave mix. Sweet, slightly sour and earthy.
The third dish, was a beet ravioli- not beef as male Bunny Blogger disappointingly found out- and was filled with a cashew cheese, and topped with a punchy pesto. The random salad was pretty tasteless but the flavours from the beet ravioli made up for that.
The fourth course, was the star of the show, the highlight of my life, and it was the eggplant involtini. A visual dish, with crunchy dehydrated seasoned zucchini strips, with a perfectly chewy and stuffed eggplant on two (or was it three?) large dollops of a filling cauliflower/garlic and red pepper cheesey sauces. All of this placed on a bed of spinach, decorated with a few other small greens and lightly drizzled with a green dressing. Absolutely delicious.
Unfortunately, course five (and six) were not any of our favourites. This dish was a crispy "salmon" papaya with a crunchy (but tasteless) kale and a side of alfalfa sprouts and enoki mushrooms. I think if they didn't say it was salmon and just a crispy papaya, we would have enjoyed it more, because it definitely was crispy and soft like salmon, but the flavour was very sweet. Unfortunately, I can't recall the taste of the dressing.
The fifth dish, was a basil grille. Out came two slices of bread, which were mixed with pesto for flavour. We found it rather unbearably dry. The salad, while very elegant and added some moistness to the dish, was also rather tasteless. I enjoyed the sweet potato crisp (or was it a carrot??) though, not too salty.
Was rather disappointed when we were told before the desserts were about to come out, that the Neapolitan cheesecake on the menu would be replaced (noooo!!) with their choc raspberry cheesecake instead. It, of course, tasted deliciously creamy, sweet, sour and a little salty from the salted caramel/chocolate sauce. The edible flowers and coconut provided different textures and flavours.
The others also thought Neapolitan would definitely have been more of a crowd pleaser though.
Despite two dishes and a minor fall back in the menu, myself & my partner very much enjoyed most of the degustation. While the Bunny Bloggers wouldn't do the degustation again, they enjoyed the same dishes we did, and said they would be interested to try out the usual menu.
Sadhana Kitchen also provides a raw food workshop and high tea service, with bottomless tea, and a plentiful amount on the savoury and sweet plates.
147 Enmore Rd, Newtown
Open 7 days, 9am-4pm.
(02) 9516 1334
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