Nerdfighters are everywhere

I found this in a copy of The Fault in Our Stars in a book store in Munich. SO.VERY.AWESOME!

Vegan Restaurant Review: Yam Vegan Deli

A new day, a new place to get my vegan fix!

After yesterday’s Kaede disaster, I asked my trusted no-meat-network for advice on vegan restaurants. One recommendation was Yam Vegan Deli in Maxvorstadt: much less a restaurant than a small bistro. Yam Vegan Deli had only just opened in early June and the food pictures on its blog looked promising (although a little healthy maybe).

I like to spend my lunch break at the office, so I decided to get my salad to go. A good idea as it turns out: the place is rather small and both the huge table in the middle of the store as well as the seats by the window were taken by people from the neighborhood who apparently have already declared the place their regular hang-out. 

The salad with tofu, sunflower seeds, and buckwheat was freshly made and looked incredibly beautiful. I got three slices of bread with a vegan spread on them to go with it. And because I was hungry, I bought a slice of Matcha green tea lemon cake for dessert. I carried my haul back to the office and indulged myself, making for an entire afternoon of deep happiness.

Vegan Restaurant Review: Kaede, Munich

My special lady friend and I have decided to test-eat our way through Munich’s vegan eateries. Granted, compared to Berlin (where at least in Friedrichshain you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a vegan food store, bistro, or café), Munich still somewhat lacks places that please the vegan gourmet. All the more reason for brand new vegans like us to find out where to go if we want to indulge ourselves. 

We started out with Kaede, a small Japanese restaurant near Kolumbusplatz. Personally, I really like Japanese food and was very excited to try it. The menu sounded delicious (they even offered vegan ice cream and cakes… just the right thing for my sweet tooth) and I couldn’t wait to dig my fork into that food.

Unfortunately, although we were the only customers, it took almost ten minutes until we finally received our menus and could order something. My loved one ordered soy filets with mixed vegetables and I chose the veggie and tofu tempura (I can’t help it, I love fried stuff). We both had lemongrass tea to go with it. The tea tasted rather bland even after we had let it sit for a while and the tiny teapots were leaking.

Because we had ordered from the lunch menu, we got a miso soup with tofu as an appetizer which was way to salty for my taste. Our main dishes weren’t much better. My tempura tasted boring and was swimming in soy sauce. My girlfriend’s vegetables were overcooked and oversalted as well. Only her soy filets were alright and had an interesting, very meat-like texture. I ended up disecting one of them to see if it was really soy and not, in fact, chicken.

I’ve heard a lot about Kaede before our visit and know that there are people who are very fond of the place. I’m not sure why! The food was not good, neither was the service. All in all, Kaede was a huge disappointment and is definitely not worth a second visit.