Vege-Thai-rian
Lucy Rest
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Cozy bench seating add to the convivial atmosphere
photo: Christina Riley
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Small portions but good quality at the Sacred Garden
The last dismal experience I had eating Thai food with a vegetarian involved the place trying to charge us extra for ordering one of the curries without meat. No joke. Yep, this city has been crying out for an all-veggie Thai place. So I was anxious to try Sacred Garden. So anxious that when we couldn't get through to make a reservation (one day no answer, another day the line was busy for hours), the six of us took our chances and showed up one Saturday night.
We were lucky to get a table, as the place was packed. No doubt the sort of cuisine Old Ottawa South craves as well as the atmosphere: subdued recessed lighting and long banks of tables against benched walls in a darkly wooded interior splashed with colour from fabric wall-hangings and photographs of Buddhist monasteries. Good service too.
Purists may miss the fish sauce, oyster sauce, shrimp paste and other integral Thai building blocks of flavour, but vegetarians will appreciate their deft substitution with various fermented soy products. Certainly interesting, though not as convincing, is the selection of fake meat dishes, soy-protein renditions of "chicken," "duck," "beef" and so on.
I wonder at their choice of house wines, which seem like bizarre matches for Thai food (oaky Chardonnay and intense Cab Sauv), but there's plenty of Asian beer to be had if you must have alcohol.
Astringent and palate-cleansing though it was, the hot and sour "shrimp" soup with coconut milk was almost too pretty to eat. White-on-white, the creamy
broth and snowy knot of vermicelli in an eggshell-coloured bowl dotted with one bright red "shrimp" (which most of us didn't like - strangely it was too fishy tasting), a ring of "squid" (also not a hit) and tender brown shrooms. Next came some crispy spring rolls with sweet chili sauce and some rice paper roll-ups stuffed with vermicelli, herbs and curry-laced tofu with a chunky peanut dipping sauce, both quite good. Then, the perfect mango salad - hotly, sweetly, sourly delicious.
The paeneng was the usual tasty red curry with coconut milk, but this one had "duck" alongside the veggies and the nice addition of chickpeas and kidney beans. The Jungle Curry with "beef" wasn't bad either, but definitely could have used an extra chili pepper or two.
I much preferred dishes like Son-in-Law Tofu, the cubes soft inside, crispy-fried outside in a sweet and sour tamarind sauce. The pad Thai (apart from more icky fake shrimp) was also excellent, as was the softly fried eggplant and tofu with chilies and veg in a hot, sweet and salty sauce.
We had ordered quite a bit of food, and though they were priced about the same, the portions were noticeably smaller than other Thai spots around town (yet cost the same). There was definitely room for dessert.
The golden deep-fried banana came in a sauce of butter, honey and freshly squeezed lime - need I say more? The homemade litchi ice cream was fruity and refreshing, but the coconut was even better. Creamy, smooth, just sweet enough, and it comes not only with a chunk of fresh coconut on top, but a glob of sticky rice beneath that tastes amazing when mixed with the ice cream.
In future I'll skip the wacky "meat" (apparently you can order extra veg if it's not your thing), spend the money on an extra dish or two, and always save room for dessert. Next time a vegetarian friend craves Thai, I'll know where to take them.
But please, answer the phone.
SACRED GARDEN
1300 BANK STREET, 733-8424
ENTIRE MENU $5-$15
I don't care who you are and why you hold a grudge against veggie cuisine but at these prices I'd say that any bitching is moot. I've been to some veggie places that were so off the sharts when it came to pricing their feeble menu that I almost spat back my food but this place has just enough of a handle of what it has to offer and how it ought to treat the clientele that it really does seem to live up to the hype. $5-$15? I spend more that on popcorn and drinks at the movies! Sounds like this place is generous on the flavors and light on the wallet. A better combination I cannot imagine.
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Pedro Eggers
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{8 votes}
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| Faking It Is Sexy: No Animals Were Harmed In The Preparation Of This Review......... |
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Sounds like Sacred Garden needs another phone line to me, to avoid impatient customers from getting the run around like you did Lucy, trying to make a reservation. While I prefer some meat with my Thai delights, I absolutely loved the description of the homemade lychee ice cream and my personal favorite, the deep-fried banana. These I will be trying, hands down.
PS: I can't figure out any place charging more to remove the chicken from a chicken curry dish. How does that make any sense? I am planning on checking out Sacred Garden to see if it matches my image of the perfect vegetarian hang-out. Interested in fake meats? This place has the best coverage from end to end.
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Steve Landry
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{10 votes}
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The vegetarian meat that you are referring to is known by many names--Buddhist meat, seitan and gluten for starters. You can find thai and chinese restaurants in major cities like Vancouver, Montreal, San Francisco and abroad that serve this form of fake meat. New York has some fantastic restaurants that even serve "veggie soul food.' You can find all sorts of creative dishes that resemble the meat version but taste incredibly good to my decade old vegetarian palate. Most meat eaters don't go for this sort of thing though and I don't really expect them to--some vegetarians don't even subscribe. You may want to consider that as a meat eater reviewing a vegeatarian restaurant. It must be hard for you to actually critique the dishes without having anything to compare them to.
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Joanne Stober
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{5 votes}
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