Greenr Café
Address: 416, Shahpur Jat Village, Siri Fort, New Delhi
Meal for two: Rs 1200
There is no dearth of food options in India if you are a vegetarian. Vegetarian restaurants abound and even outlets known for their meat products, had to put vegetarian dishes on their menu in India.
Greenr café claims to be the city’s first ‘modern vegetarian kitchen’ and serves what is called ‘plant meat,’ which is essentially protein rich ingredients used to render classic meat dishes into vegetarian form without compromising with the texture or taste.
To see whether they succeeded, I tried their lentil burger which is served with sweet potato wedges. Right now, everyone from McDonald’s to Burger King, as well as local outlets are serving veg burgers. So, what is special about Greenr’s offering? Well, to start with, the burger is made from whole wheat buns which are completely different and much healthier from the regular ones. The patty, made from lentils is richer and heartier than what you get at other outlets, which are essentially modified veg cutlets. The toppings don’t include onions and a plain cheese slice which is the standard combination. Instead there is a thick slice of goat cheese along with red pepper coulis, papaya concasse and lettuce leaves. I wouldn’t say that the burger blew me away but had much more of a distinctive character from the ones available elsewhere. The sweet potato wedges, with their sweetness intact, are delightful and are a great accompaniment to the burger.
The next item to try was the meatless meatballs served with vegetable tagliatelle in Neapolitan sauce. The texture of the meatballs was quite similar to the patties. They were nice and soft and went well with the sauce. The softness of the meatballs was contrasted well by the crunchiness of tagliatelle which are long and thin strips of various vegetables. This dish too wasn’t out of this world but was well worth a try.
Then came the best dish of the evening. It was the ‘Earth bowl.’ The idea of an ‘Earth Bowl’ is to have a full meal with all the different components contained in one bowl. The Mediterranean-inspired bowl had chunks of veg sausage along with Kale leaves, red peppers, sweet onion hummus, brown rice with pine nuts and this was topped by orange tahini sauce. Pine nuts were a brilliant part of the dish as they added crunchiness. Kale leaves provided freshness to the bowl. But most delightful was the tahini sauce which was made using orange zest. The subtle and light flavor of orange topped off the bowl superbly. All the ingredients contributed to making this dish absolutely delectable.
You will have to loosen your purse strings if you decided to visit this place but the experience and the food is pretty unique.