The Order:
I visited Vancouver last summer and loved it. The beautiful natural setting and the knowledge that everyone around me had free health care were great, but you know what I loved most? The food. Featuring some of the finest Asian cuisine in the world, Vancouver is an inspiration to us all and today, as the current Winter Olympics host city, it was an inspiration to me and AnnMarie for lunch. We logged into SeamlessWeb, searched for Pan-Asian cuisine and decided to be healthy, so the ever-popular Zen Palate was our selection. People seem to love their Sweet & Sour Sensation, so AnnMarie went for the triple S, while I kept up my eggplant thing and opted for the Eggplant Zentastic. The wait was on.
The Meal:
Waiting is the hardest part, but lucky for us the food came pretty quickly. And as a bonus, each dish had taro spring rolls and steamed brown and red rice. I was especially impressed with the spring rolls, which were fried, but still managed to be light and refreshing, while not feeling unhealthy. The rice was a little rough and chewy for my taste (cause that’s how brown rice is!), but overall it was still pretty good and satisfied my carbo cravings. As for the main event, it was advertised as eggplant and bok choy in a spicy garlic sauce. There was tons of eggplant, some bok choy, and the sauce was not particularly spicy at all. So not exactly what I expected, but I definitely enjoyed it and would be willing to order it again. In addition, the portion was large, so I had more than enough food to fill me up.
Zimply Zentastic (nice purple coloring!)
The basis of AnnMarie’s dish was battered soy protein served on a bed of broccoli. Again, her dish was not inspirational, but it was a solid and healthy meal that any mother would be proud of her daughter for eating. And isn’t that really enough for lunch?
Not your father's Sweet and Sour Chicken (not chicken at all in fact...)
On the whole Zen Palate is a great option for a guaranteed healthy, filling, and pretty tasty vegetarian meal. For meat-eaters, you might feel that something’s missing, so I would only recommend periodic orders to fill your veggie quotas and try something different.
Check out Zen Palate’s menu and feel free to give us recommendations for future orders in the comments.