Sangria found a Groupon for vegan high tea!
I’ve only had high tea once at Neverland Tea Salon, back when I was free to eat all the dairy I pleased. I enjoyed it and I see why high tea is appealing, as it is a cute, fun, and social activity. However, I don’t think I would personally pay more than $30 per person for high tea… which means I won’t get to try the other upscale high tea places. That’s fine with me though, because I don’t have much of a sweet tooth anyways! I much prefer savoury items.
Indigo Age Cafe is a small and hidden cafe in downtown. If you aren’t deliberately looking for the place, chances are that you would have missed it.
It was a hot day that afternoon, so the cafe was a bit stuffy. However, it felt very cozy and welcoming with a woodsy/nature theme inside. We were greeted right away and told that they would prepare our high tea. It took quite awhile to prepare and we were getting impatient … maybe like 35-40 minutes since we sat down?
Anyways, we were very happy when the food finally arrived. We were told what each food item was, but I didn’t bother writing it down because it changes constantly depending on the day.
Instead, feast your eyes on the pictures!
Now the most important part… was it delicious? Yes! After going to Eternal Abundance a couple weeks before, I did not have high hopes for Indigo Age Cafe… but it was actually really good. Each item was carefully made with little details. We could see why we waited that long for our food.
There were some items that had an eclectic mix of different food but they actually went really well together!
All the veggies were fresh and crunchy too! I really liked the cucumber cup and would love to recreate it at home or for a picnic!
The stuffed mushroom with avocado paste was so good! Same with the stuffed tomato cup!
Last but not least, a close-up of the vegan desserts!
I would highly recommend the high tea with a Groupon. It is a nice place to go if you want to try something new and exciting.
Apart from high tea, they also serve vegan Ukranian dishes. Talk about unique!
Negitoro roll: The negitoro roll was pretty decent, no complaints about it. Good ratio of toro and onion, mixed well and the toro was nice and soft.
Salmon and tuna sashimi: I remember that there was a period a few years ago where they changed their sashimi preparation, and sliced it very thin and long instead. After having that happen a few times, it was yet another reason why we stopped coming here. I actually forgot about that until now, writing this review.
Kale caesar, large $11.25: Finally, something familiar haha! No complaints about this caesar salad. After finding out that caesar dressing is made from an anchovy (type of fish) base, I find it pretty impressive when vegan caesar salad tastes like a non-vegan one.
Spicy kimchi roll, $7: This was my favourite of the day… probably because it had seaweed and rice (albeit, brown rice which is okay as well). This is actually only ‘half raw’ because the rice is cooked. I’m not sure if it was because I wasn’t that full from the few bites of that ‘burger’ or because zoodles aren’t filling, but I really liked this. It came with kimchi, sesame sauce, avocado, cucumber (or as they say “cuke”), carrot, peppers and sprouts.
We had plans to go to another nice restaurant but that didn’t go through, so it was a pretty spontaneous decision to come here (we decided to come here half a hour before). I was Yelping and this placed seemed like the perfect atmosphere that we were looking for.
I didn’t really want to sit on the patio because it seemed cold outside, but we were ensured that the patio was heated. We were seated next to a roaring fireplace which kept us warm and cozy the entire evening! Not all the seats have the fireplace, and the views are slightly better without the fireplace blocking.
Bread, free: Standard complimentary bread. The bread was nice and chewy instead, and served slightly warm with a side of butter.
Calamari, $13.50: We normally don’t get appetizers to save money and our appetite, but it was a special occasion. We were glad we ordered this because it was really good. It came with a very generous portion of calamari, with crisp and fresh batter. The calamari was seasoned with a variety of herbs which made it really good.
Alderwood grilled BC salmon, $29.50: The salmon was DELICIOUS. It flaked off nicely, and had a slightly grilled taste to it. So good. I just wanted to eat the whole thing.
New York Striploin, $42: My entree was the striploin, cooked medium rare! It was very juicy, tender, and flavourful. If I recall correctly, it usually comes with some sort of sauce or butter, but I asked for only salt and pepper with it. I’m a big believer in eating steak with good ol’ salt and pepper because I find it tastes so much better when made simply! Am I the only one who prefers steak this way?
Close up of my medium rare steak! WordPress needs to have an emoji keyboard so I can insert the drooling and heart eye ones here!
Mac and cheese, $7.00: Wow, I didn’t realize how much food we ordered until writing this post. For $7, this was a really good value and good size. The mac and cheese was baked with four types of cheese. The boyfriend said it was really comforting, with very stringy and delicious looking cheese.
I was in the mood for some authentic sushi, not the usual Chinese or Korean-run fast food sushi joints that we usually go to. I’m not hating on Chinese/Korean-run sushi joints because those are cheap, fast, and usually decent but I just wanted to go somewhere that was authentic that day.
Tuna tataki, 9 pieces, $14.95: The boyfriend loves tuna tataki, so we usually order it at every new place to see how it compares. It came with grated daikon on top which we haven’t seen at other places, but it was refreshing and cleaned our palette.
Tuna & salmon sashimi, $14.95: We really appreciated the fact that they had freshly grated wasabi here, as most places do not! I normally like to eat my sashimi plain, but I used wasabi this time because it was freshly grated.
Salmon nigiri, $2.95 / piece: Just like the salmon sashimi, the salmon nigiri was so good as well. The sushi rice was absolutely perfect too!
Negitoro maki, $4.75: Just like the tuna tataki, negitoro is a must for the boyfriend. This was soooo good. The tuna was so soft and mashed perfectly with the fresh green onion. At first, we were reluctant to order it because it was more expensive than we were used to, but so worth it.
Our bill came to around $65-70 with tip (forgot exactly how much), which was a lot more than we we usually pay! But it was nice to treat ourselves and have a relaxing, authentic Japanese dinner.