Incredible fresh vegan dishes for less than US$12 at Joie Plant-based Bistro in Tsuen Wan
- Restaurant in New Territories industrial building serves up fresh-tasting Hong Kong produce in a trendy arty space
- You can mix and match salad ingredients, but the portions are rather small
Joie Plant-based Bistro is just the type of place that you might hope to find in a 1950s-era industrial building that’s been refurbished into a trendy arts and retail space.
The vegan bistro puts time and care into what it serves, and the food comes at a modest price in a utilitarian setting with counter service and family style tables.
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The bistro offers a simple all-day set menu with plant-based (and sometimes locally sourced) ingredients.
Pricing for a set, including the soup of the day and tea or coffee, ranges from HK$58 for the Joie daily salad bowl to HK$98 for the linguine with black truffle and mushroom ragu.
The carrot and tomato soup, our first course, arrived in a paper bowl, but was well presented, with a swooping drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkle of parsley. It was nicely seasoned and had a super fresh flavour, and we also enjoyed dipping plain rye toast (which arrived with the salad)into the soup.
The daily salad bowl let us mix and match from a few side options, whichincluded every recent trending health food of the past decade: kale and chickpeas, home-made kimchi, pumpkin and quinoa, and beetroot and carrot.
We went with the daily pasta salad tossed with buttery black truffle and brightened with crisp cherry tomatoes, some sweet roasted pumpkin with quinoa, and to be extra healthy, the kale and chickpea salad, with a light lemony dressing.
While we liked the salad, we found the portions wanting – a small bed of undressed greens seemed to be acting as a filler in the recycled paper box that the salad was served in. We certainly could have gone for more kale.
Understanding that the fresh veggies were Joie’s jam, we also tried the local farmed salad with fig, apple and beetroot for HK$68. We could absolutely taste the “local” in thefresh greens, while the fruit made the salad a bright and filling pick.
We needed dessert after such a healthy meal, so we grabbed one of the vegan chocolate cupcakes. As with many vegan cakes, it was dry, but the miraculously silky icingmade us forgive that.
We would be amiss to not give a shout-out to the rich and delicious brew batch coffee, which was the only non-tea drink on offer.
With all elements considered, we were feeling the vibe at Joie. The seating was casual and had character, with an assortment of tables and chairs in a wide open centre space and light filtering in from the many skylights through the exposed piping on the ceiling.
Better yet, the food was extremely fresh, and we liked that we could see right into the kitchen where it was being made.
Joie Plant-based Bistro, Shop 119, The Mills, 45 Pak Tin Par Street, Tseun Wan, tel: 6097 2623.
Open: noon to 6pm.
While you’re in the area
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