Heavenly Plate Cafe Restaurant

As some of you may remember, when I got married I skipped a hens night and a large wedding in favour of a pre-wedding vegan high tea with friends. The high tea was held at Heavenly Plate Cafe Restaurant, a beautifully decorated venue that is fully vegetarian and mostly vegan.

It was a wonderful choice in terms of location and food, and a much better fit for my personality than traditional wedding celebrations. Ever since, I have been meaning to go back and try some of Heavenly Plate's regular menu items.

Pre-wedding high tea - all vegan

At Christmas, Mr Bite gave me a gift voucher to facilitate that visit, and a few Thursdays ago, we used it. The decor was as beautiful as I remembered and I liked that the restaurant seated its weeknight guests apart. I really dislike it when you visit a restaurant and there are just a few other occupied tables, but you are put right next to one of them! 

Heavenly Plate decor

I had grand plans for my dinner, and they mostly revolved around dessert. As the online menu shows, Heavenly Plate do a range of appealing veggie main meals, with an Asian slant and clever use of mock meats. In fact, they actually label their mock meats by the 'meat' they are imitating - so you will see chicken written on the menu instead of tofu or seitan. It's a bit disconcerting when reading the dish description, but does speak to their efforts to provide authentic vegetarian versions of traditional meat dishes.

Despite the range of savoury options on offer, I really wanted a vegan cake. As such, I ordered a plain salad before progressing straight to sweeter things. It's a dining out strategy I can recommend!

Cake!

Mr Bite was more traditional in his ordering, choosing the 'Pad Thai with salads' as his main meal. This is described as stir fried Thai rice noodles with sweet and sour sauce, served with 'chicken', 'fish', beansprouts, tofu, seasonal vegetables, crushed peanuts, lemon and additional beansprout salads ($17.90). My husband is somewhat of a connoisseur of vegetarian Pad Thai and he gave this one high marks.

I tested some (for the blog, you understand) and agreed with him. What's more, we were impressed at the 'chicken' pieces actually tasting different from the 'fish' pieces. I'm not sure how the chef creates the different mock meat versions, but they do a good job of it.

Pad Thai

Mr B. rounded out his meal with a dairy free 'Jamaican smoothie', consisting of apple juice, ginger, berries and banana. That got high marks too and the sip I stole was great.

Jamaican Smoothie

As for me, I started with the 'orange salad' - mixed field greens with orange and sesame almond dressing ($9.50). From the description I was expecting a creamy almond dressing so was pleasantly surprised to find whole almonds with a lighter vinaigrette (which is more my style of dressing). The simple mix of ingredients worked well together and was the perfect prelude to dessert.

And oh, what a dessert it was! Whilst I don't regularly crave rich cakes, every now and then I'll have a hankering for a traditional cake rather than a raw or 'healthified' dessert. Heavenly Plate's vegan crunchy caramel cake fit the bill perfectly.

The cake itself was a cross between caramel and chocolate, whilst the icing carried strong caramel hues. The 'crunchy' part refers to the toppings, a mix of crushed nuts and biscuit pieces that sit underneath a zig-zag of set caramel sauce. Mr Bite helped me finish it and we both thought it was excellent.

It was a delicious meal at a lovely location, and if you get a chance, I recommend you visit and experience Heavenly Plate for yourself. It is a casual venue - definitely a cafe as much as a restaurant - but it shows that casual and beautiful can be compatible.

 

Heavenly Plate is located at 899 Canning Hwy, Applecross, Western Australia. They can be contacted on 9316 8818 and have a website at http://www.heavenlyplate.com.au/ . 

The restaurant is open for dinner from 5pm to 10pm Tuesday through Thursday, and for breakfast, lunch, afternoon high tea and dinner from 8am to 10pm Friday through Sunday.

Do you ever order dessert for dinner?

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