Bike home from Bonnys with a full belly and a good conscience

Bonnys is one of those old stand-by veggie havens: high salad quotient, cloth napkins, fresh pressed juices and a friendly and easygoing staff. I should admit the guilty truth : despite the fact that at least half of the week I eat vegetarian (vegan, even), vegetarian food doesn’t seem exciting to me most of the time. Maybe it’s because the mystique is gone – I already know how to cook vegetarian.

Nonetheless, there is a cogent argument to be made for vegetarian restaurants and it is this: vegetarian food is delicious, and afterwards you feel like it’s okay to have the strawberry-rhubarb crumble with vanilla soy ice cream. Or maybe the carrot cake – after all, it’s made with whole wheat flour ! And garnished with just a sprinkle of cinnamon and the most perfectly toasted walnuts. The server informed us that people come just for the carrot cake.

Also on the menu the night of our visit were a boca burger (a smoky black bean burger served open-faced with a mountain of salsa, avocado and organic sour cream), a spicy tempeh wrap (salty crusted tempeh with a gently pickled cabbage, avocado and a tart dijonnaise) and a garden salad bursting with lively flavours and textures (black sesame, mixed greens, cucumber, pickled cabbage and green apple). Another highlight was the juice : carrot, celery, ginger and apple with a squeeze of lemon. While the menu fails to excite at first glance, the specialities really do provide something special. Sitting on the pews that serve as bench seating at Bonnys, one begins to feel, perhaps, converted.

Bonnys                                                                                                                                                                                                            1748 Rue Notre-Dame O. | Métro Lucien-L'Allier