Planta Queen

Planta Queen is a place where hipster meets veganism. Vegan?! Wait a minute are you going to tell me to eat cardboard and tofu and.. yuk! Can this ever be good? Oh hell to the yes it can, my trip to Planta was an absolutely delicious adventure. If you are vegan, considering becoming one, vegan-curious, or simply trying to get out your regular food funk, give Planta a chance and you won't be disappointed.

I thought about visiting Planta for several weeks now. There are 2 locations in Toronto, and each offers a different set of cuisine: Planta Queen offers an Asian fusion menu and Planta Yorkville offers fine Italian fare. I considered visiting Planta Yorkville on Valentine's day (alas but it's $65 a persons, a bit steep), but thought against it. So instead, I waited until this Friday after work - Disco and Dumplings? Don't mind if I do.

Planta is a place you should have reservation, if not then your best bet may be at the bar. We were seated within 10 min and got a pretty sick seat right at the front of house where all the booze live. The drink menu is a bit limited on the beer front but seems to have lots of cocktail options and wine. Cocktails go for $16 a drink which is definitely on the pricey side. Beers are $10 and there's not too much craft anything. So if you intend to drink your heart out - this perhaps isn't the place for that.

Now since we came in on a Disco and Dumplings night, there's something special going on. Live disco DJ with disco ball is situated not too far from the entrance - so there's unlimited opportunity to jam with Cindy Lauper. The dumpling special is $20 for 10 dumplings, either steamed for fried - some have cabbage while others have cauliflower and peas in them. We got the fried version. Not sure if the filling would be different every time - but the friendly waiting staff would be glad to tell you exactly what's in them. The fried dumplings were actually my least favorite thing of the night. The filling was a bit mushy and dough is on the heavier side. I much preferred the Chinese shop dumplings where perhaps is more of a pan-friend version with a much thinner wrap.

Now let me tell you about the thing I liked the most: Ban ban Broccoli is the stuff! Lightly coated and fried with batter, fried (yup i like things fried), and soaked in sweet/hot/sour sauce. OMG it's so additive. Who thought broccoli can be so good? To all the parents who have trouble getting your kid to eat broccoli - srsly if you can do this anyone would eat it!

Next up we got the Seaweed and Asian pear salad. If you had seaweed salad in a sushi shop - it's of a similar texture. Seaweed is so common in Asian cuisine - but depending how it's prepared, can taste so different. This dish is super fresh, vinegary, and the seaweed is a bit chewy. There's also dry kale chips and crunchy rice in there to add different textures. The asian pear is a little sweet, and super juicy. Honestly this is also my favorite dish - my taste buds and senses were in hyper drive eating this thing.

Lastly, we shared the Dan Dan Noodles. The noodles are thick, and cooked el dente which I very much like. The noodle soup is of coconut base, served with lots of kamut on top. Ok I didn't know what Kamut is but it is a wheat and tasted very similar to barley grains. There's also gai-lan in the dish (which is a Chinese broccoli) and lots of parsley on top. This dish is.. not my favorite. The creamy coconut soup base was very flavorful but was a bit too rich towards the end. Thankfully we shared this and ate it with the fresh seaweed salad so life's ok again. A couple of recommendations perhaps is to have a bit more vegetable and less kamut. Since this is a super carb heavy dish - vegetable textures can help to cut the grains and noodles texture, and break the richness of the soup a bit, and omg I never thought i'd every say this: but smaller portions would leave the eater loving it and not sick of the richness at the end.

This was a fun place to try and different than the regular places I normally visit. Also, I love, LOVE that vegan food can taste, how do I say this: AMAZing? Unlike conventional thinking, vegan food served here was not bland, not cardboard-y, not dry, and not at all yuk. My only complaint was it was "too rich". So you know what? Well done Planta.!Good for you for bringing vegan food to this level. If all vegan food taste like how Planta makes it, there will be less need to eat meat, less animals have to be raised in terrible conditions and die for food, less carbon footprint, which are all fantastic global goals, am I right?

Good job Planta, I enjoyed my visit today. There are many more things on the menu, I will definitely be back. https://www.plantarestaurants.com/location/planta-queen/