My Night At Lola Rosa

Heres a little something new about me. I’ve never really mentioned this just yet but for the past few months, I have been experimenting with my diet and going through little spurts of veganism. Yup! I’m a self-proclaimed “part-time Vegan”. What does that mean exactly? Well, I want to say that I lean towards a mostly vegan diet. Vegan: a person who does not eat or use any animal product, such as meat, fish, eggs, cheese, or leather. Sooooo I don’t do this vegansim a full 100%. For instance, I didn’t go throwing out any of my leather or fur clothing… dang. I just try to make a conscious effort to avoid products containing meat, fish , dairy and or eggs, I don’t consider it the end of the world if I do by accident sometimes. Also, sometimes I have some slip ups, mostly when there’s something that I really really want on the menu at a restaurant that contains animal products or something. Hence all these reasons I call myself a part-time vegan…. Or more appropriately a vegetarian…? pescetarian…?... ok ok I had a bacon omelet last week!! I confess!!!! For goodness sake I gave up a real turkey to have a Tofurky this past Christmas! Don’t I get some kind of vegan title for that at least!!!? It was actually really good though. 

All in all it doesn’t really matter, I don’t care much for the logistics of the title, I just call myself “part-time vegan”. Anyways, Yes I fall off the wagon sometimes when there’s something I really want, but for the most part I like to consciously eat vegan. And ultimately I would love to have a 100% vegan lifestyle. In time, lol. I’ll get there.

So as of lately as you could imagine, I’ve been keeping my eye open to places in the city where I can dine. Its sometimes difficult to go to a restaurant when you are staying away from animal products, most of the time you option a very minimal. You may get lucky sometimes but most of the time your choices are filtered down to a green salad… maybe a soup….? So yeah. Which is why I was so happy to discover Lola Rosa!!!! A cool vegetarian restaurant, and place that can cater to my veggie/ vegan lifestyle and also satisfies my want to go out to a nice restaurant for a meal with friends.

So, I first rolled up at Lola Rosa on Park ave, just on the trendy Plateau are a.k.a my favourite part or Montreal. I loved the decor inside. Super trendy, hipster vibes, low lighting, soft music. My kind of style place for sure.

First things first is dranks!!! Haha, I mean come on now, let’s not kid ourselves, were going all in, right? I was browsing over the signature cocktail menu and in case you didn’t know Sour drinks are my jam so I chose the keylime pisco sour, made with pisco, homemade key lime, avocados and lime. 'Twas delicious. just what I wanted to suit my sour personality…. I mean taste buds.Ha! No but I really loved it for real!

Next up on the menu was appetizers!!!!! My favvv! The cool thing about Lola Rosa is that there are a lot of things on the menu that give you the option of vegan! for my first appetizer I chose a plate of nachos which usually comes with mozzarella, salsa, black bean, corn, roasted pepper, green onion, sour cream and guacamole. but I felt like experimenting so I chose the vegan option, so hold the sour cream and replace the mozzarella with Lola Rosas own homemade vegan cheese! I’m a huge fan of cheesy nachos and honesty didn’t feel like I was missing anything with the vegan cheese. The combination of all other the ingredience with the nachos worked perfectly together. Perfect plate of nachos for a herbivore!

For my second appetizer, I decided on the Italian salad! I don’t really know why, I guess I felt that I still had ways to go when it came to how much food I was still about to chow down on, so I decided to keep it real or something lol but the salad really got the spot! Made with Romain lettuce, sundried tomatoes, smoked tempeh, capres, cesar and herbs dressing, croutons, olives. I swear I got bacon vibes in there! Obviously there was not any bacon to speak of. Maybe it was a Lola Rosa Jedi mind trick. Or that smoked tempeh!

Next was the main squeeze... or at least the first one. Ha!  You know I had to get the veggie burger. The Cajun Burger to be exact, Because you know im spicy like that!  I swear I don’t think Ive had a real beef burgers at least a year. I always opt for the veggie burger where ever I can, so I had to try this one!  It in no way tried to mimic meet or beef taste, which is fine with me, it had its own hearty taste and feel that suited me perfectly, along with the fries. sweet potatoe patty, sautéed vegetable burger, onion rings, aragula and red onions. I also asked for there special home made spicy sauce to dip my fries in ( I have a high tolerance for spicy). It wasn’t too hot in my opinion, very tasty but not too hot, then again my tolerance is high. The plate also came with a small green salad and sauce. I would never miss a meat patty with this killer combination. 

And as my second main (oh yes a gal can eat) I had to have the Mac and cheese. Since I’m off my vegan bandwagon for this night at least I was all about living it up at indulging in some real honest to goodness, dairy cheese! I was not disappointed. I’m a fan of the Mac and cheese. I mean come on who isn’t? Jalapenos, aged cheddar, spinach,havarti. Served with green salad with this killer sauce! 

After all this I figured it was time to try a second cocktail!! I was pretty stuffed as you can imagine. My eye totally caught the turmeric Lassi. What an interesting combination. I’m a of mango lassi and I’m a fan of turmeric so why not? It’s actually really delicious, more on the sweet and slightly savoury side rather than sour so my original keylime drink is still my big winner. But turmeric lassi is definitely an original and delicious cocktail. Would def order again!

I just as I though it was about to be over! Bam! Dessert menu rolled up! So you know I was about thug it out and have that extra room for dessert. Especially when there was choco-caramel pie on the menu. And just to be on the safe side, a gal ordered a lime pie too because that just the way I am. I throughly was living for the choco-caramel pie, it was everything I dreamed it would be. I’m such a sucker for caramel and combined with the chocolate and the crumbly crust. Pure perfection! At all cost make sure you leave room for the chocolate caramel pie! 

And lastly the lime pie for good measure. It was a nice fresh contrast to the heavy richness of the chocolate pie before. I’m always a fan of lime and it was giving me all of its lime sweet and sour realness, but in this moment I think the chocolate pie was the ultimate heavy weight champion.   

All in all I’m so glad to know have discovered Lola Rosa, my now “part time vegan/vegetarian“ friendly, trendy spot that I can go to when Im fiending a nice night out and some cocktails and good food with some friends. I know that food has so much variety and flavour that my Veggie and non-veggie friends will both enjoy!