When I rode around in Ghent (on my foldable bike🚴♂️) after my first appointment with
the VEGANScreener🌱 crew, I suddenly realized many restaurants and food venues are closed on Mondays. But not so Le Botaniste.
Their place in the busy centre of town was bustling with activity and the terrace outside was soon filled with customers.
This is the very first and original Botaniste branch, before they opened 4 branches in New York and 2 in Brussels.
Lunch or dinner is served quickly. They use the bowl formula, where you either choose from one of the preset combinations on their menu, or you compose your own from the many colourful #lecreuset cast iron pans 🥘🥘🥘 and dishes on the heating plates of the spacious white marble counter of what once used to be a pharmacy or chemist's store over a century ago.
The Tibetan mama was very tasty, sweet and slightly #spicy. I would have preferred it way more #fiery, but I guess its actual #flavour suits the less adventurous taste buds of the majority of citizens here.
I took the #vegan #meatballs they proposed as an extra, only realizing afterwards they come at an extra cost, but good value. The meatballs have a firm structure and very pleasant texture and taste. The Tibetan mama has #quinoa as #cereal and is served with #steamed #broccoli and a very good #kimchi .
The Tibetan Mama costed about 14,50 €, I forgot how much were the #balls, but alltogether very reasonable.
I would certainly have this dish again.
The only false note was the fact I was forced to change tables as one other customer a table away was smoking cigarettes🌫, the fumes of which drifted straight into my nostrils, making my lunch experience unpleasant.
I wondered how on Earth people could still be allowed to keep up with that filthy habit of smoking on the terrace of restaurants in 2023. But then, compared to the legal permission to exploit and slaughter animals on a massive industrial scale for food, that is not so exceptional after all.
Some greater consciousness somewhere must have decided planet Earth in 2023 is not the peaceful and refined haven where diverse creatures of different kinds happily and respectfully coexist, but rather a vessel where mostly mediocre and early stage souls come to live to go through some level of development throughout their lifetime as a mortal. 🌍⏳
