Local Vegan Eats-- Heartwood- CLOSED

After visiting a second time to Heartwood, I feel I have enough experience there to give a proper review. First off, entering the restaurant, it's a warm inviting atmosphere. This time I arrived in the evening, you get to see the lovely mood lighting with candles on each table and dimmed overhead lights. The restaurant itself has lovely decor with a really inviting atmosphere. The staff is extremely friendly and attentive. The menu is fairly large, all 4 of us took quite awhile to decide because everything sounds so delicious. The menu is quite extensive offering everything from pizza, burgers, to healthier wraps and salads. They also have a quite extensive dessert selection of cheesecake, cookies and bars and the best part is, it's all vegan except when "cheese" is listed on the menu description. They also offer a full organic menu which is quite rare.

I admit, I'm a fussy vegan. I don't like kale, green peppers and a slew of other veggies. So sometimes it can be hard eating out even in vegan-friendly joints because many of the places use a lot of things I don't care for. When scanning the menu at Heartwood, everything sounds extremely appetizing. To the point I actually want to order several meals.  Tonight we opted for nachos as an appetizer and beet burgers for our main course. The nachos were delicious. The dipping sauces were both flavourful and accented the nachos perfectly and I loved that they had mushrooms with them as I love mushrooms.

 

When the main course came out, my initial reaction was, "this looks good but what a small portion size". The burger is very small and the steamed greens it came with were also extremely small and of course, happened to be kale with 3 small piece of broccoli and some carrots topping it. The burger was delicious and satisfying. I did leave full but I believe that's mainly because we had the nachos first. I honestly think if it wasn't for the appetizer, I would have been very hungry when I left. I got a cookie for dessert and was also extremely disappointed by the size. It was very small especially for the cost.

 

Overall, I think Heartwood makes tasty food but I can't justify spending the amount of money they want for their dishes. Yes, I understand they are organic but when you are strapped for cash and on a serious budget, it's just not worth it. If you are someone that can spend a little more, Heartwood may be the perfect place for you. It's just a shame they couldn't at least give you a little more for the side dishes. Offer the roasted potatoes for no extra charge with the burgers or pile on a little more salad. We need a little more bang for our buck. Just saying. :)

Spicy peanut bowl

Another photo of the vegan nachos

Bean burrito

Portobello mushroom sandwich