Aux Vivres

Vegan

Coming from Toronto, all I think when I walk into Aux Vivres is “Why is everything in French?” because it feels exactly like the chain “Fresh” that in Toronto has become about as mainstream as vegetarianism can get this far east of Vancouver. Choosing downtown Toronto take-out has become a debate between Fresh or Springrolls. When you can compare those two on an equal playing field there’s something wrong with the concept of healthy food. So I never really liked “Fresh”. Congratulations, you took a big bowl, put about 3 servings of brown rice on the bottom and topped it with steamed green things, two pieces of heavily marinated tofu (because how else are you going to convince the carnivores to eat it?) and served it with a high-fat, thus delicious, sauce (To be fair, a good sauce, for example a good-tasting peanut sauce like at Aux Vivres, not Fresh, takes the right balance of salty and sweet, not too thick, not too thin, but you can make good peanut sauce at home for cheap, or buy it…La Vieille Europe would be happy to point you to a good one in their shop…and encourage you buy some sausage while you’re at it…and some cheese. Some meat-lovers are incorrigible). So what are you paying for at a vegetarian restaurant like Fresh? Convenience and the fun of sitting in a bohemian-chic (hipster?) restaurant and feeling morally superior to all the people in some other restaurant eating morally inferior meat and meat products, and supposedly less-healthy food.

Breathe.

Okay I’m done. I like Aux Vivres a whole lot more because it’s got a whole lot less of the pretension that distracts me from the good aspects of Fresh. Oh, and it’s vegan, not just vegetarian. Sure, it gets really busy and under-staffed like Fresh, but you don’t see unhappy workers like you do in Toronto. Aux Vivres has a more community atmosphere. Like all the servers are looking out for each other, the food, and the overall experience of the people they’re serving.

The menu is almost the same. You can start with a selection of dips, usually an olive tapenade and/or a hummous, then choose between an enormous salad, a sandwich, a burger or a rice bowl. Fresh has Pad Thai, yes, but it’s better if we don’t talk about that. I did just calm down.

Anyway, I was trying to talk about Aux Vivres. Don’t have the dahl soup ($3.50) to start if you’ve ever had a good dahl soup. Not that it’s bad, but you’re better off going to La Faim du Monde on St-Denis, or better yet, a maybe a good Indian restaurant. It’s home-made here and probably made with good intentions, but it doesn’t taste like anything. Lentils aren’t that exciting unless you do something with them…

Thai Bowl ($11)

The bowls here are very respectable. Instead of offering a million choices and combinations, they keep it simple with only a few sauce + vegetable combinations. That way they can actually focus on using good ingredients, like the pickled daikon and delicious carrots. You really don’t expect that hit of sweetness from a radish that sits along the side of the bowl. At most Asian restaurants you’d call that garnish and probably leave it on the plate after you ate the pig or cow part of the dish. Basically with these bowls, besides the pickled vegetables, you’re paying for the sauce. The peanut or miso-tahini sauce really holds the whole bowl together. And there’s lots of it, and it’s tasty, but it’s just covering everything else up. If the bowl’s ingredients were all tasty like the daikon you wouldn’t need to cover it up. It’s disrespectful to the food that you need to suffocate the vegetables in sauce to sell the bowl, and that’s definitely something you’re supposed to take into consideration in a vegetarian restaurant.

Tempeh Burger Plate with Chipotle Ketchup and Creamy Coleslaw ($11)

The burger…Okay, how can you possibly put all that rice in the bowl and then put a tiny chunk of tempeh on a little bun, plus a measly handful of potato wedges on the side and call it fair? Maybe another vegetable? Sure the chipotle ketchup takes up room on the plate, but the little container of nayonnaised coleslaw does not pass muster(d). Then when you actually have a bite of the burger…it tastes like…well, nothing. Because it’s dry tempeh. Okay, vegetarians. What do carnivores like about their burgers? They’re big and JUICY. If you’re going to make a vegetarian version of a traditionally non-vegetarian food item, you have to do it a little better than that.

Chana Wrap ($11)

Aux Vivres gets this right with the Chana Wrap. A beautiful chickpea and potato curry wrapped in freshly-made chapatti with a very sweet, generically named chutney (it’s actually tamarind but apparently the cooks here have never been to Parc Ex where Indian chutney comes in multiple varieties (mango? coriander?). Anyway, it works very well, though I’ll always prefer the Mango chutney and old cheddar crepe at Hibiscus in Kensington Market. Sorry again, vegans…and for all lactose-intolerant people: Sometimes it’s worth it…

Continuing with the good news, Aux Vivres has a huge smoothie and juice menu. The fruits and vegetables they use are nice, and they know what goes well together. It’s hard to mess up the simple ones, like strawberry and banana, but once kale and beets are involved things get dangerous, and they do a good job here.

Maybe I’m just disapointed with Aux Vivres because the first time I went there I left the happiest person in world. I had their carrot cake. A towering piece (as it should be) of moist layer cake with enough cinnamon, nutmeg, dates and sugar to satisfy any sweet tooth. The icing is what knocks me over, though. It was thick and smooth (May they never change to vegan cream cheese), not like most grainy or seven-minute-fluff frostings that have more air than creamy goodness. This one made the whole cake worthwhile.

But the second time I went back, after dreaming for days about the cake, it was dry because it had been sitting in a fridge waiting to be bought, and the icing suddenly was swimming in orange zest, and oh I hate orange zest in vanilla frosting…

So when I went back a 3rd time I felt like I was testing the waters of my relationship with the carrot cake. I could forgive it if it could give me what I wanted (Gigantic layers enrobed by dense sheets of orange-free icing. No compromise). All of a sudden (with no change in price) the carrot cake had shrunk in half, the icing was more like a peasants’ whisper of white than a respectable royal onslaught of frosting.

So I cried a little inside and tried the Choco-Banana Pie instead, unable to bear more disappointment. For a tiny slice of tarte, I don’t think the pie is worth the high price tag (over $5), but it was very good. Somehow the chocolate and banana became perfectly smooth, like a chocolate cream pie…without the cream, apparently completely soy-free.

It didn’t make up for the ongoing carrot cake heartbreak, but sometimes it’s just not meant to be. There are more fish in the sea, but unfortunately there are no more amazing vegan carrot cakes in Montreal restaurants that I know of. It was fun while it lasted.

Price: Appetizers $3.50-$9, Entrées $8-$14
Expect to pay $18-$30, including tea or a smoothie and dessert
Hours: Everyday, 11am-11pm, including Saturday and Sunday brunch
Phone: 514-842-3479