The Orchid Vegan Restaurant — Restaurant in England

This place is for people who don't eat meat but wish they did. Only 1 app and 1 main that wasn't built around mock meat. I don't eat meat by choice, so having a menu full of a fake version of what I choose not to eat is just...not exciting. I was looking forward to some interesting combos or preparations. Seeing all the excellent reviews I was prepared to be wowed by creative vegetable dishes. But no. That is not what this restaurant is about. Disappointing.

Between us we tried 3 apps, 3 mains, the special fried rice, and 3 desserts.

APPS: Mushroom toast is deep fried (though the menu doesn't say it) and I couldn't taste the mushroom. Veg gyoza were small and a bit dried out (read: crunchy wrappers) but tasty. Duck pancakes (crepes) were okay. Husband and daughter really liked them and the sauce was nice but I wasn't into the weird texture of the mock duck.

MAINS: Lemon chicken sauce and crisp on the breading was good but the texture/flavor of the chicken was not pleasant so I only had 1 bite. Husband was fine with it though. Chicken in black bean sauce was good+. Probably the same mock chicken as the other (?) but the prep on this one was easier to eat for some reason. The saltiness was nice. Daughter really enjoyed it. The mushrooms and asparagus main was just okay. Fried rice was also okay except for the mock shrimp and I had a hard time getting my bite down.

DESSERTS: Lemon sponge cake itself was flavorless but the frosting was good. Chocolate layer cake pretty good. Salted caramel dessert was probably the best of the three. House white (pinot grigio) was really nice.

Dining room feels fancy enough for a nice birthday dinner out. They kept it quite warm and I roasted in a thin jumper. Service was kind and friendly.

We aren't picky eaters but the point of a review is to tell the real truth, right? We know brilliance when we see it and this was not the culinary genius you'd think from seeing their overall google review score. Was it fine? Yes. But we felt surprised by all the mock meat (not in a good way) and since the food was just meh we...

Eating Chinese food out as a vegetarian is always difficult as most restaurants only offer veg or some form of soggy fried tofu as their meat free option. The orchid changes all that. The food is excellent and very creative in flavour and texture, from the lamb skewers to the realistically chewy salt and pepper calamari. The star of the show was the shredded beef in ok sauce for us which had the crispy batter and meaty texture. Think of this as doing to Chinese food what York's once across the garden does to takeway food.

It does have some issues. You'll need to order a fair few plates as the portion sizes are pretty small, we had 3 starters 2 mains and two sides for two and that was about enough(plus a bottle of house red). Without eat out to help out we would be looking at 50 quid which unfortunately prices this place out of regular visiting. They are a new restaurant and thus there were obviously some teething issues with service, being that it was quite slow, they were using a table to store glassware and a couple of the members of staff were clearly still learning the ropes .

The menu was also clearly an early draft and was missing the rice and noodle sides which they were charging for, a more up tight diner would probably argue the fact that if a waitress offers a choice of rice and noodles with a main and they're not on the menu, you could easily assume they are free. The starters were also named as "small plates" and the general layout of the menu led to some confusion as to what format exactly you were ordering.

That said, the food is the main part and that was brilliant so 4 stars for now. I'm sure the issues will be ironed out over time as these guys trouble shoot the post...

Avoid the The Orchid Vegan Restaurant in York if you have any allergy/intolerance!!!

My partner and I popped in for a meal whilst in the area for the day, we explained to the server that I was GF (coeliac) there were allergens listed next to all items on the menu, so I ordered the meals that were not listed to contain wheat or gluten... after ordering I was then handed a separate menu and told one of the meals I had ordered contained gluten, however, it was not listed on the normal menu (we pointed this out to them) I was then told "if you order and anything happens it is your fault"

We had checked out the menu online beforehand and felt very confident going there as every menu item on the menu listed the allergens next to it .. or so we thought.

Absolutely disgusted, felt so belittled and ashamed to have an allergy that we cancelled our order and left.

It felt as though I was a hindrance and they were not accepting the fact that they had mislabelled their own menu and not taking responsibility for it.

Genuinely left the place quite upset, the allergens were, I thought, so clearly marked which made choosing a meal relatively simple.

In response to the managers reply:

You could not have tried to phone us as we were a walk-in, we had not booked and you did not have our numbers. You did tell us the dish was not gluten-free and once again are not taking responsibility for your mistake. You also told us that if we ordered the dish from the normal menu (which was not on the GF menu I was not given when I said I had an allergy) and anything happened to me that it would be our fault.

Please read up on Natasha's law before...