Kaya's Kitchen — Restaurant in Belmar

came to this place yesterday with my partner because we wanted food and it was the only vegan place in the area. the first red flag about this place is that the restaurant didnt smell like anything - couldn’t smell any food or anything upon walking in. the second red flag is that they were using what looked like african masks as wall decorations even though there was not one single african dish on the menu. we sat down and our server brought us waters after a few minutes without saying anything and just dropped them on the table. i wasn’t even sure if she was our server at this point because she didn’t greet us or say hi or anything. just put the waters down and walked away. she came back after a bit and we weren’t ready to order food yet and she took about another 5-10 mins to come back to take our orders. we got these thai peanut sauce skewers which were not bad but i definitely would not get them again. our entrees came out: my partner got the bbq ribs w mashed potatoes and veggies and i got the enchiladas. we also got a side of fries. the bbq ribs were huge pieces of seitan that were not seasoned at all on the inside and the potatoes and vegetables were also not seasoned at all. the fries were soggy and unseasoned and my enchiladas came out lukewarm. the cheese inside was not melted at all and the sauce tasted like grocery store enchilada sauce. when we brought this up to our server she seemed to get personally offended (i assume because she recommended the bbq ribs) and she didn’t seem to care about providing us decent service the whole night. she checked on us one time despite checking on all the other tables around us multiple times throughout their meal. when the manager came over to speak to us about disliking the food she started asking us questions about if we had ever had these things before and tried to rebut everything we said we didn’t like. she took the bbq ribs off the check but didn’t take the fries off despite us not eating them at all and telling her we did not like them. it also didn’t help that all the tables around us seemed to recieve good service and my partner and i were the only 2 people there that weren’t white… i also personally have eaten at multiple vegan restaurants and cook mostly plant based for myself at home (for about a year now) and i can confidently say that this place had some of the worst food i’ve ever had. definitely the worst vegan food ive ever had. if you value food that has flavor i would not recommend...

This place can simply be described as an experience when I went here there were so many options. It's like they had a little bit of every single cuisine I remember. I personally ordered an enchilada with some sesame sensation and steak, now one thing that I think is crazy is that everything I just said had no meat in it and not even me. No cheese. This place is completely vegan. Now I know that it's commonly considered that vegan food is not the best, but in this case it was really good and personally I'm vegetarian so I never tried it before. So for me I didn't know how to compare this so that I will not be speaking. But as a vegetarian I will say that the food was really good. The only small issue is that sometimes they use a lot of barbecue sauce. And as I said, I'm a vegetarian not a meat eater so I don't know how much barbecue sauces usually use. But in my steak, which was what I personally ain't there was just a lot of barbecue sauce to the point I had to scrape some of it off. But this doesn't mean that the steak was bad or the fake steak in this case was bad. It was still really good and I enjoyed it a lot. I also got ribs which are vegan and those were also really good and I just love the shop design because it had a nice atmosphere and the service was great. The people help you with deciding and I just love restaurants that have staff that you know. Help you with making decisions because that's probably the hardest thing, especially in this restaurant, considering you could literally find so many different cuisines in this one restaurant. They also have a good dessert selection and I had the lemon cake which was Good. In conclusion, this place is just a great place to go. If you're vegetarian and you want to try some fake meat or maybe it's also good if you eat meat and you want to try eating fake meat. This place is definitely a great place to go with friends but it is on the more expensive side but again it is basically worth it. One more thing is that the portion sizes are good so you don't have to worry about going home hungry. You'll probably have to worry about having to pack some though because it's...

Wow. I am a vegetarian who leans towards vegan and typically just customize menu items from regular restaurants. I had never tried a vegan restaurant before I tried this place one time in the past and again today and I am amazed at the friendliness of the staff, the taste and quality of the food, and the willingness and encouragement that I was met with when I asked to use my own container to transport my food.

The lady who took my order was so sweet and I was not met with any pushback when I asked to use a clean glass container to put my food in, which is far different than I've experienced with other restaurants. Did I mention that they will let you to bring your own container to be as zero-waste as possible! Such a plus in my case! She even took this into consideration and asked if I would like to avoid the plastic bag and either use a paper bag or just carry out the food by itself!?

The vegan BLT (tempeh bacon) in a wrap exceeded my expectations and had a maple bacon type of flavor without grease! My coworker had a Tempeh Reuben in a wrap (which I tried last time and LOVED) and she said that it may be her new favorite wrap! I am also very surprised at how filling the food is! I ate half of my wrap and needed to save the rest for later!

The only downside to this restaurant would be that a side does not automatically come with your wrap or sandwich and that one would think that for the price it would be included, at least while they're ordering for the first time. However, as previously stated, the wraps are very filling and probably do not need a side and for the quality of the ingredients and the flavor, the price is completely reasonable.

If you have never been here before, have never tried a vegan restaurant, or are just driving through Belmar NJ looking for reasonably priced vegan food, I suggest checking this place out!

(The photo is of the...