The Vital Method – The Vital Vegan Menu

Address: 40 Patrick Street, Merewether, NSW 2291

Website: www.thevitalmethod.com

Sure, you can get vegan food in Newcastle and sure, you can get nutritious food too but it’s rare to be able to have something exciting and good for you in Newcastle, let alone having it delivered to your doorstep. That’s why The Vital Method is such a welcome addition to the Newcastle restaurant scene.

The Vital Method has just opened up in Merewether and not only is it a vegan-friendly cafe with coffee, smoothies and weekend breakfast options (I’ll review this menu another time) but they have a meal plan menu available too! The Vital Vegan menu options are available for lunch and dinner on weekdays and can be picked up from the cafe or delivered to your door for an additional fee. The guys at The Vital Method invited me to have The Vital Vegan menu delivered for 2 weeks and I’m stoked to pass on what I thought.

So how does this work? It’s pretty easy actually! There’s a Week A and a Week B menu so you don’t get the same meal over the period of a fortnight. You simply look over the menu on The Vital Method’s website, select which meals you want delivered, pay online and simply pick up at the cafe or they’re delivered to you between 4pm and 7pm. The flexibility means that you can have lunches delivered to your office and swing by the shop on the way home from work to collect dinner.

Now that we’ve got all the technical stuff out of the way, what’s the deal with the food? I didn’t really know what to expect from home delivered meals but The Vital Method have done a great job of packaging the meals so that you can heat it up and put it together at home e.g. cold stuff will come in a separate container to the hot stuff, so you can heat it up the hot stuff without ruining your salads. You can eat the food straight out of the containers or serve it up on a plate, just like I did.

The meals themselves taste great. You can tell the food has been made fresh with good quality ingredients, which is an important aspect of the way they do things at The Vital Method. Some meals I liked more than others, the deconstructed vegetable burger and the tomato & coconut korma were the stand out meals for me over the fortnight. In saying that, everything I ate I enjoyed and would happily eat again.

The portion sizes are generous, so I was always left satisfied with the amount of food I was given plus because the meals are good for you, you’re not left with that post-dinner grossness (or what I call “Mojoing” if you’re a fan of The Simpsons). The plan for the future is to have nutritional info available which will be handy for those who like to count their calorie intake. Lunches are $15 and dinners are $20 (plus delivery fee) which for the size and tastiness of the meals is pretty reasonable.

If you’re looking for convenience without sacrificing nutrition, The Vital Method’s Vital Vegan menu is for you. Give it a try for the next couple of weeks and see for yourself!