Pune's Favourite Southeast Asian Restaurant Malaka Spice Gets An All-Vegan Menu!

Pune’s favourite Southeast Asian joint Malaka Spice has launched a special “Spice Temple” menu for Shraavan season – and this time around, it’s 100% vegan!

The Spice Temple Menu

Inspired by the temple cuisine of the region and drawing from Buddhist traditions, the vegan-friendly menu has a range of light, flavoursome vegetable-centric dishes, with produce sourced from the restaurant’s own farm.

The seasonal menu has 18 dishes, ranging from stir-fries and soups to salads and Buddha bowls, with Japanese Guava Sticky Rice Pudding for dessert.

Why Vegan?

Malaka Spice isn’t afraid to experiment, innovate and take risks – probably one of the reasons why their charm has never faded! They run 3 seasonal menus each year – Summer, Monsoon and Winter.

Up until now, the monsoon menu was called the Shraavan-Saawan menu, with vegetarian and non-vegetarian picks.

So why did they choose to go plant-based this time around? The menu is a culinary homage to the temples of Southeast Asia – and Buddhist temple cuisine traditionally eschews dairy.

And since Shraavan is a season when people eat lighter in an attempt to detoxify their systems, it presented the perfect opportunity to offer up a dairy-free, vegan menu.

Vegan Pho

Some of the more popular dishes include:

• Vegan Pho
• Katen Joshi
• Thai Crispy Raw Banana
• Sweet and Spicy Okra
• Jaew Mak Khua
• Vegetable Amok
• Vegan Buddha Bowl
• Spicy Noodle With Farm Vegetables

The veggies are sourced from Cherish Farms, Malaka’s own agriculture project, and each dish has been “handcrafted to perfection,” according to the team. We’re looking forward to sampling the Sambal Goreng Tempeh & Tofu-Quinoa Stir Fry!

Spicy Noodles With Farm Vegetables

A Vegan Pilot Study

The Spice Temple Menu is a pilot project of sorts to understand just how popular vegan food is – Malaka Spice already gets requests from guests to veganize certain dishes, which the kitchen is more than willing to accommodate.

Malaka Spice is also in the process of creating a vegan restaurant brand - so the Spice Temple Menu is the beginning of something much bigger.

At present, not all South East Asian restaurants offer 100% vegan dishes, in spite of the vegan-friendly tag. So this menu gives everyone a chance to sample authentic, flavourful pure vegan dishes.

Vegetable Amok

The restaurant also plans to introduce a vegan/vegan-friendly section in the main menu, as well as incorporating vegan icons into it.

What Else?

The most popular dishes from the menu will find a place on the permanent menu  - so head over, sample everything, and let them know your favourites!  The Spice Temple Menu is available at all Malaka Spice outlets and on home-delivery till September 30th.

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