Ready, set, vegan!

With the growing popularity of being healthconscious, many Cebuanos are in search for cafés and restaurants that serve healthy, delicious and affordable dishes. There is a new place in town that offers healthy, organic and delicious food: Lunhaw Vegan Café.

Lunhaw, a Cebuano term meaning lush and growing luxuriantly, is the first and only vegan café in Cebu that serves dishes from all-natural and locally produced organic fruits and vegetables. It opened last Dec. 17 at Maxwell Hotel, Cebu City.

The café has a serene ambiance where health conscious individuals such as those who are on a healthy diet, those who just came from a heavy workout, or those who are first-time diners could enjoy their vegan dishes.

On the menu is its very own Mango Pomelo salad that is a mix of mango, pomelo, green tomatoes, cucumber, red bell pepper, and onions topped with cashews and tofu croutons and served with a green house dressing. It also has the local green salad that has more or less the same ingredients from the previous one, but instead of mangoes and pomelos, it is mixed with saluyot, a leafy vegetable that is very nutritious—rich in calcium, phosphorus, iron and potassium.

Its best-selling dishes are the Vegan Sisig, Tofish and Buffalo Broccoli. It made its own vegan version of the popular sisig dish where instead of animal meat it uses tofu mushroom in coconut butter topped with tofu egg. Its Tofish, breaded in nori-wrapped tofu, is a sweet and sour dish that is crispy and saucy. For first-time goers, the Buffalo Broccoli is a must-try. It is a breaded broccoli and cauliflower topped with sweet and spicy buffalo sauce. All of these dishes are served with turmeric brown rice and their house salad.

On the other hand, for potato lovers, the cafe serves an appetizing air-fried potatoes with garlicky sour cream.

Aside from vegan dishes, Lunhaw Vegan Café serves desserts such as cupcakes made of cocoa and ice cream made of non-dairy cream.

To pair with its dishes, the cafe serves fresh juices such as apple- carrot, cucumber- ginger and banana-pineapple. It also has hot chocolate, corn coffee, soy coffee and flavored soy shake.

Lunhaw Vegan Café was built to gather vegan people together and enjoy its healthy and organic dishes as well as to make a support group for them. Aside from that, it aims to offer good and healthy food at affordable prices and educate diners about the vegan lifestyle.

Lunhaw Vegan Café is open Sunday to Thursday from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., while on Friday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and on Sunday, 7 to 11 p.m.