Angka Café | Feeding the body and soul
In today’s world eating out and sticking to your plan of healthy living do not often go hand-in-hand. Angka Café, unique to the Maltese islands, offers a complete vegetarian menu, while only serving food that do the body good.
Rachel Zammit Cutajar
I must confess I am no vegetarian and though I do cook vegetarian food - mostly by accident - the thought of going to a restaurant where you are restricted to ordering only vegetables gives me an instant meat craving - the bloodier the better.
So armed with my meat craving and handful of vegetarian friends we headed down to Angka Café, part of a Rejuvenation Centre and Green Clinic in Aldo Moro Road in Marsa.
On entrance the café is welcoming, with tomatoes growing in pots in the sunny windows, bright colours and an airy dining area giving the place a bright and lively feeling.
The food is served in a buffet style where you can choose to have a large plate at €9.99, which can be refilled as many times as you like, or a small plate at €6.50 and then simply choose whatever you want to eat from the buffet table.
The food items change daily and usually consist of three warm dishes, which could be anything from risotto to lentils and beans. The remainder consists of a variety of cold salads and dips, all served with the most fabulous home-made bread full of whole grains and seeds.
Along with the food on offer are a variety of dressings, naturally infused oils and vinegars as well as superfood seeds that can be added for extra goodness and flavour - mustard seeds, fennel seeds and spriulina - a blue green algae that grows in the alkaline waters of volcanic lakes and has been known to stablise blood sugar and reduce cholesterol - among others.
Besides the food at Angka Café being vegetarian, with a number of dishes suitable for vegans, every product that comes through the door is organic, ensuring the maximum amount of nutrients making it onto your plate with absolutely no preservatives.
Though vegetarian food can be bland if not prepared well, owner Lydia Oukhaneva has a range of recipes so full of flavour that, even meat eaters like myself leave feeling completely satisfied.
The salads are satisfying even on their own - mustard greens give a bit of a bite to the leafy salad and fennel tops add flavour to a tasty tomato salad.
There are also a variety of home-made desserts to suit gluten intolerant and keeping as natural as possible, made with only organic products.
Healthy smoothies are also available, all made from fresh fruit and vegetables for maximum goodness. While eating your meal why not try some of the flavoured water, flavoured with natural ingredients and definitely no preservatives.
The café is completely alcohol and nicotine free in order to promote healthy lifestyles for children through example.
The centre is not only about food but about well-being with holistic health treatment being at the centre of the clinic. Yoga classes and natural beauty treatments and meditation are all aimed at providing healing for the dissociation between body and mind.
Angka Café is open on Monday to Wednesday from 9:30 to 17:00; on Thursday and Friday from 9:30 to 23:30 and on Saturday from 9:00 to 17:00.
Address: Angka Café, Aldo Moro Road, Marsa.
Tel: 21224317
Web: www.angkacafe.com
Email: [email protected]
