Cafe Compassion - Vegetarian Cafe (Now closed)

 

What really caught my attention when I first read about Cafe Compassion is the name. A quick search on the net led me to their rather nice website that explains all about the philosophy behind this little cafe, and I must say, I'm impressed with the efforts being taken to be compassionate towards our planet, our community, and us patrons by providing us with healthy, great tasting food! It also made me feel good eating here - at least one choice I made today isn't so destructive to our world, even if I have to drive to the cafe!

Cafe Compassion itself is lovely, and is located in a quiet area, not far from the busy Nimmanhaemin Road. There's a nice little garden in front, which also doubles as Bicycle Parking. It seems the owners love bicycles and try to encourage cycling by offering free refills of water to cyclists who pass by whether they eat at the cafe or not. The open eating area is nice and cosy, with only around 8 tables.

The owners themselves work at the cafe, and we could meet Marissa, who makes a very affable hostess. The cafe serves Western style vegetarian food.

We chose two dishes to share. The food took quite a while to come out. I guess because everything is prepared fresh. However, all is forgiven when our dinner finally came!

The Gourmet Raw Lasagna not only looks fantastic, it tastes great too. It's amazing that healthy food could taste so good! Incidentally, this is a raw and vegan dish. Layers of marinated eggplants and zucchini are filled with pesto, marinara and cashew cheese. LOL I have no idea what cashew cheese is, but it looks a bit like cottage cheese in the lasagna. Served with a large side salad. Yum! 150 baht.

 

Dizzy Cheese Steak. Marissa tells us that this is a dish that many patrons love. It's described on the menu as: The Philly cheese steak "sibling", a white hoagie filled with leg of mushroom, green bell peppers, onion, New Zealand cheese pressed under the hot grill. I also had no idea what "cheese steak", or "hoagie" is, for that matter, but it sounded interesting. Dizzy Cheese Steak turned out to be a very delicious toasted sandwich filled with mushrooms (which looked, tasted, and even had a similar texture to beef!) and melted cheese. Wow, it was good! 135 baht.

 

...And for dessert, the Raw Keylime Pie, chosen, well, because I've never heard of it before! Apparently, it's an American dessert, and Cafe Compassion's raw version is made from avocado and lime in a coconut and sugar base. It turned out to be quite pleasant and refreshing. The filling has the texture of ice-cream and served quite cold (I guess it was straight from the fridge). I think it would have tasted even better if we let the pie sit for a bit before delving straight in. 115 baht.

 

The Verdict:
Lovely, comfortable cafe. Very friendly and relaxing ambience. Good range of interesting and fun sounding food and drinks.  It's also great that the cafe strives to be environmentally and socially responsible, which also makes me feel good to eat here and to support the cafe's endeavours. Very good food, even if they come out quite slowly...so be patient! : D

The Rating:
The food: 8/10
The ambience: 8/10
The service: 7/10
Value for money: 7/10

Cafe Compassion
21 Sirimankalajan Soi 11
T. Suthep, A. Muang, Chiang Mai
Tel: 053 222 379
Email: eatdrinklounge@cafecompassion.com
Opens: Tue-Sat 11:30am-10pm; Sunday 11:30am-3pm (brunch only)



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