By Janet Silvera, Freelance Writer
Freshly baked pastries include carrot and banana cakes, cornmeal and potato pudding, whole wheat roles, banana and carrot muffins all sweetened with cane juice.
'Let your food be your medicine and your medicine be your food.'
- Adwa...Nutrition for life.
WESTERN BUREAU:
I HAVE travelled to 30 countries on four continents, eaten the food of all those nations, including the offerings of well known French and Italian chefs, but I have never been to a restaurant that has even come close to converting me into eating healthily.
Until I stepped into Adwa.
Montego Bay's number one vegetarian restaurant, this cafe promotes nutrition for life. Stepping in sets off a bell in your head that sinks into your taste buds, willing you to eat and love your greens. The menu tempts you with its excitingly rich and tasty food.
Adwa is no fancy looking restaurant, it is a small, sparkling cafe. The area where the chef prepares the meals is a bit tiny, but you have the chance to watch him prepare every single thing that goes into your stomach.
"Adwa offers an authentic Jamaican taste minus the meat and fats," says Bermudan Sheena Smith, who spent 13 days in Jamaica last year and ate all her meals at Adwa.
A Seventh-day Adventist, she notes that the ingredients are wholesome, "even the vegetables are fresh and are not overcooked."
Adwa's most popular dish is called Ethiopian Delight. Cooked with a natural meat substitute made from sea vegetables, soy, chick peas and three or four other vegetables. The meat substitute is seasoned with turmeric and karima, a little coconut juice and some Jamaican spices.
For 'semi-vegetarians' trying to free themselves from the grasp of fish, the veggie fish may be just up your street. "It is difficult to tell the difference between our veggie fish and a King fish," says Mudada Hamanot, owner of Adwa.
"It's made from a lot of sea vegetables which gives it a taste of real fish. It tastes like fish, looks like fish, but it's not fish, and it's not affected by the pollution in the ocean."
He adds that unlike some fish meals sold in a number of vegetarian restaurants, there is no seasoning salts or MSG added to this veggie fish. The veggie fish dish is complemented with a combination of seven different vegetables.
Adwa also serves up tofu in delicious blends. Brown Stew Tofu titillates the taste buds because it is well-seasoned, sautéed with herbs and spices, and then stir-fried with vegetables.
Curried soya chunks, a natural organic product which tastes somewhat like lamb, are also a crowd-pleaser. "It's a dehydrated food that has to be soaked overnight in warm water, seasoned nicely, in the morning, curried, then stir fried," explains Hamanot.
Since opening its doors in 1999 at the City Centre Plaza in Montego Bay, Adwa has grown considerably and Hammanot now operates four stores in the tourism capital.
