Eat a “healthy as mutha” meal at Williamsburg’s newest vegan restaurant
Wholesome as a Motha (234 Union Ave.), or HAAM, is a full-service vegan Caribbean restaurant opening Wednesday, Nov. 15, in Williamsburg. HAAM will be part of the neighborhood’s rising array of vegan choices that embrace Jungle Cafe, Backyard Carver and Plantega, to call a number of.
Wholesome as a Motha originated as a cloud kitchen in Queens with a take-out-only mannequin. After promoting a few of her specialty vegetarian Caribbean dishes at quite a lot of festivals and pop-ups round city, chef and proprietor Yesenia Ramdas determined to increase.
Ramdas was born and raised in New York, and have become a vegetarian on the age of 17. Rising up, she developed recipes that stayed true to her Dominican roots, but in addition adopted her vegetarian weight loss plan.
Impressed by Ramdas’s Dominican heritage and her husband Randy’s Trinidadian background, HAAM’s menu blends custom with innovation and celebrates the vibrancy of the Caribbean in a wholesome, sustainable and approachable means.
HAAM’s menu is in depth for an all-vegetarian restaurant. The primary web page begins with a wide range of scrumptious appetizers that embrace a trio of empanadas, ceviche made with hearts of palm, and a Caribbean-inspired Japanese rice ball with grilled oyster mushrooms, candy plantains, avocado mousse, and spicy mayonnaise.
Subsequent up are salad choices that embrace a Kale Caesar, Mango Calypso Chow with cucumber, arugula, purple onion, shadon penne, lemon, and oregano, and a “Mutha Earth” Salad Bowl with quinoa, walnuts, crispy onions, candy banana, and avocado.
The menu continues with a variety of antipasti equivalent to yucca puree with king oyster mushroom “scallops” and broccolini. There is a dish referred to as “Yuh Motha’s Mofongo” with lion’s mane mushroom chicharrones in a creamy curry sauce, and a “Buss Up Shut” roti with vegetarian hen, pumpkin and mango curry.
For dessert, HAAM presents some choices together with guava cheesecake, coconut tarts, arroz con leche made with cashew milk, in addition to probably the most genuine desserts within the neighborhood, cassava cake with selfmade ice cream made with soursop fruit.
The beverage menu contains distinctive choices equivalent to contemporary, 100% pure, cold-pressed sugarcane juice, selfmade tamarind juice, and sorrel juice, a hibiscus drink indigenous to Jamaica. There’s additionally a conventional Dominican drink made with milk and orange juice referred to as morrisonando, in addition to vegan wines, beer, champagne cocktails and non-alcoholic delicate drinks.
The 1,000-square-foot HAAM restaurant, designed by Melissa Anderson of Brooklyn-based OAD Interiors, exudes Caribbean attraction in a contemporary, polished means with wooden and rattan accents and black and white marble flooring.
The restaurant’s brilliant white partitions function a significant Ramdas household heirloom, in addition to a hand-painted mural by Brazilian artist Livia Mourao, “which is a tribute to the maternal figures who introduced the HAAM model to life,” based on Ramdas. .
Wholesome as a Motha is open Tuesday by Thursday from 1pm to 9pm, Saturday from midday to 10pm, and Sunday from 11am to 9pm
