Iris T.
Yelp
Not sure how I should rate this, but I ultimately decided to bump it up to 4 stars.
My husband and I are both vegetarians, BUT we do not eat onion, garlic, leeks, or chives. Being a vegetarian/vegan is already a bit of a challenge in France without the other part of our dietary restrictions playing part (the fromageries I've visited in Paris also seem to have only non-vegetarian cheeses thus far, which seriously saddens me) but Veget'Halles actually has a special no onion/garlic menu. I don't know why they have one and am quite curious, but they do. It's basically a list of foods they make that do not contain those spices set on a separate laminated sheet of paper.
I typically eat early so we slowly (I thought) walked our way over on a Friday night (the European thing of restaurants having specific dinner hours is killing me here). We were still 10 minutes early, but after we wasted a bit of time, we returned and hesitantly walked in 1 minute early. Almost all of the tables already had pieces of paper resting on them for people that had reserved in advance. I think there were only 2 tables or so left; the remainder consisted of outside seats. We got seated at a small table for two in between two other small tables; I knew I was going to have fun getting out because those 2 tables had been reserved and their parties were very prompt. In fact, within a minute of us being seated, most of the reserved tables were filling up.
The first person who seated us looked at us in confusion when we mentioned they had a no onion/garlic menu when we were given their normal menu. Shortly after, another guy took the menu in question and handed it to us. I guess not all the staff know that they had one... or they don't often encounter vegetarians/vegans with that request and had forgotten they had one.
Although what we could eat covered the entire page (yay!), I admit I wanted more French-oriented foods. Unfortunately, those were off limits to us. I was stuck with staring at my neighbors through my peripheral vision ordering what I wanted to order. Even so, I was still pretty happy to have a hot, sit-down meal without worrying about onions or garlic. We ended up getting 3 entrees to share: Vegetarian "Chicken" Kabob (with sides of sauteed veggies/mushrooms, lentils, and wild/brown rice), Vegetarian "Fish" in Sweet & Sour Sauce (with the same sides), and the mixed salad with the raisin chutney (also with the same sides). It came with a bowl of cut bread. The man taking our order looked surprised when we ordered 3 main dishes. My husband ate about 65% of it and he could easily finish 5 servings of the rice so since most of the food consisted of "sides", he had no problem with it. We cleaned off all our plates with no problem as well as our bread helped along with the olive oil that was on the table.
Taste-wise, the food tended to be heavy on the faux-meat - at least on our menu - and my husband didn't really want a burger (we are visiting from the States). It was actually a bit reminiscent of the all-vegetarian, no onion/garlic [and Asian] restaurants in Houston I can eat at, so I wasn't overly impressed. However, the food was more fresh and less salty/greasy, which I enjoyed a lot. Their rice was tender and lightly seasoned. I did like it - don't get me wrong - it was just nothing special because it was similar to what I've had. Probably why I like cooking at home for the variety, haha. I did like the salad entree, since that was less similar to what I'm used to and the raisin chutney was pretty good. Asians tend not to like raw veggies as much so that was new.
Food was good and on the healthy side. The location was easy to find and the decor as well as atmosphere was nice. They apparently do get booked up but we were lucky, so you might want to try making reservations if you plan on going. The place isn't particularly small, but if you're sitting in between two smaller tables with only 4 inches or so in between the tables, it can get a little tight. The staff seemed to know some basic English, though we appeared to be the only foreigners when we were dining there - everyone else appeared to be French (yay for French vegetarians/vegans!). We were offered after dinner drinks/desserts but decided to pass as we were a little on the full side.
To be quite honest, if I could try something more French on their menu, this would be 5 stars. As it were, I suppose it gets a solid 4 stars.