Noshwellmenu

The Wallflower on Main Street is a self proclaimed modern diner where vegans, omnivores and children inflicted diners can join hands and sing kumbaya while scarfing down gluten-free comfort food.

The Wallflower’s casual decor feels like an extension of someone’s kitchen: no frills seating, loud wallpapering, and yard sale recovered table settings. The long and narrow dining room encourages intimate conversations amongst the patrons while serving double duty as as gauntlet for servers to bob and weave as they skillfully make their way to and from the kitchen and dining room.

Nathan’s Vegan Chili ($12): Beans, corn, vegetables, vegan cheddar served with a wedge of focaccia.

The Wallflower’s menu is an eclectic mix of classic diner food: burgers and fries, and chili alongside a selection of vegan friendly renditions such as vegan shepherd’s pie and hummus melt.

Case ordered Nathan’s vegan chili (ever noticed how vegan dishes tend to be named after a person?): beans, corn, and vegetables in a chili tomato stew topped with vegan cheddar and served with a wedge of focaccia. The flavour was so-so and mostly unremarkable. Not bad, but not great either.

Meatloaf Wellington ($15): Meatloaf, wrapped in bacon, wrapped in puffy pastry served with veggies, mashed potatoes and gravy.

I fared better with the Meatloaf Wellington: a slab of nicely seasoned meatloaf, wrapped in bacon, wrapped in flaky puff pastry, wrapped in an enigma. This was a genuinely curious, but tasty and humble take on the Wellington. It sounds like a dish that shouldn’t work, but it does. The accompanying steamed-until-barely-any-flavour-is-left vegetables, however, was a complete after thought.

Our meal, including a beer, cocktail, tips and taxes came to around $45. The meal had its hit and misses and the service was friendly, but quite slow (so slow in fact, we felt our orders were initially forgotten). The Wallflower has some potential, with some interesting items on the menu to explore, but there are plenty of kinks for us to keep this one in the back pocket for a little while.

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