Hi guys ! As promised, today’s post will be the first restaurant review of tofucado. I will be reviewing more restaurants in the upcoming posts but today’s entry is a bit special because we went to this place to celebrate the birthday of my sister-in-law, who is also vegetarian, and we all really enjoyed it.
The restaurant is called “Riz-Riz” and it is located close to the Marais ( 221 Rue Saint-Martin, 75003 Paris). It has a pretty unique concept: all the dishes proposed are made with rice. They have many different options: from curry to onigiris, or arancinis. Everything is vegan (even the desserts!) and it was really nice to not worry about whether or not something was vegan. I am not a vegan myself, but I can imagine that for those who are vegan it has to be tiring to make sure that everything is 100% vegan.
Now, onto the food. We were six people so we ordered a starter to share. Quantities were good for a 6 people starter, specially after seeing the main dishes. The quantities did seem a bit small at first but then I left the restaurant quite full and with some to-go bags, so that was good.
The starter was made of : 2 sweet potato waffles, 4 arancinis, 4 dolmas on a bed of cabbage salad. The dish came with two sides: homemade guacamole and hummus. The sweet potato waffles were extremely good, the right balance between savory and sweet. The dolmas were a bit too acidic for me – I’m allergic to citrus –, so I could only have one small bite, but the others told me that they had a very special flavor and that they were made with a lot of care. The arancinis were my favorite part of this starter : crunchy, super delicious and honestly I think I might try to replicate this in my kitchen. The guacamole was on point, but it needed a bit more onion, and the hummus was my favorite next to the arancinis.
The menu had different main dishes, a total of 5 different main dishes. We ordered 3 currys, 2 black panthers and 1 sweet potato waffle (I kinda regreted my choice after seeing it was basically the same “main” and side dishes as the starter, but I was also happy to eat more of that).
The curry was really spicy, like I like it. The quantities were HUGE (we took two containers to-go of this). The flavors were there and the rice was cook to perfection. The vegetables were so smooth and they melted in the mouth.
The black rice dish (Black panther) was even better. The black rice, which in my experience is very hard to cook, was spot-on and had the right amount of crunchiness. The edamame, avocado and tofu were a great addition to the gift and they complemented it well. The half carrot that was added was a bit misplaced but I guess it was more for decoration.
Then my dish was the sweet potato, salad and guacamole combo that we had in the starter. Still as good, but it does get a bit repetitive. If you take the starter to share, I’d suggest taking something else as a main.
I didn’t take pictures of the dessert but they ordered (I wasn’t hungry anymore) : Banana bread and panacotta. The banana bread tasted super great, and super banana intense BUT the texture was a miss for me (too grainy). Both my sisters-in-law loved it, though. The panacotta was more like a “dairy” based yogurt (made with vegetable milk) than a panacotta, it didn’t really have the texture, but it was good as well. I’m not an expert in vegan desserts but I can assume and imagine that it is pretty hard to make some non-vegan traditional desserts into vegan ones.
In terms of prices (because it matters), I’d say it was about 18.5€ per person (starter and dish). The starters go from 8€ to 21€ (the one we took was 21€ to share between 6). The main dishes go from 14-15€, so I’d say they are a pretty good deal, specially knowing the quantities and quality. Desserts range from 5 to 8.5€.
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