Slurps

Many years ago, I shared a flat in the south of France with a bunch of students, including a chap from Reading called Nigel. For a year he lambasted us with his radical vegetarian agenda, whipping out ethical, health and philosophical complaints every time any of us slapped a merguez on the grill or brought home a salami-topped pizza. Not surprisingly, we drifted apart after moving back to London, but some months later we found ourselves leaving a boozy student party late at night and feeling peckish.

“Let’s get a kebab,” he suggested.

“Er, Nigel, you’re vegetarian, remember?”

“Oh, that! I just made that up to pull girls. You should try it; they think you’re really sensitive. Make mine a döner.”

Ever since – and although some of my best friends are veggies – I must confess to harbouring a degree of suspicion about any efforts to convert people to a herbivorous diet. Nevertheless, I tried to put my prejudices behind me and enter Ixelles’ new meat-free restaurant Slurps with an open mind. After all, this is no ordinary vegetarian restaurant: this a restaurant based on the ancient Indian principles of Ayurveda, or science of life, “a cuisine for the body and the spirit” that will provide a “healthy and pure” diet based on plants that are “the soul of the Earth”.

There are pages and pages of this stuff on the restaurant’s website, explaining, for example, how an imbalance of the elements Vata, Pitta or Kapha in your diet can lead to jealousy, indecision or laziness. So I know I’m going to come out of the place a better person and am relieved that the stress of parking near Place Flagey is quickly eased by the soothing ethno-electric soundtrack. My pigs’-feet-and-calves’-brains-loving companion is appeased by the cheerfully bright decor, even if the giant mural that appears to show planets orbiting in an orange universe around huge heads sliced by a potato peeler is a tad disconcerting.

So, what about the food? We opened up with a starter called ‘On the path of initiation of Benares’, a dish, we are assured by the menu, that will bring “the ecstatic drunkenness of wellbeing and the luminous recognition of the benefits of heaven and earth right here and right now”. Basically, it’s a plate of mezzes. Lots of little white dishes filled with Middle Eastern and South Asian appetisers such as tahini, hummus, falafel, aubergine paste, grilled peppers, fennel marinated in lemon, sweet potatoes with cinnamon. Actually, all came very nicely spiced and prepared, but were served so cold that the subtle flavour mixes were all but frozen out.

After a wait that would have tested the patience of a Zen master, the main courses arrived. Slurps looks far and wide for its inspiration and our dishes were advertised as blending touches from India, Cyprus, Ethiopia, Indonesia and Tibet. Kitchari is a rice and lentil dish from north India served here with cubes of grilled halloumi sheep’s cheese from Cyprus. Chaptag is a speciality of Lhasa and came with slices of seitan – a wheat-based meat substitute – on a risotto-like preparation of pearl barley. Tempeh is a traditional Indonesian soya cake, described as “vegetal chicken” and served with peanut sauce on an Ethiopian-style injera flatbread.

The mix was certainly exotic, mildly spiced and, on the whole, tasty and filling. If you have better luck with the service and can see your way through the masses of philosophical musings on the menu, Slurps can make an intriguing alternative night out. They also have a shop at the front selling some of the ingredients used in the restaurant and other vegetarian delights.

7 Rue Dautzenberg, tel 0477.92.74.11; www.slurps.be