A sister restaurant to the Sanctum Coffee & Juice Bar, The Sanctum Café has a more extensive vegan menu, full service, and a larger dining space.
Restaurant: The Sanctum Café in Orlando
Dish: Breakfast Burrito
Reading: The Bookshop on the Corner by Jenny Colgan
With the larger menu, there are so many plant-based choices. The vegan pumpkin waffle which brought me here on my visit was not available, but was replaced with a scrumptious sounding pumpkin bread topped with the nuts and bananas that would come with the waffle.
The vegan French toast casserole also sounded good, made with the seasonal fruit of plantains. (This item changes seasonally.) But I chose option #3, the Sanctum Breakfast Burrito.
I’m not sure I’ve ever had a breakfast burrito. Having had mostly lunch or dinner burritos, the idea of scrambled eggs in a wrap never really appealed to me.
But I have a relatively newfound liking for scrambled tofu. And cashew cream (plant-based) was one of the ingredients in the burrito, a plus.
I like everything from Sanctum that I’ve had, so why not try this, too. This one would be plant-based and vegan, which is why I’m here. Most of Sanctum’s menu is plant-based, though some items can be made with real egg, if requested.
After a brief wait, the dish was served. There was not as much tofu as I expected and way more potato. And the potatoes were cut large, as you can see in the photo. It smelled savory and was pretty easy to eat by hand.
Besides the tofu and potato it had sweet potato, tomatoes, spinach, yellow onion, and the whole wheat wrap. Plus, lots of curry and cumin and I think turmeric, since the tofu had a yellowish color.
The cumin flavor eventually got pretty strong. I would have liked more cashew cream. It may have cut the strength of the cumin. The potatoes had the skins still on, and I liked getting the sweet potato taste every so often.
About half way into the first portion, the flavors began to come together more as I was able to get more of the ingredients into each single bite. Even though there wasn’t a lot of onion, it was also kind of strong.
Adding a sweet hot drink like the rose latte, which is on the menu at both locations, would have been a nice counter balance to the cumin, onion, and turmeric flavors. By the time I thought of this, though, I was nearly finished.
Sanctum Café is a sit down restaurant and is good for the solo diner. There are plenty of small tables as well as a few lounge areas.
It’s a kind of combination coffee shop/restaurant with a more upscale feel than a diner or coffee shop. Over the sounds of diners and latte making noises I could hear 70s rock on the sound system.
I even had a view of some Florida wildlife as a little bird kept looking into the window near where I was sitting.
I could have sat and read for a little while though when you have a server it’s a good idea to leave when you’re finished and not hang around, so they can seat another diner. Still, the place was not yet full.
Could I make this at home? Yes, most of these ingredients are easily available. And then I can make the scramble the way I like it. I would add mushrooms and more sweet potato. Maybe cook the onion, even. Cashew cream isn’t super hard to make it but it does take about 20 minutes since you need to soak the cashews. What I really want to try is that pumpkin waffle. Guess I’ll have to come back.