Address: Cluj, Strada Ștefan Ludwig Roth , nr. 5
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For the past year or so, I’ve started looking for vegan / vegetarian restaurants to check out in my home town and when I travel. Been to both – that I know of – in Arad , but haven’t tried more than one dish so that I could form an honest opinion. But, we’ve both been to Samsara in Cluj Napoca so I have two opinions to go with.

When we started planning our Valentine’s trip to Cluj Napoca, our friends suggested to go to a restaurant as well (we went bowling first). I was all for it, but only if we went to a vegan / vegetarian place and that’s how Samsara was chosen and reservations made. Yup, you should make reservations especially on busy days.

I loved the place the second I stepped in. It is tiny, yes, and although it was packed (our table was the only one empty) , it didn’t feel stuffy. Plus, it’s a non-smoking area! (which is great because the law only kicks in on Mar 17 in Romania). Then came the menu and we didn’t know what to choose. That’s because we liked everything – ok, except the rice-based dishes which I am not a major fan of. Having the calories clearly written under each dish made my life easier to choose the main course and dessert.

I went for an avocado, tomato and mango salad , ginger beer (house-made) and a raw cake with figs and sour cherries (See below). Alex went for a sweet potatoes and quinoa salad , ginger beer and coconut and ginger “candy”. We both got raw bread made from buckwheat and cumin to go with our salads.

Both salads looked amazing and , as a result, we only have the above two photos. That’s how fast we wanted to dig into them. I loved that the olive oil and vinegar came on the side so I could add exactly how much I wanted to.

The dessert was nice as well and I liked that neither were too sweet. While I make a lot of salads at home, I have yet to attempt to make any raw cake.

Cost-wise, my order was 57 lei / 14 USD and Alex’s 55 lei / 13.50 USD (not including the 10% tips we left).

Conclusion:

While I’ve been toying with raw vegan / vegetarian salads for years, Alex is still in the try-anything-once stage and luckily he loves some of the staples on the menu. He debated getting the guacamole but then went for the salad. There were a lot of options we wanted.

For me, Samsara is a place I’m going to keep in my must-return-to file since we tend to go to Cluj Napoca pretty often (if you forgot, my dad was born there so it’s sort of home for me).

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