There’s a new vegan restaurant in town, and it is so good! I am both happy and excited to introduce to you Daya, which is described as “an upscale, 100% plant based restaurant.” Located in the city of Winter Park, I can tell you that Daya is definitely different from your ordinary vegan restaurant. From the beautiful layout and design of the restaurant to the attention paid to the plating of the food, I am quite excited to see Daya flourish into Central Florida’s new “it” place for meat-free dining.
The first time that I stepped into Daya, I noticed the difference right away. Not to be a mean-girl when it comes to vegan restaurants, but I’m sure a few of you can agree that they are sometimes not the nicest or cleanest places you want to grab a bite at. (I hope I’m not the only one.) So seeing the cherry oak tables and chairs along with the beautiful artwork and chic lighting fixtures, I was quite taken aback. In fact, I had to check with my waitress to make sure Daya was really a vegan restaurant. This was only the beginning of the amazing time I had there.
The menu at Daya is everything! There were appetizers, soups & salads, flatbreads, burgers, wraps, and desserts to choose from. Not to mention, everything looked so good. After making a few cuts to my list, I was caught between the BBQ Flatbread and the Buffalo Cauliflower Wrap. It was such a tough decision. I love a flatbread. I also loved buffalo chicken when I was a meat eater, and it had been such a long time since I had those flavors in my mouth. I was in the mood to reminisce a bit, so I went with the wrap.
Before I jump in and tell you how amazing it was, let me first give you the run down of the item. The whole wheat wrap was stuffed with tempura cauliflower which is dipped in buffalo sauce and topped with a blue cheese dressing, lettuce, tomato, and red onion. So simple, but oh so good!
The cauliflower was crunchy. In fact, if you’re not a cauliflower fan, you will definitely be okay ordering this item because I forgot that I was eating cauliflower. The buffalo sauce was not spicy at all, which was perfect for me because I am not a fan of spice. The sauce still added a great flavor to the cauliflower, though. What really had my tastebuds perking up was the blue cheese. It was amazing. It was so amazing that in the midst of eating it, I found it necessary to just confirm with the waitress that it was in fact vegan. It was! You could definitely fool blue-cheese lovers with it.
Then, there were the sweet potato fries. I can’t remember having bad sweet potato fries, but I certainly can recall a few times having meh sweet potato fries. Those are probably worst than the bad ones. For some reason, the ones at Daya really stood out to me. Crunchy, flavorful… I really look forward to trying them again.
If I haven’t said it enough or made enough insinuations, Daya is a great, new option for eating out meat free AND vegan in Central Florida! And, it is most certainly date-night approved.
Enjoy!
