Oregon: Ashland – Pangea Cafe (Review)

During our regular visits to Ashland, Oregon to catch plays at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival we like to try out different restaurants around the town that serve vegan food. During our last visit to town, I had got us tickets for the Sunday matinee showing of the musical Hairspray ( the Festival does many non-Shakespeare plays). So, we needed to find somewhere to grab a bite to eat before our show.

Pangea is a small cafe/restaurant along Ashland’s High Street. The name itself is something that is for me very evocative of a time in our planet’s past when things looked very different from today. Pangea was a super-continent that existed during the late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic eras. It assembled from earlier continental units approximately 335 million years ago, and it began to break apart about 175 million years ago.

Anyway, back to the review. Pangea focuses on soups, salads, wraps and paninis. They make everything from scratch using locally grown, organic ingredients. This, is not a vegan or vegetarian restaurant as they do have plates that contain meat. That said there are plenty of vegan and vegetarian options.

The interior of Pangea is light and airy. I loved the mix of materials used in the decor, from the bare red brick wall to the pitted copper panel behind the serving counter. A particular favourite of mine was the array of Edison bulbs hanging above the counter. Apart from a couple of small cafe tables outside the front of the store the majority of the seating is indoors and is limited so it can be difficult to find somewhere to sit.

For our meal, we decided to take a cup of soup each and a wrap. I went for the coconut curried yam soup and Karen selected the lentil dahl soup. They were both delicious. The curried yam soup was lightly spiced and emanated a delicate aroma, whilst the lentil dahl was spicier with a dominant tomato flavour.

Not satisfied with the curry yam soup I decided to try the curry wrap with tofu, tomatoes, red onions, roasted red peppers, grated carrots and curried aioli, whilst Karen opted for the MaHarissa that mixed tempeh with cucumber, lemon-mint chermoula aioli, raita, carrots, red onions and roasted red pepper. The wraps were flavorful but the portions we not huge (perhaps we need to get used to smaller portions), and in terms of value for money it was not wonderful – the wraps are all $10 or more. The price is driven by Pangea’s high street location so if you are more budget-conscious there are other options not too far away.

We enjoyed our meal at Pangea and would definitely go there again as it is ideally located for the Shakespeare Festival theatres. My overall rating would be 7.5/10 the main downside is value for money.