Alma Resort has introduced a vegan menu in a bid to embrace sustainability, promote healthy eating, reduce animal suffering, and tap into the world’s growing love affair with meatless cuisine.
Alma’s newly reopened Asiana Restaurant, which serves South Korean, Thai and Japanese fare, has unveiled a dedicated plant-based menu with highlights such as mushroom and tofu in vegan-oyster sauce with mixed mushrooms, young tofu, and leeks served with steamed rice.
Dishes already proving popular with diners include tofu and vegan chicken Thai green curry, which includes green curry paste made from scratch, coconut milk, Thai basil, and seasonal vegetables served with steamed rice; Thai fried rice with vegan chicken floss, chili, coriander, curry powder, and mixed vegetables; and wok-fried mixed vegetables, which includes broccoli, cauliflower, carrot, shitake mushroom, lingzhi mushroom, and vegan oyster sauce.
Crispy California Roll with a plant-based salmon, nori, avocado, yellow radish pickle, cucumber, steamed Japanese rice, and plant-based Salmon Nigiri are among the vegan sushi options.
The menu is rounded out by the likes of the vegan chicken katsu curry comprising crispy vegan chicken with Japanese curry sauce served with steamed rice and pickled ginger, and braised eggplant with vegan minced pork with vegan oyster sauce, coriander and leeks served with steamed rice.
Alma’s dining outlets, including beachfront restaurant Atlantis, Italian restaurant La Casa, Alma Food Court with six F&B outlets and Alma Lounge, have also introduced more vegan options. Alma’s staff canteen has also introduced two plant-based days per month based on the cycle of the moon and Buddhist beliefs.
Alma also sources some ingredients from its on-site organic, sustainable farm, which includes two large herb gardens and a nursery garden. Alma joined forces with Vegan Food Quest’s founder Paul Eyers to help develop a new menu and dishes, deliver staff training and workshops, further source vegan products and ingredients and review and advise on existing menus.
“There are so many compelling reasons to eat plant-based food; we felt compelled to cater to not only guests who follow a plant-based diet, but those who are keen to eat well and are curious to try plant-based options,” said Alma’s managing director, Herbert Laubichler-Pichler.
“There are multiple health benefits for ourselves and our planet by eating plant-based cuisine. In addition to a purported 52 percent reduced risk of heart disease, our planet is in crisis. The Amazon has lost some 800 million trees in just six years due to the beef and dairy industry. An estimated 98 percent of animals globally are raised in factory farms.”
Laubichler-Pichler said the commitment to offering more plant-based dishes at Alma Resort is clear to see, and the team are eager to cater for guests by also adapting dishes where possible to make them plant-based.
According to Eyers, Southeast Asia has more vegans than anywhere in the world, with nine percent of the population identifying as vegan. Google searches for vegan food skyrocketed some 5000 percent in 2021, when the world was in the grip of the global pandemic.
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