I love being phoned up by friends on a Sunday afternoon and invited to join them for lunch. Especially when that phone call rouses you from under 4 hours of deep slumber after a “properly banging” party the previous night. Stranded in that nightmare world between still being pissed and the hangover kicking in, I tore out of the house, and cycled to the Rainbow Café on King’s Parade.

As a non-meat-eater (though I do eat fish), it is surprising that this was my first visit to Cambridge’s only exclusively vegge restaurant. In fact, I am known to ask myself, “oh hello old friend, why don’t you go eat at the Rainbow Café sometime? It’s right up your street with you not eating meat etc.” But whenever I do ask myself that, the people who I am with – often they are total strangers – look at me in a sympathetic way, sit me down, and tell me not to worry as everything will be alright in the end.

Celebrating its 15th anniversary, the cute Rainbow Café is described by restaurant bible Harden’s as “a crowded & buzzing veggie café with a devoted regular following; it offers some first-rate dishes & even has a convenient location in a cellar opposite Kings College.” I have to confess, I was disappointed. I was late and missed ordering but in ten minutes not a single member of staff appeared. The menu is full of exotic dishes from around the world, but the mere sound of Three Bean Chilli, Cuban Pecadillo Pie and Libyan Cous Cous Bil-Khodra made my stomach perform a backwards roll. I played it safe and ordered the Spinach Lasagne. Described on the menu as “so much more than a lasagne” (alarm bells), it didn’t taste of either spinach or cottage cheese. Thick, doughy and dry, thanks go to the glass of pomegranate juice that lubricated the stodgy mess enough so I could swallow. My friends gave me a taste of their choices: thumbs up to the Guadeloupe Aubergine Columbo and the Jamican Patties (the homemade jerk sauce was perfect, smoky and piquant). But naughty Rainbow for putting relatively small amounts of the dishes on huge plates, engulfing them with far too much fruit, salad, and rice, and charging us a tenner. We are innocent vegetarians, not tycoon rabbits.

 Please do try Rainbow Café for yourself. It is so important to support places like this: they are a rare species, especially in Cambridge. But go when you are not feeling like shit. And don’t order the lasagne.