Eating out RAW :)

Well, some of you might be wondering how the ol’ anniversary weekend went celebrating with a salad…well, well my friends! Not quite so! Curty, being the sweetheart that he is, found a raw restaurant in Santa Monica that we decided to try, and the experience was fantastic, not to mention tasty! :) This last Saturday began with us heading down to the Getty Museum to check out the medieval art displays and the gorgeous outdoor gardens. It was a beautiful, if not incredibly, smog-free day down in LA with temperatures in the high seventies. After spending several hours of wandering over the grounds and through the expansive halls filled with art and sculptures, we headed down into Santa Monica – which was just a few miles away – to find the raw food restaurant Living Cuisine (check out the Juliano’s Raw link to see the restaurant and food pictures!) I have to say, I was really nervous about trying the restaurant! Maybe more so that the people there would all be raw-food snooties able to sniff out my recent conversion and pizza-roll eating husband as soon as we walked through the door—and assume we’d know the in’s and out’s of dining raw. I was way off. We were pleasantly surprised by how super nice everyone was, and how our waitress took time to explain the menu and how things were done. The dwindling daylight, candles, relaxing music, and the fragrant smell of orchids soon lulled us into the raw-food eating atmosphere, and when our first item arrived, we were excited to begin! I was most delighted to find out, they recommended starting with dessert, for food combining purposes and to get the digestive acids going in your stomach [suuurre, whatever you say!]. Umm… I believe the magnet on our fridge says it all: “Life’s short, eat dessert first.” Needless to say, I was happy to comply with their suggestion. I ordered a chocolate shake, and Curt got a berry iced-tea concoction. The shake was out of this world! Curt fully drank half and said he couldn’t tell the difference between that and an ice-cream based chocolate shake. Not bad to start the night off…. Creamy, cold, and delicious – three of my favorite “food words.” After enjoying our drinks, our appetizers arrived: pumpkin tortellini and spring rolls with Thai dipping sauce. YUM! The pumpkin tortellini’s were unbelievable….seriously. They were made by slicing raw pumpkin really thin to mimic raviolis, and filled with nut-cheese, and then dehydrated to get them warm, chewy, with a slight crispness to the “pasta” shell. Curt loved them too (whew!). The spring rolls were decidedly yummy as well, and save for the mint (which I enjoyed but not so much Curt) we were thrilled with the tastes, textures, and flavors. Oh, in case you were curious, those were made with cabbage, different veggies, avocado, and rolled up in minutely thin coconut wraps. Our second to last item was the Garlic Ranch Salad with mixed greens, beets, radishes, tomatoes, cucumber, and “croutons.” You absolutely could not tell that the dressing was all raw and made with nuts instead of dairy…it was crazy good! Even Curt had to admit he would have no idea it was a raw dressing if he was served it somewhere else. To top off the night (even though we were stuffed by this point), we decided to go for the raw caramel-apple pie. Oh my goodness. I swear it was just like a warm apple-caramel crumble from Costco – only better. The apples were a mix of fresh and dried, with raw whipped cream, candied pecans/walnuts, and caramel, chocolate, and strawberry sauces drizzled all over it! I honestly couldn’t believe that it was all raw…but it’s amazing what a person can come up with if making raw cuisine is your business and passion. :)
Well, I’m sure you get the idea that eating raw can be quite the dinning experience and a pleasure for your taste buds :) I really wanted to try everything on the menu just to see what all the textures and flavors were like…So come visit and we’ll sample some more!

Cheers!