Post-Birthday RAW Celebration at NYC’s Pure Food and Wine
Wednesday, September 27th, 2006I’ve been rather busy this month with event season starting again at the Met and celebrating (in many ways, with many drinks, with many wonderful people - thanks all!) my 28th birthday. I feel pretty adult, but then again I’ve felt adult since I was about 27 1/2. I digress! I want to send a belated e-thank you to my sisters for bring me out on my birthday to the wonderful Candle 79. Since it was a surprise, I wasn’t prepared with my camera but I can guarantee there was a ton of vegan and raw goodness and birthday wonderfiality. I direct you instead to check out the review of Candle 79 on Veganfriendly, a great new resource for us veggie New Yorkers.
What I do have for you today is about a million pictures of the last of my birthday outings, a special “Tasting Menu” treat at the raw food restaurant Pure Food and Wine. The charming Jerry took me there (after virtually zero arm-twisting) because I thought it seemed like the most cozy and fulfilling place to spend a post-birthday evening dining on nothing cooked over 118 degrees. I was proved correct because we had an excellent time, had very attentive and informative service, great food, and really really excellent biodynamic* wine.
*biodynamic, we found out, is a system of gardening that is one step above organic. The wiki reads:
A central aspect of biodynamics is that the farm as a whole is seen as an organism, and therefore should be a closed self-nourishing system, which the preparations nourish. Disease of organisms is not to be tackled in isolation but is a symptom of problems in the whole organism.
Cool!
Now, for those of you not familiar with raw food, basically, it’s “raw” fruits, vegetables, and nuts that are not heated over 118 degrees in order to preserve the living enzymes, theoretically making the food easier to digest. My personal feelings on raw food aside (and I have quite a few conflicting thoughts on this subject, but other day, another post), this dining experience was really wonderful and just goes to show that eating even those most extreme “health” food can be completely satisfying if given enough time, attention, and love.
Please live raw vicariously through my snaps and food commentary below:
This was a nut “cheese” on a dehydrated (not baked, obviously) “cracker.” The sauce was a Framboise-balsamic reduction that Jerry pretty much licked off his plate.
We got the 5-course tasting menu which, as explained by our waiter, was more like 7 courses. Since they served both Jerry and I different plates with a different thing to taste, that ends up to be 11 unique raw creations. I pretty much lost count by the end. The appetizer course above was wonderful. The one on the left was a thai-esque wrap of marinated cabbage leaf with a tamarind dipping sauce. It translated to “raw” quite well (check out my mostly-raw build-your-own-lettuce-wraps here.) The cabbage they used was really delicious, but unfortuntely so was the biodynamic wine so I can’t remember exactly what type of cabbage it was. The wraps were Jerry’s favorite of all the dishes and for good reason - crunchy, sweet, sour, whimsical. Try this at home. The seaweed salad had not two but three different kinds of seaweed and was also quite tasty, but not as standout as the wraps.
When the waiter announced that this was Creamy Tomato Soup creamed only with heavily whipped tomato, my tastebuds suspected he might be lying because it was so tasty and had a great texture. An excellent example that fresh vegetables need very little (not even cooking) to taste their very best. There was an interesting use of lemon zest that made the soup really sparkle. Mental note to use more zest. Mental note to say the word “zest” more often - what a great word!
OK, back on track, back to main course #1. Well, main course 1a and 1b actually. The dish on the left is Zucchini Ravioli. The “pasta” was thin slices of zucchini dehydrated to a wonderful chewy texture. The filling and sauce were different kinds of nut cream, if I recall correctly, and there was some nuts and a nice crunchy side salad of what seemed to be celery leaves to provide more layers of texture. Terrific. The dish on the right was a nest of fennel with more nut cheese and a balsamic sauce. This dish was less than thrilling - it seemed a little small in comparison to the ravioli and the color and tastes weren’t as exciting as some of the other dishes.
And here are main courses 2a and 2b. The tamale was an interesting concept - corn and nut cheese and possibly some zucchini all wrapped up in a corn husk with a avocado garnish and with a side of mole sauce. The mole sauce was as good as any cooked mole I’ve ever had - yum! Complex and flavorful. Zesty! But the sweet tamale filling got a little cloying tasting after a few bites, but maybe because this was dish 7 or 8 and my palate was getting numb. The mushroom skewer had a beautiful presentation on a long thin plate with a vibrant green avocado lime sauce and a pepper side salad. I’m not a huge mushroom lover and was skeptical about having them raw but it really worked, in part due to the flavorful marinated pepper salad. I voted this dish my favorite.
Oh my god and the desserts! These were not wimpy vegan fruit-and-nut-butter pies, these were REALLY BIG, really dense, really chocolately, serious serious desserts. On the left is a Dark and Light Chocolate Cake with a chocolate ice cream that you wouldn’t believe didn’t have cream your waiter crossed his heart for you like I made ours do. The Chocolate Banana Sundae was like the most heavenly banana split EVER. I can’t believe that these things didn’t have cream. I can’t believe that this might be the first desserts that I didn’t have room to finish.
We’re nearing the end of our story, gentle readers, and though still slightly embarrassed, I’ll have you know that at the end of the meal I was so happy, relaxed, saturated with raw goodness and stuffed with vegan chocolate desserts that when the bill came I was in such a stupor that I figured that the little item holding down the bill was some wonderfully constructed piece of raw candy and tried to take a bite. I mean, I literally put it in my mouth and closed my chompers on it. As you may be able to tell from the dimly-lit photo above, this “candy” was actually a rock. A rock!
Which pretty much sums up the experience for me: Pure Food and Wine has such a comfortable atmosphere and non-obtrusive approach to a questionably extreme cuisine that your relaxation level rises to the point that you’ll eat a rock if they put it down in front of you. I know, because I did.
