Raw Girl Heads West

As I recently announced via the Facebook page, Raw Girl is heading West to LaLa land or Los Angeles again this week! Please forgive me and standby for more posts in the near future after I am done moving and settling into my new home. I had a wonderful two week visit recently and got to sample some amazing, and only one (not-so-amazing) raw food restaurants. In the picture above the top two dishes featured are raw nori nolls with “caulihemp rice” and the red enchilada from Rawvolution. The bottom two dishes are the raw pad thai and tiramisu from Cafe Gratitude. The food at Cafe Gratitude was delicious, fresh, and came with an inspiring affirmation. I had their raw Pad Thai made from kelp noodles and finished it off with tiramisu that was to die for. Overall experienced wonderful service, ambience, and food. Will definitely be heading back there in the near future.

While in Los Angeles I also fell in love with a veg spot called LifeFood Organic. It has a great cafe style ambience, perfect for setting up shop and using wifi. I also met some wonderful yogis and health enthusiasts while in their sampling their food. Everything is in to-go boxes and preprepared but don’t let that fool you into thinking the food isn’t amazing. Had a Chipotle Breakfast Wrap that was absolutely incredible (still having dreams about it). The “wrap” was the best imitation of a tortilla I have ever tasted raw and the incredible veggies in it had just the right combinations of flavors and textures. I like that LifeFood also has an amazing smoothie and juice selection, and a wide array of tonics, elixirs, and shots for wellness. FYI a lot of their desserts are made with all natural honey because they try to avoid using processed agave. They also had a few dishes that were raw but not vegan because they incorporated raw dairy.

The only place that disappointed me royally was M.A.K.E. Matthew Kenney Culinary. Not only was the service almost unbelievably bad, me and my guest got our starters and half of the ingredients that was supposed to be in our salads were missing. The coconut bacon in my salad was crunchy and looked more like a cracker. I’ve had coconut bacon before so I was a bit bewildered. Confused we asked the waitress about our orders and she replied that she could get some of the toppings and bring them as sides. Yikes! We ended up stopping our meal at the first course, and although we were prepared to unhappily foot the bill for a horribly made overpriced salad, luckily it dawned on them how bad the service was so they gave us a complimentary pass to leave. It was a huge disappointment after all of the hype I heard. Me and my guest left hungry and ended up venturing over to Rawvolution which was at a lower price point with better gourmet food, great service,  and a wonderful ambience.

At Rawvolution I had their red enchilada with ancho chili wrap, romaine, guacamole, salsa, mango salsa, and oregano cashew mayo. It was an absolutely delicious party in my mouth, one of the best raw enchiladas I have ever tasted. My friend tried the California Crunch nori roll with caulihemp rice, avocado, mushrooms, walnut taco meat, sprouts, paprika sauce, and jalapeno powder. I tried some and it was equally incredible. If you’ve never stopped in Rawvolution, I highly recommend it on all fronts, and even if you have a raw newbie with you, they may end up converted like my friend was. Can’t wait to get back to LA and try some more of their delicious food. -XoXo Raw Girl