At Live and...well...?

A few weeks ago, I agreed to have dinner at a Toronto hot spot: Live Organic Food Bar. I made a bit of a fuss about it. Okay, at first I flatly refused to go. Why would I, someone who has never turned down a restaurant meal in my life, cross my arms and get all snitty-like about going out to eat? Well I'll tell ya. And I'm a tad ashamed of myself.

Live specializes in raw vegan fare. There. I said it. Happy?

I do not like veganism. I don't. As someone who spends an inordinate amount of time reading about and researching food and nutrition, I can't hear about veganism without cringing at the total lack of scientific-based evidence for its health benefits. Nor can I ignore the fact that there's a great deal of total crap tossed around in vegan circles as fact (personal favorite: meat sits and putrefies in your colon for 3 days/6 months/20 years/forever). Furthermore, I wince when someone tells me how 'natural' it is to eat vegan, but then can't explain why nutrients like Vitamin B12 only exist in animal foods, or why no successful (meaning reproductively) thriving vegan societies have ever been discovered. I want to pat them on the bum and send them off to Anthropology 101.

That said, we do have some things in common. I believe, as they do, that all life is sacred and that animals should be treated humanely. I also happen to think that eating them is okay - in fact, it's the natural order of things. But whatever. I agree to disagree, I don't seek to argue with them. I did my time as a vegetarian, and I know all the arguments. I know the results for me were horrific. I know I feel better on a more natural human diet. See, I'm not even sticking in links to prove my point - that's how detached and evolved I am about the whole issue.

Except for when I was invited to Live, of course. Then I stuck out my chest and went on about why I wasn't going to go and spend good money to eat somewhere when I'd just be hungry again an hour later. How there'd be little there I could eat, most likely. And so on, and so forth. Totally petulant and superior.

Then I found out they had nut cheese. I don't much care what form cheese comes in - I'll eat it (Eye cheese being the one exception to this rule). So I said okey dokey, and off I went to Live.

We sat in the back patio, so as to enjoy the deafening roar of the trains that thundered past every few minutes. I was impressed by the picnic tables - they have padded seats, presumably because most vegans have little bony asses that make sitting on benches extremely painful (Tracy, stop it!). Our server was super-nice, and we bonded over kombucha brewing tales. More about kombucha in another post. So far, so good.

The menu changes seasonally, a fact that impressed me to no end, and not everything was raw. There were three specials that had a little help from the stove: the Harmony Roll, some macrobiotic brown rice sushi thing, the Radical Falafel, their ayurvedic dish, and a "Comfort Food" dish of black beans and coconut rice. I kept my tummy-eye on the falafel option.

The rest of the menu was raw, and luckily allowed for a sampler plate of all four entrees because I couldn't have made up my mind between two of them otherwise. The raw zucchini spaghetti with raw marinara sauce and sprouted walnut and sunflower seed "neatballs" ? Or Dhali Baba Pizza, a sprouted buckwheat crust topped with baba ganoush AND spinach pesto, marinated fennel, red peppers and leeks and boasting - gasp - cashew "feta" cheese? All four of us ordered samplers, with a Radical Falafel and Comfort Food to share. We'd totally covered our culinary bases. The gals ordered juices, but I stuck to water. I was saving for a long-lost favorite: a chai latte with almond milk. Oh, how I miss my Second Cup chai lattes! If I could do/would do soy milk, I'd have one every day and weep for the glory of it. One pal let me sip away at her coconut water, a drink that I adore even though the taste is ever-so-slightly reminiscent of armpit.

We sit, we sip, we scream to be heard over the trains. And we wait. Everyone is going insane over the smells wafting out from the open kitchen window, where I have a great view of the chef's arm and jumbo rice cooker. Every so often, he sticks his head out the window and talks to one of the servers. I like this closeness to the kitchen. I feel like I'm at a friend's place. A friend who takes an inordinately long time to not-cook dinner. I'm in no hurry though. My friends are all starving, drooling over the heavy curry scent (do I detect raisins?) that hangs over our table like the boughs of a sandalwood tree. I'm too busy pondering how closed-minded I was about the place initially, just because I don't agree with the politics. I wonder too about the hierarchies we impose on everything, including nature. Why is it alright to kill and eat plants? After all though many obviously want to be eaten so as to propagate themselves (eat the tomato, shit out the seeds, new tomato life begins, life is a wonderland etc), many of them put up some major defenses against predation and, I'd wager, are pretty pissed about their inclusion in our salads and casseroles. So why are their lives less important than the lives of animals? And if humans fare better on a diet that includes animal protein, why is it that our lives are less important also?

Finally, the food arrives. The falafel, by far, looks the tastiest so I delve in. The falafel itself is alright, a tad bland unless dipped in the tahini sauce, but the wrapper - oh! A chickpea pancake, light and fluffy as a cloud. I'd have gladly given back the rest of my dinner and eaten a stack of those babies as is. But there's four of us and one of them, so I limit myself to two bites and turn my attention to my sampler.

The lump with a hump in the top left corner is, after some investigation, determined to be the Bohemian 'Wrap'sody: kale, tomato and avocado wrapped in a flax-herb thing with Kalamata spread, a root veggie chip and sunflower seed-caper dipping sauce. With all of the ingredients, you'd think it would taste of something. Evidently, all of these foods together actually form some sort of flavour black hole, leaving nothing behind but texture and crap that falls all over the place. I eat it, of course.

The mound in the bottom left turns out to be Rat-A-Tat Primavera: ratatouille over cauliflower "rice" with balsamic reduction and garlic sesame "bread". I am familiar with cauliflower rice, as it's a common low-carber recipe. Ours is cooked, however. This is not, and it has the mouthfeel of...well, crumbled up cauliflower. Normally I am a ratatouille fan, because I love the gentle medley of flavours and colour; this just tastes of balsamic vinegar and something else I can't place so simply refer to as Ick. One bite, and I'm done.

I turn my attention to the zucchini pasta dish, and wow...I am blown away. Okay, maybe not blown...I am gently breezed. Again, as a low-carber and gluten-free-gal, I am familiar with using zucchini as noodles. But the marinara sauce is electric. It wakes my mouth right up, commanding attention like a little veggie Patton. Zesty, fun...a little bit lusty, even. Even the "neatball" is yummy, not too nutty with a nice, chewy texture. I make little noises and nod as I eat, wishing I'd ordered a whole plate.

But I still have the pizza to go...which I save until after I sample the black bean/coconut rice dish. I spoon some into my mouth, and a little piece of my soul immediately dies of boredom. I wonder if the coconut and the chef got into a labour dispute, because the coconut appears to be on strike in this dish. I am not a huge rice fan at the best of times, but until that moment I hadn't realized it was possible to make rice blander than it already is. Quite bewildering.

On to the pizza, with its cashew "feta" cheese! I am so excited. So, so excited. Until I try to bite through the buckwheat crust. Apparently, one needs to be a beaver in order to gnaw through it. I dump the toppings, break off a piece, and use it as a scoop. Perhaps it's because I've been off grains for so long, but the crust tastes like a fencepost. I can also detect a hint of cardboard box, if I concentrate. I forgo the crust and just eat the toppings, which have barely managed to survive marination torture in Ick. I can't get a hold of the "feta" to save my bloody life. But it's only three little bites, and I eat it.

The salad becomes my high point. The "caesar" dressing, made from gluten-free miso, olive oil, lemon, dates and garlic, is DIVINE and finds me swooshing coated lettuce around in my mouth, trying to figure out measurements so I can recreate this at home. This, with the neatball thing, would have made a nice light (very light) dinner.

On to dessert! There's a pretty large selection at Live, all dairy, gluten and sugar free and, since it's also raw, soy free. I'd imagine egg free as well, since it's a vegan place, though they don't advertise them as such even though they mention the dairy thing. Anyway, we decide to split a piece of mint chocolate cake - how French Women Don't can we get - and I order my beloved chai latte. A friend orders a chai hot chocolate. I am salivating.

The cake looks fantabulistically awesome. I have to row my fork through it, it's so sense and chewy. Unfortunately, it's the sweetest sugar free anything I've ever experienced. I am actually shocked by it. I suck rather than chew my piece to keep it clear of my teeth, which are aching just from the vibes. Obviously the cake is sweetened, I believe with agave nectar, so I'm not sure what they mean by sugar free - granulated sugar, I suppose. The taste is nice, very much like an After Eight, but I can't do more than three small bites before I feel insulin shock approaching. I retreat instead to my latte - nice, refreshing, and nothing at all like Second Cup because this is REAL chai, not flavoured syrup. It's good, but I wish almond milk could somehow get creamier. I really miss that mouthfeel.

Sounds like I hated the place - actually, I was impressed. Anyone with specific food issues and/or preferences has to be creative, and the folks at Live certainly are that. It was exciting to see food assembled with such respect and, dare I say, art. It was easy to order, because everything is gluten-free. Pretty much anyone with food allergies could eat here. Food chemical intolerances, digestive issues, carb tolerance problems, diabetes...I'd think twice. The staff were fantastic and very interested in getting feedback about all the dishes, something I thought was a cut above - they actually relay the feedback to the chef, who tweaks and twiddles with the food based on customer reaction. It's nice to feel like your opinion is valued and acted upon. And again, the atmosphere was relaxing, comfortable and unpretentious. If you enjoy trains (which I do).

So would I go back? Yeah. My friends had all eaten there before, and said that this particular visit was the worst the food has been. Must've been my putrefied meat energy. Lasagne is going to be on the ever-changing menu next month, and I'm dying to know how they do it. What are the noodles? How's the "cheese"? Then I can steal their ideas and improve on them for my own tastes. But would I go regularly? No. Sometimes? Yes.

And I wasn't hungry afterwards. Course, that could have been due to the large Beef Cobb Salad I made and ate about three hours before dinner. Organic bacon, steak, avocado, egg, tomato, watercress, mixed herbs, romaine, and a homemade Italian dressing - lots of protein, natural fats and bioavailable vitamins, low carb. Can't really top that for a healthy meal...in my stubborn opinion, anyway.