Last night I took a much-needed break from my term paper and took CBGB up on their birthday gift to me: dinner at Live Organic Food Bar , a vegan/raw food restaurant that’s sprouted in our old neighbourhood since we moved away. They’re being quite supportive of our long journey into vegetarianism, and thought a trip to a top-notch veggie restaurant would help ease the transition. And did it ever.

First of all, it’s a nice little spot; room for 20 or so inside and a back patio that we would’ve stayed on if it weren’t a bit too humid. The service is very friendly, casual and patient with first timers like us who kept making annoying remarks like “What the hell is mockzarella!?!” (which I still don’t have an answer to). The menu is 3 pages of liquids (including 5 types of organic beer) and a single page of food, the contents of which rotate every couple of weeks.

Let me preface the next part by saying that I really wasn’t sure what to expect. Anyone I talked to who’d been to Live was a vegetarian already, and I wasn’t sure if their expectations for a meal were the same as mine. In the end I was worrying needlessly; delicious food is delicious food.

We started with a raw food sampler: four small samplers which we cut into four pieces each, then swapped so everyone could share. I tried a little piece of what I think they said was dehydrated kelp or something, but it was really tangy (reminded me of the saltiness of dulce…which I guess makes sense) and tasty. Next up was some kind of cucumber cannelloni with a filling that I couldn’t place, but DAMN it was tasty. There was a pizza-ish dish with a dry crumbly crust & olives that was quite good, and some other morsel (which I can’t remember right now) that tasted…well, refreshing is about the only word for it. Tastes sweet and light, like summer. My palate isn’t really refined enough to describe it more than that.

Then came the mains: CB got what they called the geisha bowl, which was a huge bowl of rice, tofu, fresh vegetables, etc. She liked it (and had enough left over to take home). Nellie got some kind of enchiladas with mushrooms and other stuff that I can’t remember, ’cause I was busy with what GB and I (each) got: fried plantains with four flavours (an amazing spicy mango/pineapple chutney, guacamole, salsa and…something else that I couldn’t indentify but tastes fantastic) for dipping. I don’t remember liking guacamole (the last time I had it was 10 years in Ottawa, with my brother, at some Mexican place in the Glebe, I think), but this stuff was good. The mango stuff was ridiculous; I wanted a bottle of it to take home. Anyway, it didn’t look that much food, but I was nicely full by the time I finished.

Not too full for dessert, though. I’ve heard Live’s desserts are pretty good, considering they’re made without…well, pretty much everything. CB and I each got a piece of dense chocolate tart with coconut shavings; it was really thick (we referred to it as “the brick” for the rest of the night), and it was damn good. GB and Nellie, unfortunately, took a chance on what turned out to be an enormous slab of…well, fig. With some slightly sweet topping, but really, it was like eating a handful of creamy figness. They didn’t much care for it, and I didn’t like the bites I had. Lesson learned: always order chocolate when you have the option.

All in all, I had a fantastic meal. I experienced tons of new flavours and combinations, I left feeling satisfied but not bloated, and I didn’t even occur to me that I was missing something by eating a vegetarian meal. Highly recommended.

By the way, their website doesn’t actually seem to do anything, so here’re some reviews: Now Magazine | Eye Weekly | Toronto Life | Chowhound

.:.

After dinner we walked down to the Cumberland theatre to see Little Miss Sunshine (imdb | rotten tomatoes), one of the funniest movies I’ve seen in months. My jaw actually hurt from laughing when we left. The previews made me think it would be one of those movies with slow, subtle humour; in fact, it ranged from that subtlety to outright slapstick in places. The characters were so well fleshed out and were played so well, the whole film just seemed to fall together perfectly. Easily one of the best films of the year. Highly, highly recommended.

[tags]live organic food bar, little miss sunshine[/tags]