The Raw and the Cooked

I just got home from dinner at Karyn's Raw, a gourmet "living foods" restaurant on Halstead near Armitage tonight with JS and CJ. We had a reunion of the old CTU Student Affairs trio --- that of the famous Twinkie Pact of 2005.

Twinkies were decidedly NOT on the menu tonight, although I'd wager those aren't cooked. CJ is on a raw foods detox diet, and has lost 26 pounds so far on twigs and berries. So when we got together for dinner tonight, we hit Karyn's so that he could stick to his regimen. JS and I are up for anything, so there you have it.

I LOVED Karyn's. As we studied the menu, we munched on kale chips, which were leaves of kale soaked in oil, salt, and honey overnight and then dehydrated. Daniel, our waiter, came out with them and said, "you wanna try something weird?" In unison, JS and I answered "Suuuuuure." They were smashing. And it just got better. I then had the Summer Cooler, a gorgeous and glowing orange cocktail of carrot, apple, and lemon juice, while we waited for CJ. Once he got there, we ordered the dim sum for an appetizer, which I highly recommend.

We then ordered three entrees to split. The Sea Rolls were OUT OF THIS WORLD --- seaweed and veggies rolled up around a divine nut pate and served with a tamari/soy sauce with sesame seeds. Second place were the savory basil-scented ravioli filled with a mascarpone walnut cream and served with a rich tomato sauce with olives. Once you get past your expectation that a ravioli needs to be hot, which it doesn't, you will savor every bite of both dishes.

A sad distant third however was the "polenta" served with shiitake mushrooms, rosemary and tomatoes. This dish looked and tasted NOTHING like any "polenta" I've ever had. I would have been fine if they called it a crispy almond cracker, which it was. But to call something "polenta" --- which connotes creamy cornmeal goodness --- when it is basically a hard nutty wafer, is just annoying. It's less dangerous to call it what it is than to perpetrate a bait-and-switch on a diner.

We finished dinner with two desserts: the Pecan bar, served with carob sauce, which was rich and dense and outstanding; and two flavors of coconut-milk ice cream: peach and blueberry. The ice cream again is a bit of a misnomer --- it really should be called a sorbet, which sounds more posh anyway. Call it what you want, it was light and fruity and such a fine way to end the meal

Overall, the meal was fantastic. My only quarrel is with the high-falootin'-ness of the damned menu. Take the pretension down a notch, call the dishes what they are, and you'll be FINE. In fact, I think to do so would actually open the place up to a broader clientele. Raw food is, fairly or not, an off-putting concept, invoking ascetic menus of carrots and celery. Or, worse by far, the self-righteous vegan hippies stinking of patchouli and disdaining those who eat anything with a shadow.

The kicker though is that other than the menu's wording, the place is pretty much free of trust-afarian pretension. And I walked out of that restaurant feeling SO GOOD. The food was tasty, and I felt like I had just done something really good for my body.

Who wouldn't want that?