For Jen’s berfday, we headed over to the fanciest of fancy raw vegan restaurants in DC, Elizabeth’s Gone Raw (EGR). Well, I don’t really know of any other raw vegan in restaurants, period. So keeping an open mind and walking in through the french doors of the restaurant, I looked forward to my first raw vegan meal.*

The pre-seating event involves servers floating around with plates full of delicious appetizers, usually served on a gluten free cracker using alternative flours such as flax seed or sesame. I saw everything from dill to olive pate, roasted peppers, house made pesto, and even a savory sweet melon shooter.

Every person checks in at the front door with their reservations made in advance, and you’re brought to your table upstairs which may be shared with other diners, and leads to meeting some interesting and likely equally health conscious people, such as two lovely ladies that sat across from us. I’d suspect that if you pressed the reservationist over the phone, you could finagle a private table for two for a special occasion.

EGR  serves titanic bowls of  kale chips, baked with some sort of spicy vegan cheese like mix. These kale chips are definitely pro level chips, and the bowls of kale come as fast as you can eat them. Thankfully Jen and I had other people at the table with us, or I’d have taken every almost emptied bowl and tipped it to get all the crumbs at the bottom into my mouth.

The first course was a salad with a spring mushroom blend (yellow and blue oyster, beech, hen of the woods, and royal trumpet) tossed with boston lettuce and sunflower sprouts. Who knew sunflower sprouts could be so good? It’s topped with a truffle vinaigrette made with shallots, garlic, celery, macadamia nuts, coconut milk, apple cider vinegar, truffles, EVOO, agave, and nama shoyu, and finally topped with a smattering of gluten-free crackers. The complexity of jumbled textures and tastes of this salad is something of experiencing a symphonic explosion in your mouth.

The main course is an olive cannelloni with parsley salad, served with dressing and a heirloom tomato-basil relish on the side. The cannelloni itself is made with coconut water, coconut milk, and flax seed, wrapped around an olive filling made with scallions, lemon juice, macadamia & pine nuts, celery, and nutritional yeast. The relish, a classic combination of tomatoes, red onion and garlic tossed with red vinegar and chives, accentuates the flavors of the fresh parsley salad.  Finally, a semi sweet dressing made of apple cider vinegar, agave, and EVOO bring it all together to make, despite whatever the restaurant wants to call it, a vegan burrito. I know burritos have rice and beans stuffed inside, and those might have even helped this dish out a bit. While it was made with incredibly fresh ingredients and impressive to be completely dairy, gluten and meat free, this one wasn’t as good as either Jen or I had hoped. For me, it was the fact that it was just wasn’t satisfying; for Jen, it was because she despises olives.

Dessert is a generous slice of cacao layered mousse cake with goji berries and topped with a reishi mushroom powder, once used in tonics for emperors and kings. The cake is made with almond milk, agave, maple syrup, vanilla extract, coconut oil, almond powder, cacao powder, maca powder, and goji berries, while the chocolate mousse layers are made with vanilla extract, almond milk, maple syrup, and cashew flour. While I really liked the chocolate mousse layers, I found that the actual cake layers in the cake were too rich and heavy for me, without necessarily being sweet. In that sense, I did like the fact that it wasn’t over the top sweet, but I ended up scooping out and eating all the mousse and leaving chunks of the cake on my plate. I looked over, and Jen had done the exact same thing.

I knew I liked this girl for a reason.

The menu here changes seasonally as fruits and vegetables become available, speaking to the freshness of the ingredients, and the creativity of the kitchen. While the entire meal kept its promise of being gluten, dairy, and meat free, it does not fall short on flavor or quality of many of the upscale restaurants in the District.

We were constantly doted on by a number of people including the owner, Elizabeth Petty, herself. The service, however, is a mixed bag. Plates are cleared and accommodations are made, but there was considerable confusion with having all the wine glasses for the wine pairing brought out at the same time; Jen had two wineglasses “refilled” with water, which we had to send back on two separate occasions. Having numerous attentive is something of a nice luxury, but the hustle and bustle of them darting around as fast as they can seem a bit madding. Overall, I’d say it’s very good here, with an opportunity for a bit of refinement. It probably doesn’t help to the fact that dinners are only served once a week, but that makes each meal here at Elizabeth’s Gone Raw that much more special.

Wine pairings are available at each dinner, which are organic, biodynamic, and delicious. That’s right, I called wine delicious, like a six year old calls a glass of grape juice. Deal with it, fancy wine drinkers.

See Elizabeth’s Gone Raw on a map here.

Recommended For:

• Raw Vegan Rhondas
• Hemp Growin’ Harriets
• Organic Only Olivias
• Meeting New People

Not Recommended For:

• Raptors
• Buffet Line Barons
• Frugalistas
• Quiet, Romantic Dinners

*Okay, I had a ton of beef jerky before we left for the restaurant. I may or may have not  stored several chunks of jerky in my cheeks. What? Don’t judge me. You never know.

Well, screw that.

Chop’t is a salad company that’s recently celebrate their 10 year anniversary, with several locations spread throughout NYC and DC. Their salads are a bit on the expensive side, but they don’t skimp one bit on the ingredients or portion size. My favorite part? The recent switch to antibiotic free, hormone free, free range chicken in all their locations. I find myself drawn to getting a salad at least once a week as a treat, building it from the ground up with ingredients such as ancho chile chicken, goat cheese, fresh cherry tomatoes, spinach, arugula, and a regularly rotation selection of dressings that only ever use honey or agave nectar for sweetners.

The owners swap in seasonal ingredients and pre-selected salad combinations for the indecisive types, but I highly recommend experimenting and making up something that’s all your own.

And the best part about the salads? They’re hysterial.

Find a Chop’t near you here.

Of course, for all of you salad haters, you could make your salad DOUBLY paleo by adding your own meat.

Speaking as someone who doesn’t currently own a screaming child of my own (I’m worried the layaway payments will kill me), it’s hard to find an Easter brunch, and a buffet at that, that doesn’t come chock full of screaming toddlers at every adjacent table. Bombay Club, one of the finer dining Indian cuisine restaurants, does so beautifully.  The restaurant serves a hard to beat price for their buffet brunch ($25 a person at the time of this writing), with an option to upgrade to a bottomless champagne brunch ($35 a person at the time of this writing), and a 80 year old man banging out the best in classical music on the piano to boot.

The selection is high quality, but options are limited to two tables, with each table hosting about 8-10 choices of food and dessert. For the price, atmosphere, and childless crowds, this is a deal that’s nearly impossible to beat on any Easter or Mother’s Day Brunch.

See Bombay Club on a map here.

It also uses the Arbonne Essentials chocolate protein powder, which uses stevia as a sweetner. Stevia isn’t 100% paleo, but if that’s the only bad thing about this dessert, I think I can live with that. I haven’t found another protein powder that works as well as this for getting a nice balance in consistency, flavor, and ingredients for me besides this one to make this a vegan and paleo dessert, something that actually works great for both Jen and me anytime. Not even the vanilla powder seems to get the right consistency for me, strangely enough, but that works, because, c’mon. Chocolate.

Empty two cans of organic coconut milk into a large bowl or container. Quality does matter, and so does the fat. Light or low fat coconut milk cans aren’t going to work here, you want as much of those tasty, natural healthy fats for this recipe to work. You can always get a pretty good price on these from just about ethnic supermarket, even if you have to go with a non-organic brand.

Add four scoops of Arbonne’s chocolate protein powder, and mix well with a large spoon. Get the coconut milk to blend as well as you can with the chocolate protein powder. Half the fun is hand mixing it, and I enjoy making this stuff so much, I don’t want to waste a lick of it in a mixer.

Once you’re satisfied with the mixing, add 1/3 cup of those organic, pesticide-free blueberries. Add the 1/3 cup of organic raspberries, and finally, the last 1/3 cup of organic blackberries. Strawberries work just as well, too.

Fold in your berries of choice until they’re well mixed into your bowl, seal your container, and stick it in the fridge overnight, or for at least 4-5 hours.

When it’s ready, your mixture will have thickened into an what is a pretty gigantic bowl of omnomness. I may or may have not been accused of eating cups of this stuff in a single sitting, so I really found it was helpful to exercise some portion control.

An espresso cup seems to be just the trick. For me at least. Somewhere in the neighborhood of a junior scoop of ice cream. Half fill that minicup with your mixture, and top with a teaspoon of chopped pecans.

Fill the rest of your cup with more of the chocolate coconut mix, and then top with another teaspoon of pecans. You can garnish your dessert with a blueberry or a sprig of mint, and serve.

pow.

You can let me know how this dessert tastes yourself. The first time I had it?

Ingredients:

• 1 handful (approx 1/3 cup) of organic blueberries
• 1 handful (approx 1/3 cup) of organic raspberries
• 1 handful (approx 1/3 cup) of organic blackberries
• 4 scoops of Arbonne Chocolate Protein Powder
• 2 cans of organic coconut milk
• 2 tsp of chopped toasted pecans (that you can pick up at Trader Joe’s)

The Po Lin Monastery stands at the outskirts of Hong Kong, far and away from the bustling streets of the city. In fact, not only do you have to take the subway, known as the MTR, almost all the way to the end of the line, you  also have to jump on an hour long cable car ride to Ngong Ping village, and climb some 200 steps up to get close enough to stand in awe of a giant bronze statue of the Buddha.

Fine by me!

Ingredients:

• 1 large ripe avocado, chopped
• 2 tbsp dutch cocoa powder
• 2 tbsp honey

Directions:

1. Mix very well in a food processor or using a fork. You can eat it right away, or put it away in the fridge and let it set for 30 minutes.

Do I need to bring my passport?

Are they going to give me one of those uber-intrusive body scans, and check me for contraband weapons or meats?

Do they speak English?

Will they put me in the corner and eat in a cage if they smell jerky on my breath?

It’s not as bad as you’d think, dear meat eater.  Upon entrance, Sunflower is about as normal as you’d expect any place to be, except for a fetish-level adoration for all things sunflowers.  There’s a large, expensive-looking etched glass wall with a sunflower mural embedded inside.  A sunflower lamp hovers over many diners, looking as if it’s ready to erupt into showers like the produce section at your supermarket, only drenching patrons with delicious seeds.  Sunflower photos. Plush sunflowers. Ceramic sunflowers. Sunflowers made of the parts of lesser sunflowers. You get the point, right?  They wholly live up to their namesake.

The diners were few and far between, perhaps because we came in at an off hour, but I’m guessing more likely because there simply isn’t a huge population of vegetarians in the area.  Jen and I took a corner table, and poured over the options.  I was actually pleased with the fact that there were a copia of options available, so much, that I had some difficulty in picking something from the list.

The pan-fried dumplings were a no-brainer for us.  Realizing that I’ve got my girl hooked on the perfect parcels of deliciousness (as long as they’re stuffed with an assortment of non-meat ingredients), we ordered these, which come with your option of being served steamed or pan-fried.  Each dumpling is filled with napa cabbage, tofu, shiitake mushrooms, ‘bean thread’ noodles, and yuba.  What is yuba?  It’s a tofu ‘skin’ with the consistency of pasta, and not a smaller tuba or something in the family of trombones.  Clarinets, even.  I don’t care what you stuff a dumpling with, it comes down to the dumpling skin and the sauce that makes this dish, and I give Sunflower the seal of approval on these.  I do wish that the dumplings were accompanied by a sweet sauce rather than a soy sauce, but nonetheless, these are a great way to start your meal.

Jen order the General Tso’s Surprise (WUAHAHAHA, SURPRISE! NO MEAT!) which is apparently the restaurant’s best seller, and it’s not hard to tell why. Excellent presentation aside, the dish is absolutely loaded with giant chunks of soy protein, steamed broccoli and carrot slices, then covered in a tasty kung pao sauce.  The sauce really brings this dish together, and the freshness of the vegetables stands out, although I should expected as much with the type of restaurant we were dining in.

I took our waiter’s recommendation to order the Curry Surpreme – soy protein with mushrooms, broccoli, carrots, potatoes, and green peas served with a thick Japanese curry sauce that really made this a hearty dish, even for a die-head (see also: hard headed) meat eater like myself.  Don’t be fooled, there’s some subtle kick to the curry, and I broke out into a small sweat halfway through the meal.

So what’s the synopsis here?

Sunflower was actually…really good.  I’ll admit that I had my reservations, but just as there’s 1,001 paleo or primal recipes to sub for your favorite foods, there are just as equally as many offerings here at Sunflower to give you an excellent meal at a reasonable price.  The service is very good, and alcohol is available upon request.  You have you option of two locations, one in Vienna and one in Falls Church, which is to say it’s a shame they don’t have one in the city, as I’d think it’d do very well there.

You won’t even need to smuggle in contraband bacon in your underwear like me.

See Sunflower in Vienna on a map here.

See Sunflower in Falls Church on a map here.

Recommended For:

• First Dates
• Vegetarians
• Pescatarians
• Ovolacto-librarians
• Gentle Barbarians

Not Recommended For:

• Paleoheads
• One last meal after a long night at the clubs (You know who I’m talkin’ about, K-town)
• Anthophobics
• Carless Gastronoms
• Showing off your latest meat helmet creation

Founding Farmers is another restaurant owned by the same group that operate Agraria Farmers and Fishers in Georgetown.  The restaurant uses the same reclaimed olde timey milk bottles for their water and same emphasis on fresh, wholesome ingredients, and the same contemporary-yet-rural design throughout the restaurant, which really like.

Just a couple blocks away from George Washington University’s main campus, it’s a very popular location for students to come drop in for brunch, although this is no student dining hall.  A huge menu provides a wide variety of tempting dishes, from skillets, french toasts, steaks, eggs, and teas.  They even have a rather decent vegan menu selection, which only further displays the restauranteur’s forward thinking of the type of people who live in the city these days.

The Banana Fluffer Nutter instantly stands out on the menu as a great opener to the meal, but in reality, falls a bit short of expectations.  Organic Peanut Butter, Banana slices and homemade marshmallow fluff served on half slices of whole wheat bread with crunchy chocolate giblets and peanuts should be absolutely amazing, but the best part of this dish was the presentation.  However, I could see this one being an order that knocks it out of the park with the kids because of the simplicity.  It’d probably help if our waiter had actually brought it over as a starter instead of having us to remind him to put in the order close to the end of the meal, but it still remains as something fun and different on the menu.

Not to say that there aren’t other dishes that hold their own in fun and different.

How about french toast?  But let’s take it up another notch, soaking fresh brioche in a brandy creme anglaise, and then stuffing it with a rich vanilla pastry cream.

Harbingers of Death

BOOM.  Tell me those don’t look like a deep fried twinkie at a Texas county fair.  My friends who ordered the stuffed french toast both said the same thing while savoring each bite. “Oh, I don’t want this to end.”  The dish comes with a pad of fresh whipped butter and syrup (natch), and looks to be a great way to start out any brunch excursion.

Founding Farmers also offers a more tame version of their french toast, still soaked in the same brandy creme anglaise, but without the hot magma core deliciousness of the other.  Simple and satisfying, you can’t go wrong with this version, either.

Another interesting pick on the menu is the Fried Chicken, Egg, and Waffles.  The meat is actually a free range chicken, served with a side of gravy and whipped butter.  This is another dish that seemed to have wholly unexpected strengths and weaknesses.  For me, I’d almost expect the proportion of chicken to waffle to be more of along the lines of 1:1, but as you can see here, that’s just not the case.  A few chunks of chicken, while very well prepared, seemed diminutive in comparison to the waffle.  The gravy was more of a cream, lacking the thickness I was expecting.

The poached eggs I ordered were…well, decidedly not poached.  Kinda poached?

All that being said, the waffle was downright amazing.  Fluffy and crispy, this is a fantastic waffle, which I’ll attribute to both the batter used as well as the skill of the cook.  Any longer on the iron and this waffle would have turned slightly more brown and crunchy, rather than this golden hue of perfection.

The service here is friendly, but a little bit lacking.  Our waiter was not available nearly enough to check on our meal, and the the slight gaff of missing one of the items we ordered was an easy enough mistake for anyone to make, but still makes for a staff that I’d completely gush about.

My feelings about Founding Farmers is mixed.  There are something things here that really stand out as being spectacular, and then there are some dishes that seem like complete flubs.  I commend Founding Farmers for really taking some chances with their offerings, which in the end, will definitely have me coming back for another brunch in the future.  There’s also enough on the menu to please just about anybody’s palette, with even an All You Can Drink Water and Ice Cube Crunch Buffet for the anorexics.

On a scale of awesome, I’d rate Founding Farmers as a 3.5/5.

Or if you’re the visual type, it’s about this awesome:

See Founding Farmers on a map here.

Recommended For:

• Brunch with the Out-of-towners
• Vegans
• Vegetarians
• A nice pot of french press coffee after a long day of protesting the IMF or World Bank next door

Not Recommended For:

• Anybody who knows how Chicken ‘n’ Waffles is done.
• Carbophobes
• Speed Dating
• Announcing your candidacy for president of the Golden Girls fan club

Only 4 Ingredients!

2 cups Organic Crunchy Almond Butter
1 ¾ cups Raw Honey
2 ¼ cups Vanilla Arbonne Protein Shake
3 cups Quinoa Flakes 

1) Dry Roast Quinoa (can be done in oven or on stovetop) 

Stovetop Dry-Roasting

2) Mix Almond butter and honey in microwavable bowl. Heat for 60-90 seconds. Mix well.
3) Add Protein Powder and Quinoa and mix well.
4) Spread in 9×13 pan. 

5) Refrigerate 1 hour. Cut into 24 squares. 

Aloo Tikki Ragda

Jen started her three course hunt with the Aloo Tikki Ragda, a dish of potato, white peas, ginger, cumin, and date chutney.  Delicious, fragrant, and very rich, a great way for her to start whittling down her appetite.

Bombay Sev Puri

I had the Bombay Sev Puri – potato, mango and onion puri dumplings, fully coated in a delectably fashion crisp flake and then covered in chutney and spice.  The dumplings were actually very light in taste, allowing the absolutely cataclysm of textures fully overtake your mouth.

Jen’s main course was a wild assortment of exotic flavors: creamy dumplings, spinach sauteed in ghee, spicy curries, and a pride of small dishes that each were presented in sterling silver bowls, brought over on a sterling silver plate.  Clearly such an entree would have to be so rare and different that it came disappeared from my collection of photos, and doesn’t even appear on their menu.  In guise of it’s poorly lit photo, here is a monocle wearing velociraptor riding an old-timey bicycle instead.

For my main course, I ordered the Mixed Grill- an assortment of grilled salmon, chicken and spiced beef, served with a spicy dipping sauce and a bit of rice.  Neglecting the rice, I pounced on the meats…and was fully impressed with them.  The chicken were chunks of dark meat, succulent, juicy, and perfect.  The salmon was also well prepared, soft and giving at the slightest pull of a fork, and charred on the outside, but just so.  The seasoned beef, while tasty, wasn’t particularly outstanding, just a standard preparation that played more of a supporting role than as the star.

Mixed Grill

Our desserts equally made a favorable impression on the both of us, yet once again, Jen somehow picked the better dish.  Hers, the Rabri- a sweet yogurt like dish served with fresh blueberries in a martini glass, a concoction that was just the right amount of sweet in just the right portion.

Rabri

Mine, the Carrot Halwa –  an Indian carrot pudding cake, served with a cinnamon anglaise.

Carrot Halwa

That’s not to say that my dessert wasn’t good and completely obliterated from existence in a scant two minutes, but it didn’t hold a light to the clearly suprerior Rabri.  I swear, the girl always picks better dishes than I do.

Well, unless it comes to meat.  Served in a meat sauce.  With a side of meat.

The Bombay Club simply is not what you’d expect of an Indian cuisine restaurant, and that is a good thing.  While it does have the roti, the naan, curries, chutneys, and other fanciful dishes that make Indian restaurants so great, they serve it at a slightly more upscale experience, which really makes this a destination worth going.  Prices aren’t cheap, but they’re not expensive, either.  Three course price fixe Restaurant Week deals are absolute steal, and I might just have to go back here again to check out their lauded Sunday Brunch sometime soon.  The dishes are, as you can see from the photos, presented in a fashion that isn’t commonplace at many Indian restaurants, and it makes each dish that much more of a delight.  The service is on point, and acclimating to your every request.  While you don’t have to show up in a blazer or haute coutre dress, I wouldn’t roll up in a t-shirt and jeans, either.

Check out the Bombay Club on a map here.

Recommended for:

• Curry Queens
• Naan Noshers
• Vegetarians
• Pescetarians

Not Recommended for:

• Paleo Heads
• Carb Counters
• Steak’n'Potato’ers
• Screaming Children

UPDATE: I found the photo of Jen’s dish after all!