Share the Love

So, one of the many reasons to have awesome friends is that when they discover a really amazing place to eat, they share it with you. (Okay, so that was a pretty lame reason to want to have friends, but as a foodie, I guess it's still pretty high on the list.) Though we just moved into Ottawa, we do know a few people here and one of them told us he just discovered a really amazing restaurant in the middle of a random strip mall that not only had organic vegan food but raw options as well. We saw him a couple days ago and he said we had to try it, and that he was trying to tell as many people as possible and share the love. We agreed to go on one condition: that we go with him and meet his significant other, to which he readily agreed, though now I know it was probably more for the food, then our company!

It's a small place called Cafe My House that we would never have found on our own. Like I said, it was totally randomly situated. Who knew you could find organic vegan food in the middle of a street with big box stores and in the middle of a mini strip mall? They did!

I think the first thing I have to say is very rare is the restaurant than anyone can eat at, but this was the place. It wasn't raw, it wasn't vegan, it wasn't for omnivores, it was for everyone. There were raw dishes, cooked dishes, vegan dishes, vegetarian dishes, gluten-free dishes, omnivore dishes, you name it. If you eat that way, they can make it for you. Now I actually know there is a place you can take everyone and anyone, and your whole dinner party will be satisfied. It doesn't seem like that says a lot, but it does!

Without further ado, our eats starter with raw vegan smoothies (sending out friend love for not thinking I'm weird to take pictures of our food!):

There was a delicious key lime pie smoothie

(avocado, banana, lime, agave, and other stuff I can't remember)

An amazing chocolate latte

(almond milk, cinnamon, cacao nibs, cacao powder, and more I didn't note)

And one more that I didn't get a picture of, but was my favourite: a cilantro mango green smoothie, whose flavors were a perfect match for one another.

We then moved on and shared a raw starter:

mango-cucumber rolls with a fabulous pine-nut sauce

(is it wrong that I feel that I can meet new people

and still feel like I can lick my plate because the food is so good?)

I had the best nori avocado salad of my life (though this is nothing new, I determined that if I had to pick three raw foods I had to live with forever, seaweed would be one of them, with mangos as a close second... I have yet to determine my third.):

I also munched on some of Andrew's raw pasta with a pine-nut pesto (so pretty, no?):

Our friend had the best looking vegan french toast I have ever seen (I am almost never tempted by cooked food, but this was definitely one such occasion):

And last but not least, his girlfriend had the most aromatic and comfort-food looking Morrocan quinoa pilaf:

Everyone was very very satisfied! And if my day wasn't exciting enough, this is what I found earlier at one of our natural food stores today:

Yes, that IS my very own kombucha starter culture

I know it's a terrible picture but this is what it looks like (as Averie said, it kind of looks like an uncooked chicken breast, though you can't really see it here):

That is a scoby (aka. a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeasts). It's a kind of mommy mushroom that's going to make me plenty of baby kombucha cultures so I can have some every day forever. It cost us about $20, which might seem like a lot, but considering that a kombucha drink usually goes for $4-5 a pop, this is a deal if I can keep making it for that little for as long as I wish! I plan on getting it started tomorrow so it can ferment in a warm quiet place while we go off camping (yes, camping, I'm so Canadian already, I know).