True Food Kitchen Review: Tastes Like Health Food

Shitake and Tofu Lettuce Cups (vegan)

Last night, my friend liveworkstyle and I got the chance to catch up over dinner at the new True Food Kitchen in Santa Monica Place. I've been wanting to check the place out, as I heard they had a lot of great vegetarian and vegan options on the menu. As soon as we sat down, the waiter explained to us that the restaurant prides itself on cooking locally and seasonally with the best ingredients from the local farmer's markets. I found the food to be good but not great. It definitely tasted "healthy," meaning that it was a bit on the bland side. It may be just what we ordered, but nothing in our dishes was particularly seasonal; these dishes wouldn't be out of place on a winter or spring menu with common vegetables like broccoli, potatoes and peas. The food was just a little one dimensional, like both the lettuce cups and shrimp dumplings just tasted like soy sauce, without the depth of flavor or balance of textures that you find in a really memorable or interesting dish. It definitely tasted a bit like chain restaurant food. The space was large and airy and we had an enjoyable meal; just with all the options we have out there, I am not sure that we will be back.

Shrimp and Broccoli Dumplings

Organic Broccoli and Roasted Vegetable Pizza

Pan Seared Halibut with Asparagus, Snap Peas and Potatoes

Pearl Barley, Mushrooms, Roasted Pepper Salad

I was inspired by a recent article in the LA Times about whole grain salads and tested out one of the recipes since I had most of the ingredients in my fridge already. I couldn't find farro, so I substituted pearl barley instead, and I used some really lovely and inexpensive organic honmeiji mushrooms from Marukai. I really liked this dish, the pearl barley had great chewy texture and dish had lots of bright different flavors from the earthy garlic mushrooms, crunchy toasted walnuts, tangy feta and fresh dill and green onions. I would definitely make it again. We had some of my brother's excellent home brewed beer that he lugged home all the way from Cleveland, including a chocolate maple porter and peanut butter porter which went really well with this dish.

Pearl Barley, Mushroom, Roasted Red Pepper, Feta Salad Recipe adapted from the LA Times

• Rinse 1 cup of pearl barley. Toast in a pot over medium heat for a couple of minutes, then add 2.5 cups of water and 1/2 tsp of salt. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer covered for about 40 minutes. Pour the barley into a strainer and rinse under cool water
• While the barley is cooking, chop and toast in a pan 1/2 a cup of walnuts. Chop a handful of dill, mince 1 clove of garlic, cut 1/2 cup of roasted peppers into strips, and slice 3 green onions
• Heat up some olive oil over medium / medium high heat and saute the mushrooms for 3 minutes, add the garlic and 1/2 tsp of salt, and saute for another 3 minutes, stirring constantly
• Combine the mushrooms and garlic with the cooked pearl barley, green onions, toasted walnuts and all but 1 TB of chopped dill
• Add 1.5 tsp of red wine vinegar, salt to taste (but not too much because feta is salty), toss, and then layer the strips of roasted peppers on top, crumble 1/4 cup of light feta and sprinkle on the remainder of the dill

Random, but I finally had some beautiful flowers to put into this planter I bought in Taiwan. Doesn't he look happy? I love dahlias and lisianthis!

A Transition in Diet

 

I started becoming more open minded with respect to vegan food over a year ago after trying a few vegan restaurants for the first time, beginning with Real Food Daily. I discovered that vegan food wasn't actually the boring, bland, overly veggie, non filling food that I had imagined it to be. It could actually be flavorful and hearty, and I could come away with a meal feeling satisfied and happy, not missing the meat. As a food lover who is always thinking about my next meal, I could never imagine sacrificing taste or a meal for any reason, so I was happy to find that I could come away from a meal at a vegan restaurant just as happily as a regular meal. I think of it as a different cuisine, as opposed to an imitation of food that I'm used to. I judge the food similarly; is the dish well-balanced, layered, interesting with complementary flavors and textures? Over the year, I started seeking out more vegetarian and vegan options at both restaurants and at home, mostly just for the variety. Some of my favorite menu items, at places like Umami Burger and R+D Kitchen are actually the veggie burgers, which I prefer over the burgers and sandwiches with meat for the taste. Veggie Grill is a good option for fast food vegan food and conveniently opened a restaurant up in Santa Monica a few blocks from my house a couple of months ago. I have even tried raw at places like Euphoria Loves Rawvolution, which I liked so much that I've been looking out for raw products at grocery stores. Living in Santa Monica makes it really easy to experiment as we have tons of vegetarian, vegan and raw restaurants, and also local markets like Co-opportunity, with lots of vegan products. A farm box and access to great farmer's markets is also helpful. I will never become fully vegetarian or vegan as I love meat and cheese too much, but I do enjoy the transition to a less animal protein heavy diet for balance, variety and health reasons. It's still important to keep in mind though, just because something is vegan, it's not necessarily healthy; vegan food can be quite heavily processed and can still be very high in calories and fat. It's nice in theory, but I'm not really trying vegan for animal rights reasons, I'm still perfectly comfortable eating a turkey and vegan cheese panini for lunch and I will continue to wear leather.

This transition in diet was in part reinforced by T. Colin Campbell's "The China Study" which I just finished reading a couple of weeks ago, where a PhD professor links animal protein heavy diets with all sorts of bad stuff like cancer and heart disease through animal and population studies over long periods of time. I'm not sure I am wholeheartedly a believer, but I figured it doesn't hurt to start becoming more plant protein heavy and less animal protein heavy in our diets.

I've found quite a few vegan friendly products that I like and have been transitioning into our diets in place of more animal protein centric products. K. drinks a lot of milk with his cereal in the morning, so we've been starting to alternate his milk with almond milk, which is vegan. I like the taste of almond milk and actually prefer the taste of it over the watery nonfat regular milk he drinks everyday. I also noticed Daiya cheese at a lot of vegan restaurants. It's a nice gooey melty cheese and is really good as a component of dishes, like as the melted cheese in a tuna melt or on top of pizza. It doesn't really work as the star of a dish as it most resembles highly processed American cheese to me, but is really good as an ingredient in a dish. They now sell Daiya at Whole Foods. I've also liked various vegan desserts; Earth Cafe makes really good raw and vegan cheesecakes and I've tried lots of vegan cookies that I've liked. The caveat is that I'm not a huge dessert person or expert, so I'm not sure how people who are really into desserts will feel about the vegan counterpart, but it's worth a shot. I also had really good (but expensive, $7.99 for a 2oz bag!!) raw dehydrated kale chips. I'm even considering investing in a dehydrator (any recommendations?). Eating a little more raw / vegan at home is definitely not cheap, my grocery bills lately have been higher than usual, but I think it's a worthwhile investment.

August Good Eats and Drinks

We've had some good friends in town so it's been nice to share some good beer and wine over the last few nights. Last night we had a 2005 Havens Merlot, Cigar City Brewing Co (from Tampa!) Jose Marti  American Porter, and the Bruery's Old Richland Barley Wine. The American Porter was delicious, nice and chocolatey without any bitterness and I really liked the barley wine. It had the barley wine caramelized nose, but was quite crisp and easy to drink. The alcohol content was on the lower side for barley wine at 9%. The merlot was fine but not particularly noteworthy. The previous few nights we had a really lovely bottle of 2008 Sojourn Pinot Noir from Sangiacomo Vineyard in Sonoma Coast that we picked up on our last trip to Sonoma. It was a fairly big pinot noir with a deep nose, rich layered taste and long smooth finish without too much acidity (which I prefer in pinots).

M. also brought some of our favorite treats from the east side: a box of guava empanadas from Cafe Tropical, a cuban place on Sunset in Silverlake. It's been a nice breakfast treat for the last few days: crisp yet flaky empanada crust with a perfectly sweet and tart oozing guava jammy middle.

Dog Days of Summer

Otis has been very lucky and has gotten to play with lots of new dog friends over the last couple of weeks. He is a really social guy and loves to be chased by much bigger dogs. He spent the afternoon getting acquainted with Kenzie, W & K's new 6 month old puppy who is so happy and cute.

Dogs talking to each other

My favorite look of the day

Otis is a loudmouth. Look at Kenzie's ears!

They can seriously chase each other around the yard all day long

Blue Bottle Coffee - A San Francisco Treat

Not only have we've been enthralled by our new Moka Express pot, making espresso out of pretty anything we can, but also we received the surprise treat of a bag of freshly roasted Bella Donovan beans from the Bay Area's famous Blue Bottle Coffee Co in the mail yesterday. I've certainly heard of Blue Bottle before and saw it at the Ferry Building during one of my last visits, but I never actually tried it, so I eagerly busted the bag open for some morning espresso. Freshly roasted beans definitely make a huge difference; you could smell the beans even in the unopened mail envelope. The espresso was rich, deep and very strong (sorry I'm not a coffee connoisseur so I don't have the right vocabulary or palate to give proper credit to the coffee), my head is still buzzing from the espresso hours later. Thanks M&M! Looking forward to seeing you guys this week and drinking some wonderful espresso (and wine).

freshly roasted

crazy how one little cup can pack such a punch

Farm Box Meals 2&3: Broccoli Feta Whole Wheat Penne, Corn in XO Sauce, Fresh Heirloom Tomatoes

We've pretty finished up our entire farm box over the course of three consecutive meals with four people, with only a single cucumber and grapefruit remaining. Not too shabby. Last night, I made a healthy broccoli feta whole wheat pasta based off of this recipe from the kitchn with some additions such as some greek yogurt and dill. It tastes good for a quick weekday family meal, but I probably wouldn't serve it to company as it is just a little bland; it feels like it is missing something but I'm not sure what I would add. The corn was very fresh and sweet (at least 3 out of the 4 ears) and really tasty, sauteed with the XO sauce, Taiwanese sausage and scallions. The tomatoes weren't quite as sweet as they will be at peak season. All in all, we had fun and we all feel pretty good with three consecutive relatively healthy meals at home with lots of varieties of vegetables.

Not from the farm box, but cantaloupe season is reaching its peak: sweet and juicy

One funny looking one

Broccoli Feta Penne Recipe:

• To prep, mince 3-4 shallots, 3 cloves of garlic and chop ~1 lb of broccoli into pieces, including the stem
• Cook 1 lb of whole wheat penne in a separate pot
• Heat up some olive oil over medium and saute the shallots and garlic for about 3 minutes. Add the broccoli, season with a little salt, pepper, red chili flakes. Add about 1/2 cup of water and cover, steaming the broccoli for about 5 minutes until tender (easily pierced with a fork). Remove the cover and boil until most of the water evaporates. Squeeze juice of 1/2 a large meyer lemon
• Transfer the vegetables into a blender and blend with 1/3 cup of light feta cheese and a few ladles of pasta water. Add a couple TB of non fat greek yogurt and some dill. (I also added about 1/4 cup of leftover tzaziki that I had made to complement the overall tanginess of the dish)
• Toss with the penne and crumble another handful of feta over the dish and serve