A Trip To Chicago - Two Raw Restaurant Reviews with Lots of Pictures

On Sunday we went to Chicago to sample some raw food restaurants. We have been looking forward to this trip for a long time. There are no raw food restaurants around where we live so we were very exicted. The first place we went to was Karyns. On Sundays they have a raw food buffet brunch from 11:30-3:30. It is an all you can eat sampler of a wide variety of items. Since I rarely get to go to these types of places I was very excited to get to try so many different things. Here is what we started with:

On the left hand side is corn chowder. This was sweet and delicious. Next to that are some flax crackers, both sweet and savory. I enjoyed the savory ones a lot. They had really good flavor. The sweet ones tasted good too, but I did not like them as much. The balls on the plate were seed cheese, beet cheese, and hummus. I really liked the hummus and the seed cheese but didn't care for the beet cheese. Also on the plate was a very spicy and very delicious gaucamole and some amazing corn chips. These chips were INSANE! I could not believe how good they were. They really blew us away. And last but not least there are two pieces of bread on the bottom of the plate that were so good. The flavor was spot on and the texture was just perfect, soft and chewy and just delicious! Out of all the appetizers my favorites were the chips and gaucamole and the breads and cheese dip. I could have sat there and eaten those all day. But it was time to move on to the main courses:

Top left are raviolis. I don't know what the "pasta" was made of. Maybe jicama? I don't know. They were good though. Next to that is a bowl of chili. I did not like the chili. It was crunchy. Next to the chili was the lasagna. I also did not care for the lasagna which is strange for me since I have made and love raw lasagna. It is possible that the other foods were so amazingly delicious that the lasagna paled in comparison. Possibly if I had only had the lasagna I would have liked it. But it was one of the last things I tasted and it didn't blow me away. Underneath the lasagna is something that did blow me away however, the burger. Oh my goodness!! This was incredible. So amazingly good I could not believe how delicious it was. To the left of the burger of yumminess was a sweet potato pancake with homemade ketchup sauce. This was different. It had an unusual flavor that was pretty good. I liked it. To the left of the pancake thing was my other favortie dish, the tamales. Oh these were sooooo good. Words can not express how amazing these were. They were meaty and delectable and totally satisfying. Above the tamale, that corn looking stuff, that was some sort of a dressing that I didn't like because it was very heavy on the cilantro and I don't care for a lot of cilantro. Underneath the tamale is the nut loaf which I was surprised to not hate. I didn't love it. It was ok. But it was nice to not hate it. I have never liked any nut loaf as most are made with walnuts and I don't like walnuts in savory dishes. But this wasn't bad. It had mushrooms in it and had a very mild flavor. Next to the nut loaf was the empanadas. These were so good. The filling was delicious, the bready consistency of the wrap was unbeleivable. I don't know how they make those bready wraps but they are so wonderful. Next to that and directly under the burger was the sage burrito, which was not like a burrito at all but was non the less incredibly yummy. It had some cabbage on the bottom of it. On the bottom right of the plate was a samosa which I didn't like that much and on the other side of the plate was the pizza which was really yummy. Phew! I think I got it all. The food was delish. The really neat thing about Karyns food was the complexity of the flavors. They were so deep. There were layers of flavors that made you think, hmm, wow, what is that? That is so good! Really and truly amazing stuff. After our main meal it was time for dessert which we ate so fast that I didn't get a chance to take a picture but here are a few of them on the serving trays:

Cheesecake

Chocolate cheesecake. There was also strawberry cheesecake that was really yummy too, but for some reason I didn't get a picture of those. They were my favorite too. I seriously could have sat at Karyns and eaten for hours and never tiring of the food but Little Angel started to get a wee bit cranky so it was time to go. I enjoyed this meal more than words can say. It was a wonderful way to taste a wide variety of raw food which is perfect for someone who rarely gets the privilege of eating gourmet raw that is prepared by someone other than herself! I love, love, love, love, loved it!!

After walking around town for a bit and seeing some of the beautiful sites of Chicago it was time for dinner at:

I had read mixed reviews about Cousins. A lot of mixed reviews. But we decided to give it a try. We were interested in their all you can eat buffet. It sounded like a good plan. So in we went.

Little Angel waiting adorably. She was such a good baby. She was very patient as we dragged her around from place to place. Since she is still solely nursing she didn't get to enjoy any of the food. She was just along for the ride.

The all you can eat buffet looked unappetizing to say the least. It was a soggy collection of wilty looking salad items that all looked the same. So we opted to get appetizers since we read a few good reviews about those.

We ordered the trio of taco, the stuffed mushrooms and the mini pizzas. The tacos were ok. Just ok. The flavors were predictable and uninspired and the mango in the salsa was not ripe. It tasted bitter. The mushrooms were bland, very cold, hard and had too much parsley. The pizzas were good but I could have done without the olive sauce on them. I don't like olives. But the tomato sauce on the pizza was really good. The other thing on the plate was these little chip things made out of zuchini. These were the best things we ate. The flavor was very mild and they were pleasantly sweet. We didn't finish all of the food. It just wasn't that good. The words I would use to describe it would be boring, predictable, uninspired and bland. Bland seemed to be the theme. And that was too bad. I really wanted to like this place, but they could not hold a candle to the amazing food at Karyns.

We also ordered bread which had the consistency of cardboard and the flavor to match. The sauces that accompanied the bread were likewise bland and boring.

For dessert we tried the mango cheesecake. This was was strange. The texture of the cheesecake was amazing, soft and velvety. It was very creamy and smooth. But the flavor was off. It sort of tasted like coconut oil. Sort of waxy tasting like that. And the mango flavor was so subtle as to not be detactable.

One of the other complaints that I read about Cousins was that the service was slow. We did not experience this. Our waiter was very prompt and friendly. The restaurant was nice and clean. The food just wasn't that good. What was good though was the water. They have ionized water there and I couldn't seem to get enough of the stuff. Supposedly it is up to 6 times more hydrating than regular water. I don't know about that though because I was drinking a lot of it and I don't normally drink that much. So maybe I was extremely dehydrated? I doubt it. It did taste good though :)

On Monday we went back to Karyns for lunch! See how happy My Big Helper is to be back at Karyns where the food is incredible?

We decided to order an appetizer and started out with:

The NACHOS!! Mmmmmmmmm! These were incredible!! Unbelievable! Awesome and amazing!!!!!

See, we ate them all up! And yes, that is a finger mark from one of us cleaning the plate!

For lunch My Big Helper had the wild rice medley. This was yummy. The flavors were very rich and deep. I don't know what they put in this but it was very savory and delicious.

I had the Pad Thai. Nice curry flavor. This was really yummy too.

For dessert we had:

Fig and caramel crepes with a citrus sauce. Unbeleivable! I can't even think of the right words to express how good this was. It was unreal. The crepe was soft and delicate. The sauce was so good. The filling was crushed pecans and figs with an orange taste as well. The flavors were so complex. It was that layering again. I don't kow how they do it but all of their food is just amazing. It makes me want to move to Chicago, seriously, just so I can eat there once a week. It was so incredible!!

We also ordered several dishes to go that I did not get pictures of. We ordered bruscetta with tomato salsa. That was good. We also got spagetti with pistachio basil pesto. That was good too. It had a very mild flavor. I personally would have enjoyed more basil flavor in mine, but it was good. We got the tiramisu cheesecake too and ate that once we got home last night. MMMMMmmmmmmmmmmm! That was yummy! And I don't like tiramisu!! But it didn't taste like tirimisu to me. It just tasted amazing.

I still have some food from Karyns in my fridge but it has taken me hours just to get this much written down so it will have to wait for a later post. I will talk more about Karyns in my next post too. I hope you all enjoyed my food pictures. :)

I LOVE RAW!!!!!!!!!!