Sunchoke Gratin and Other Birthday Delights at Pure Food and Wine

Last night Jordan took me to Pure Food and Wine for my birthday dinner. It was DELICIOUS. Jordan, a passionate carnivore, was highly skeptical of this raw vegan restaurant, but his starter -- a chicory salad with bourbon cask sour cherries and buttermilk dressing -- quickly won him over:

It was AMAZING - far better than the avocado sushi I started with, which, while tasty, was pretty ordinary (I probably should have guessed as much, but I'm such a sucker for creamy avocado)...the salad, however, was out of this world, a perfect combination of flavors and textures (in addition to the ingredients mentioned above, there were lapsang smoked walnuts and 'salsify bacon,' which, as far as we could tell, means dried plantain strips).

I scored a homerun, however, with my main course -- a delicious sunchoke gratin with vanilla poached pear, black kale pesto, shaved black truffles, and truffle hazelnut cream... behold:

YUM. For dessert, I had the much vaunted mint sundae from One Lucky Duck, the restaurant's take-out-only step-sister around the corner (whose smoothies make me swoon). It was delicious, but too much food for me after a very filling meal... and also did not photograph well (sad face). Jordan's pumpkin cheesecake with brown ale ice cream, however, posed very nicely for this portrait:

He resisted ordering it -- "you can't have cheesecake without cheese" (plus, it was $15... ouch!), but relented when this very pregnant birthday girl insisted she needed to have a bite... and we had no trouble polishing it off :).

I capped my evening with a cup of chamomile and rose tea to-go. Perfect. I highly recommend Pure Food and Wine for special occasion dining if you appreciate delicious, artful preparations of fresh, organic ingredients; by "artful," I don't mean, "fussy," which I hate... I just mean, creative combinations of ingredients, where the creativity is in service of heightening flavor, as it should be. You definitely don't have to be vegan (I'm not), or eat a raw vegan diet (I don't), to appreciate what this awesome restaurant has to offer.

Happy birthday to me!

Comments

[Tree]

Interesting menu!

Tell Jordan that I'll meet him at Peter Luger's.