This past sunny Saturday I dropped by Indigo Food (2589 West 16th Avenue), a raw food cafe run by Lovena B. Galyide, a pleasant Ukraine lady who had only just opened it after two years of teaching raw food preparation out of her home. Her home-based business had grown to a size unmanageable to be home-based, so it was time to expand into an actual store.
I'm omnivorous, so checking out raw vegan fare is more of a novelty for me. And since I'm comparing my experience against my own unrestricted diet, if you're vegetarian, vegan, or raw vegan, you'll have to take this into consideration.
I had a so-so experience at Gorilla Food and a better one at Organic Lives restricting myself to their desserts, so when I found out about the High Tea at Indigo Food, I jumped on that.
I had basically what's in the picture on their website, though I can't say I remember the strawberries. The chocolate on the top tray is in fact made in-house. The list of items is supposed to be:
- Lemon-Goji Truffles
- Chocolate Hearts
- Mini Chocolate Ganache
- Mini Berries Cheese Cake
- Coconut Cream Pie
- Pineapple candy spears dipped in Chocolate
- Stuffed mushroom
- Berry Romanoff with coconut yogurt and raw sprouted granola
- Coconut Cheese With Crackers
- Collard Roll Enchilada
- Kale chips
Mostly it's dessert that looks like dessert instead of something that screams "raw", and I give top marks for taste and presentation here. Nothing strange about them and the flavours were good. Whether as an omnivore I'd pay extra to get them on their own raw or vegan is a different story, precisely because they didn't taste particularly better for being raw. Why pay extra for the same taste? Vegan and raw stuff is still catching up price-wise in Vancouver (and probably everywhere else, for that matter).
The non-dessert food items scored less on my omnivore's palate, not because meat was missing, but because the flavour just wasn't quite there. The collard roll (not pictured) was a bit bland for my taste. The other roll (in the yellow, on the bottom tray in the picture) fell apart from whatever juice was inside as it pasted the thin wrap to the glass plate. It had a stronger taste, but mostly from the curry used.
That said, the kale chips were surprisingly good: Very green, still crispy, and the fake cheese on it added nice flavour.
If you opt for the high tea, I would go on a cooler day as the chocolate hearts were very much softened by the heat and had to be picked up gently lest you smoosh them; and the cheese cake and cream pie more or less completely fell apart.
Overall, the dessert-heavy mix on this high tea makes it palatable even to omnivores, unless you're not the type who likes dessert. If you're looking for something more conservative (but it won't be vegan or raw), try the tea services from Urban Tea Merchant. Price is slightly less, flavours are more conservative, the weighting isn't as much toward desserts.
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