CRUDESSENCE - VEGETARIAN (HELL HAS FROZEN OVER)

PIGS FLY, THE WORLD ENDS,  AND HELL FREEZES OVER - 

  I ATE AT A VEGETARIAN PLACE... AND LIKED IT?:  

CRUDESSENCE - MACKAY STREET

Their website:  http://www.crudessence.com/
2157 Mackay Montreal, QC, H3G2J2   Telephone: (514) 664-5188
Price Range:  ~$15-$30 per person including one drink, meal, tax, and tip

Strangers blotted out. Or maybe my camera freaked out :P.

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As you can all probably tell from my other reviews, I'm a carnivore. I eat my fruits and veggies in massive quantities (like, a half-kilo or more per day) because they're good for me, not because they're good-tasting. And when I go to restaurants, I order things I don't prep at home. I indulge myself. So, when I go to a vegetarian place, I technically am doing the first part (i.e., get things I don't do at home). Is it an indulgence though? AW HELL NO.

But, never let it be said that I don't have an open mind. I try all kinds of dishes all the time. Because, now and again, experimenting yields interesting finds (like, for example, discovering that putting peanut butter on your hamburgers is AMAZING). And so, one of my cousins (among other people) convinced me to meet up with her at Crudessence, a vegetarian, RAW FOOD restaurant. This blog post now chronicles this rare event.

So, the place was well-lit and had a pretty warm, inviting atmosphere. Definitely not a bad start. Right inside the front door was a small grocery section where the restaurant sold a ton of its products:

Once seated, I ordered a coffee - which was served with almond milk and agave syrup on the side (Americano, $3.50). Whuh-?

Even the coffee is different...

The moment the coffee arrived, my "this-is-unfamiliar" meter started going off (well, the secondary one - the primary "this-is-unfamiliar" meter was still reeling from the fact that I was eating full-vegetarian for a primary meal)... I'd never had either accompaniment - actually, I'd never even heard of agave syrup. As it turns out, this syrup is made from cactus sap, the base ingredient from which tequila is made. The syrup tasted a bit like flambéd caramel and was very sweet. It certainly had a unique accent to it. The almond milk actually tasted like milk. Okay, so far so good.

Next up were kale chips ($3.50), because a number of people told me that kale chips taste good. And I was NOT prepared for what arrived:

SO. NOT. CHIPS.

It looked like a bowl of broccoli. HUH?!

So, a bit of background - kale is a leafy green thing (I seriously did not know this) and the kale chips were the result of a dehydration cooking process. Apparently, after seasoning, the kale was put inside a heated air dehydrator and set in place till it became dry and crispy. The result? Something that tasted NOTHING like chips. Despite it all, it was flavorful and more than a little reminiscent of crispy deep-fried spinach. Just, y'know, less oily and greasy. And less tasty. I mean, the kale chips were tasty, just - well, it wasn't deep-fried, damn it!

Next, some sun crackers ($2):

Addictive cracker goodness..

These were pretty dense crackers made up of a whole bunch of dried, minced organic vegetables all compressed together. Apparently, there were peppers, tomatoes, potatoes, and more all mashed in. You know what? These tasted much more like chips than kale chips! And they were ADDICTIVE.

And now, the mains. First, the pesto lasagna ($15):

Lasagna on the upper right hand corner. The little jalapeno-looking things were the eggplant bacon. That, y'know, didn't taste like bacon.

So, apparently, the lasagna was made of zucchini slices layered with macadamia nuts, ricotta, tomato slices, spinach leaves, pistachio pesto, and topped with Crumesan (? What the HEY is that?). It also came with a side Caesar salad with eggplant bacon (?!). For commentary, let's start with the negative:  The eggplant bacon? Did not taste like bacon! AT. ALL. For the positive: At its core, the lasagna actually tasted like and was textured like lasagna. Just one thing:  It was COLD. That was... a shock. Apparently, I kept on forgetting that this was a raw food place. And "raw" means not cooked... ergo cold... Still and all, it wasn't a dealbreaker at all. Just a cognitive disconnect on a carnivore's palate. Getting past that surprise, I would say that I'd have this type of lasagna again.

Next was Crudessence's entry into a cooking contest, a crepe made from zucchini, flax, and chia(!), stuffed with a whole big bunch of veggies (including, but not limited to, avocado, sprouts, and spinach). All topped off with basil creme and hemp seeds. There was also a side of tabouleh. The plate is called La Balnèaise ($18), and it looked like this:

Doesn't really look like a crepe, does it?

Altogether, the filled crepe was pretty flavorful. Interestingly enough, no one ingredient overwhelmed the other. And the crepe itself was crispy and well-textured. Once again, there was always the shock of the main course being purposefully cold. But I was getting used to it by that point. The tabouleh, on the other hand, was not for me (I heroically tried to give it all to my cousin :P ).

And that's it for the food, really. I tried, ever so timidly, a small, small, small sample of "raw" ice cream (i.e., made of coconut milk), and I just couldn't bring myself to order more. It... well, it wasn't what I was used to. I'm man enough to admit that I chickened out of ordering dessert. The drink, appetizers, and mains were enough non-meat(/non-standard for me) food adventuring for one meal. That said, the food was more tasty than not, and I was pleasantly surprised overall.

One thing merits commentary (well, outright praise, actually). I loved the service here. In particular, the wait staff were really patient in explaining absolutely every detail of the food and the thinking that went into the concept and the recipes. They said that it was a love of the (vegetarian) lifestyle that bound them there, and it showed. They were also very good-natured about my constant shock and surprise. I wasn't trying to be an ass (and I'm pretty sure I wasn't), but even I found my own constant... not quite neutral... reactions exasperating after a while. The wait staff took it all in good stride. They were pretty awesome, all told.

So, in the end, I will return at some point. Visits here won't be a frequent occurrence, but I don't think they'll be that rare either.  Well, maybe. We'll see :).

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Map of restaurants I have reviewed:

Mouthwatering Montreal - Hell Freezes Over and I Liked a Vegetarian Restaurant: Crudessence Mackay is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.