A Review Of Gracias Madre A Vegan Restaurant In San Francisco

Gracias Madre serves organic, vegan, non-GMO Mexican Cuisine in the Mission District of San Francisco

Follow Foods For Long LIfe on FACEBOOK !

Healthy Vegan can also mean Tasty!
The very sound of "healthy vegan" would make most people run the other way, but the same team that brought us yummy raw food at Cafe Gratitude, now offers a selection of very delicious vegan Mexican cuisine at their restaurant, Gracias Madre. 
The two words I would use to describe their food are "Flavorful" and "Hearty". Most of the dishes we tried had a spicy and intensely flavorful sauce that really made the dish. "Hearty" also means filling so be careful not to order too much. Make sure you leave some room for their beautiful desserts!


The Menu
Most vegans have a difficult time going to a traditional Mexican restaurant. Once you take away the meat and the cheese, theres not much left to eat! But this menu is a vegans dream come true! You can check out their entire menu and see that they have quite a nice selection of items. Here are some of the things we tried:
Guacamole con Tortillas
We started the meal by sharing an order of guacamole. It tasted a lot like ours with cilantro, lime and onion, and was served with 4 warm handmade tortillas.  
Quesadillas de Camote
My absolute favorite thing on the menu was undoubtedly the quesadilla! A tortilla was filled with sweet potato and caramelized onions and covered with a wonderful nacho cheese sauce and pumpkin seed salsa. Nice spice to it and just delicious! Unfortunately I ate the entire dish before I decided to review the restaurant so I didnt get a picture of it. But take my word for it, it was amazing!
Empanada
This homemade pastry shell was filled with poblano chiles, onions and mushrooms, served on mole and topped with cashew cream. It had a nice consistency and the mole had just the right heat.

Empanada on a bed of mole

Enchiladas con Mole
Although the ingredients for this dish were wonderful (mushrooms, a spicy and flavorful mole sauce, etc.), the manner in which they served it was not. All the ingredients were pilled up on top of several thick tortillas which made it very difficult to eat. I would have preferred that they rolled them up the way enchiladas are usually served. Actually, by the time I got to this dish, I was a little tired of eating tortillas. Next time I will ask them to put the mushrooms and delicious mole sauce on top of brown rice. I think that would be great! This dish came with greens and black beans.

Enchiladas con Mole

My husband and nephew had nopales, a dish that featured cactus. I believe this is a seasonal dish. They both said "it was very enjoyable but not memorable".

Papas al Horno
My daughter ordered this dish. It was a big, generous pile of roasted potatoes topped with a cashew nacho cheese. Although I thought this dish was quite good (the potatoes were perfectly roasted in garlic and oil and the cashew cheese had a lovely, spicy flavor), it was a better dish to share than to have as a main course. How many potatoes can you eat?

Papas al Horno - roasted potatoes with cashew nacho cheese

A Few Sides
We also order a side of greens which were the same as what was served with the enchiladas. They were perfectly cooked and the crunch of the pumpkin seeds added a delightful dimension. But the best side was a baked cauliflower dish that had a crispy topping. Unfortunately the picture I took of that dish came out a bit fuzzy but I think that was one of the best dishes we ordered!

A side of greens topped with toasted pumpkin seeds

Ill Be Back!
All in all, I loved the restaurant and will definitely return to Gracias Madre! Next time Ill come for dinner instead of lunch and try one of their margaritas and definitely leave some room for dessert! If youre in San Francisco, you should definitely give it a try!

A Review Of Portlands Blossoming Lotus A Great Vegan Restaurant With Many Raw Food Offerings

Raw cucumber avocado dill soup.

Garden of Eden salad with creamy ginger dressing.

Live wrap with cashew sour cream.

Green Goddess bowl.

Crispy Thai BBQ wrap.

Raw vegan lemon cheesecake with raspberry topping.

Chocolate chai vegan soft serve.

Portland Oregon - No Shortage of Great Restaurants

When my son and his family moved from Seattle to Portland, Oregon I was pretty happy because they were moving within what I consider reasonable driving distance from where we live in Northern California. What I didnt know at the time is that I would become even happier when I realized that this town has a plethora of amazing restaurants.

Doug and I drove to Portland this week to bring our 7 year old grandson home who had been staying with us. It was a very short visit (one day up, one day there and one day back) but we still managed to try 2 new restaurants and one old favorite while in this great town. On this visit, I would say the most memorable one was the Blossoming Lotus.

Blossoming Lotus

Portland, Oregon is an extremely vegetarian friendly town with plenty of delicious vegetarian restaurants to choose from. Blossoming Lotus, on Broadway and NE 15th street, is certainly one of them. We decided to have lunch there on Wednesday.

They offered an all vegan menu with many "Live" or raw food appetizers, soups, salads, entrees and desserts as well as a good assortment of raw juices, smoothies and specialty drinks.

Walking in, it had a warm feeling and good energy. There was a diverse crowd from young people to baby boomers. For lunch, we ordered at the counter and they delivered our food to the table.

We tried a medley of both raw and cooked vegan food. We also got some input from the lovely women sitting next to us who described the dishes that she ordered and let me photograph them. (Wouldnt you love to sit next to me at a restaurant?)

For Starters

We started the meal with the raw cucumber and avocado dill soup. It was light with wonderful crisp flavors. Our "neighbor" ordered a Garden of Eden side salad with creamy ginger dressing. Although we didnt eat it, it looked extremely fresh as you can see from the photo.

Lunch Entrees

For entrees, we had a Live Wrap and the Green Goddess Bowl. Both were good sized portions.

The Live Wrap was filled with cucumber, sprouts and carrots. It also had a tasty tahini-cilantro pate inside and was flavored with an avocado goddess sauce. The wrap itself was a tender collard green and it was served with an amazing cashew sour cream. The dish was $10, plentiful and worth ever penny.

The Green Goddess bowl was my favorite. This hearty bowl was a combination of steamed kale, mixed raw greens, sprouts and brown rice (you can also get quinoa). It was served with avocado goddess sauce and roasted garlic balsamic vinaigrette and topped with regular and black sesame seeds. It was a truly wonderful dish and my only regret is that Ill probably order this every time I return and may miss out on ordering something new. It was a large amount of food and a bargain at $9.

Our neighbor ordered the Crispy Thai BBQ wrap for $8. It had these interesting "soy curls" inside. In addition to soy curls, it was filled with crispy rice sticks, carrots, cucumber, red cabbage and romaine lettuce. It was flavored with a sweet ginger sauce and wrapped in a whole wheat tortilla. It looked amazing and Ill have to try it next time if I can resist ordering the Goddess bowl again.

Leave Room for Dessert

By now, you must think we eat like pigs because this was a lot of food to try. But since I wanted to do a good job with this review, we made the sacrifice of trying two desserts.

The raw pie was good but not unusual for a raw restaurant. If youve never eaten a raw cheese cake, youre in for a wonderful treat but Ive tried quite a few at different raw restaurants and this one was very good but not memorable.

The soft serve, on the other hand, was to die for. I do not eat dairy since Im lactose intolerant so I dearly miss soft serve ice cream. The chocolate chai was delicious. Unfortunately, they only serve one flavor at a time so if you dont like their daily selection, youre out of luck.

Although we didnt try them (there is actually a limit to what we can consume), they had a big bowl of lovely vegan cookies and brownies at the counter.

So if youre in Portland you might want to give this place a try. They are open for lunch and dinner and offer a Sunday Brunch. Check out their Location and Hours and their Lunch, Dinner and Brunch Menus. They also have an interesting Cocktail Menu.

5 Restaurant Scams That Sabotage Weight Loss

“We gotta order a pepperoni pie,” my friend Jeff said Sunday afternoon. “And some of those cheese sticks.”

He was over at my house watching football, but was more enraptured by the food ads than by Tom Brady. As Brady scrambled for position to toss a deep pass, Jeff was wide open to receive an extra 2,000 calories of fat and carbs.

Seeing him salivate over the the cheesy come-ons, I couldn’t help but be struck by how much food marketers are like football teams, since they both employ a lot of misdirection. In the NFL, the quarterback shouts out confusing signals like “Red 74 Oklahoma hut hut!” and the running backs act like decoys, pretending to carry the ball as the QB drops back.

Restaurants do the same thing when marketing their food, filling their menus with chicanery and deception, especially when it comes to “healthy” offerings. Eat This, Not That! took a hard look at the healthy head-fakes restaurants use. Here’s how to muster your defenses and win the weight loss game when you eat out.

(For more proven weight-loss tips, read our special new Eat This, Not That! report on the 20 Habits Skinny People Live By.)

“Healthy” Head-Fake #1

Healthy words describing unhealthy foods

Take two popular menu items: A Carrot Walnut Muffin or the Chocolate Croissant. Which one’s healthier? Surely your health-conscious conscience jumps at the thought of starting your day with carrots and walnuts, yet the truth is fuzzier. Au Bon Pain’s healthy sounding muffin offering packs 540 calories—plus 7 grams more fat, double the carbs (73 g vs. 34 g), and the four times the sugar of a 300-calorie Starbucks Chocolate Croissant! Remember, “muffin” is just a way to get you to eat cake for breakfast.

Best Defense: Find the unhealthiest word on any menu item, and let that be your guide. After all, the calorie count of a fish fry is not about the fish, it’s about the fry. (Arm yourself in the grocery store, too—avoid these fattening 5 “Health” Foods Worse Than a Donut.)

“Healthy” Head-Fake #2 

Foods on the “low carb” menu

Anything “low” in one thing is usually high in something else. Consider Applebee’s Low Carb Breakfast Bowl, which is super low-carb but starts your day with 52 grams of fat—nearly an entire day’s worth. This 660-calorie meal is like dumping an entire farm’s worth of animals into one heart-stopping combination of eggs, sausage, bacon and cheese. Their Ham, Egg & Cheese Biscuit won’t make Dr. Atkins happy, but it will save you 210 calories and 28 grams of fat.

Best Defense: Eat for balance. Don’t be fooled by eating only “low-carb” or “low-fat.”

“Healthy” Head-Fake #3

A menu calls meals “snacks:

Your restaurant may call it a “snack,” but your dietician would call it “dinner.” Earlier this year, Dunkin’ Donuts made headlines after calling a 660-calorie bacon ranch chicken sandwich a “snack,” part of a rebranding campaign—“We’re not moving into lunch,” the CEO told AP. “We’re in snacking.” (With a snack like that, who’d need lunch?) Meanwhile, Arby’s offers a “Snack and Save” menu with alleged snacks like the 550-calorie Crispy Onion Mighty Minis, which also come with 30 grams of fat and half a day’s sodium.

Best Defense: Snack, but snack healthy.  A recent Nutrition Journal study found that nutritious snacks promote weight loss. The key word there is nutritious. Fruit and nuts are snacks, but two mini onion burgers? Not so much. A good snack is in the 100-250 calorie range. Indulge guilt-free in any of these 50 Best Snack Foods for Weight Loss.

“Healthy” Head-Fake #4

The salad “decoys” trick

Restaurants have discovered a brilliant way to get you to order cheaper, more caloric food—they give you the option to order something else. It’s called “decoy marketing” in the restaurant trade. The idea is that punctuating a menu with healthy items like salads gives customers permission to order larger, junkier, more caloric meals than they would otherwise. A study at Boston University demonstrated how this worked; researchers saw French fries orders triple when salad was also an option. It’s a phenomenon experts have dubbed “vicarious goal fulfillment.” In other words, by simply acknowledging a healthy option, diners feel they have satisfied their dietary goals and can order whatever they want.

Best Defense: Remind yourself before you look at the menu that you’re on a mission to eat well. Remember that a burger has the same calorie count whether it’s next to the spring salad or the spring lamb.

“Healthy” Head-Fake #5 

Good-for-you foods with bad-for-you toppings

When a restaurant chain makes its mark serving massive slabs of fat and calories, even their attempts at “lite” foods can be corrupted by an instinct to slather and garnish. Take, for example, Ruby Tuesday’s Avocado Grilled Chicken Sandwich. How bad could this be? Well, by serving you a jumbo portion and topping it with bacon, Swiss and mayonnaise, the chain has built a 1,311-calorie monster with 2,833 mg of sodium and 64 grams of fat.

Best Defense: Customize it. If you like the sound of a grilled chicken avocado sandwich, then ask them to serve you exactly that—and maybe ask for a little mayo on the side.

By David ZincZenko

Source: https://www.yahoo.com/health/11-restaurant-scams-that-sabotage-weight-loss-104073010048.html