Saturday, January 3, 2009

Thrive restaurant review and more

Well first I have to say that my dinner was dampened by being hit by a car on my bike ride home. I am ok, my bike is not. Maybe I will post a picture tomorrow of its sad smashed front wheel.

Review:
4.5 outta 5 carrots
I betcha didn't know I was a food critic! Well informally anyway...
So I went to the thrive gala of pure decadence which was a fund/intrest raising event they did about 2-3 months ago. Very delicious. I have been eager since then for the restaurant to open, and to eat there.
They have it set up as a restaurant/cafe with a small seating area and a little store section. The interior is well designed with a very "warm" earthy color scheme and presents a casual upscale type environment. The coolest thing about the store section is a wall of bulk bins that they are going to fill as they grow with all sorts of raw nuts and grawnolas and other great treats I would otherwise have to buy online. Right now it is sorta slim pickings but I can visualize the future bounty.
I went with my lovest alex and he had the hummos plate and the "shine" smothie. I had the pasta pomodoro. We also treated ourselves to the mochalatte pie for dessert.
The hummos was good but a little mustardy tasting and the server gave us some flax crackers to go with it. Without the flax crackers I may have felt the dipping selection (celery, carrots, zucchini, and bell peppers) to be a bit lacking. Good flavor and alex said very filling for an appitizer.
The shine smoothie was awesome. Alex said the best smoothie he ever tasted. Of course when I make him smoothies I always spike them with vitamineral green, spirulina, spinach or some other healthy additive. This one was just the fluff. Coconut water, coconut butter, pinapple, vanilla bean and from the taste of it some agave. Sweet and delightful.
My pasta was spiralized zucchini with a great tomato basil sauce on a bed of romaine (odd but I happily munched away on my lettuce). Our server, again, gave me a complementary addition of almond ricotta. Without the cheese the sauce may have seemed a little thin, it should just be part of the dish.
I had had the mocha pie at the tasting so I already knew how amazing it was. Didn't let me down. Although not completely raw as it has a shot of espresso somewhere in it, it tastes decadant and was worth the price considering I couldn't have eaten the whole thing myself. It was a two person dessert. Almost too sweet for me but alex said perfect for him.
Portion sizes were about perfect, not so much I had to take it to go, just enough to feel satisfied as I was taking my last few bites.
It is definetly a higher price point than what I can afford on a regular basis, which is too bad or I would probably go more often and end up spending more overall. Two people for dinner with one drink, one appitizer, one entre, and one dessert was over $40 with the tip. I am more of a $25-30 for two people kind of diner.
Good attentative service, very aware of when we needed attendance. The owner (or one of them?) was there and introduced herself as she had seen us around before.
Overall a very good experience.
Only change I would make is to label the few non raw foods they serve as not raw on the menu. I was a little confused as to what was and what wasn't raw.
I would love to go again and try more delicious food, but maybe in a few paychecks.

2 comments:

yardsnacker said...

Hey glad you are ok! I went to Thrive with Hihorosie and we had a similar experience. I liked the mochapie thingy but didn't care for the decaf in it...always tastes so dirty to me for some reason. Would have been better if they would have just used some exotic single estate fair trade coffee instead, but that's just my opinion. BTW welcome back to the cult of life! moohwahahah!

Unknown said...

I am going to Seattle's Thrive Raw Restaurant today, I will report back. It is so nice to have someone else prepare and share the experience with too!