Last up in the series is the Daily Juice. They apparently have quite a few locations but we went to the one on Duval St. Let me just say- I freaking love this place. By far my favorite of the joints we tried out for raw foods in Austin. We ended up there by accident one night. My parents weren’t really into having raw food again that night and so we went to some food trucks (I had a dosa at Nomad Dosa, which was awesome by the way- pure vegan gluten-free goodness!). There wasn’t anything at the food truck court for dessert, especially not for me. I said that I had heard about the existence of a vegan ice-cream parlor and my Dad thought we should go…so I looked it up on my iphone and off we went. Well, the ice cream place was inside of Daily Juice and I insisted we come back the next day to try out their raw food. And we did!
So…Daily Juice. First off, the vibe in the place is just really cool. It is not austere in any way, very colorful and they play good music (I don’t remember exactly what was playing when we were there but it ran the gamut from drum n bass, reggae, dub, indie, trip-hop, etc.) The only photo I have of the interior is this one with my two loves.
I had a green smoothie, as did my hubby but we both had different ones. They have an extensive and amazing smoothie menu. Even my Dad had some kind of goji berry based smoothie. My Mom went for a Kombucha.
Our duo of green smoothie love going on:
Then we all had raw kale enchiladas. Well, except for my mother who had to be a rebel and ordered a vegan frito pie. Man, these enchiladas were uhmayzing. We all enjoyed them!
Of course, we had to hit up the chocolate case as well before we left! Dan was sooo excited when he saw that they had durian chocolate in there!
Sorry for the craptastic photo, but we can’t all be perfect 😉 I tried so hard to like it, but as it turns out, I just can’t do durian. This was my fourth try with durian, the other three being fresh stuff and I thought ok, surely with chocolate i’ll love it. Well, no. No, I don’t. And I want to, I really do. So, it pains me deeply to admit it but I FUCKING HATE DURIAN FRUIT!!!
But that’s ok cuz I got some amazing chocolates anyway and Dan went back and bought out the rest of the durian choccies so everybody was happy in the end.
The rest of our day involved hiking over this:
and swimming in this:
and then a beautiful drive to Luckenbach where we were blessed by an impromptu concert and a tribe of chickens.
Our next stop on a raw foods tour of Austin took us to Beets, an all raw cafe on West 5th St. It took us a little effort to find the place but once we did it was on!
My hubby and I with our baby daughter and my parents in tow all went. My parents are not seasoned raw foodies. At all. They love their meat, but even more frustrating to me is their love for all things processed and chemical laden. I try to buy them alternatives to their favorite packaged foods, but it sometimes doesn’t work. For example, my father just does not like maple syrup as much as he likes his maple flavored diet syrup (eeeww!)
To start, I ordered a Goji Lemonade
Lemons, gojis and agave. Not too sweet and the gojiness was really intense.
And Dan ordered a green juice. I can’t remember what it had in it, but it was green and had lots of ginger.
Then we ordered our mains.
I had the chalupas- a corn tortilla with sunflower beans, veggies, guac and a sour cream drizzle. Really yummy! I got the kale salad for my side.
Dan had the raw reuben, it had a mild sauerkraut, homemade raw vegan thousand island dressing, marinate portabello mushrooms, caramelized onions and some kind of cheese on a really nice raw bread. He really liked this dish, and I did too. I would absolutely order this next time.
It came with chips and a beet salad. My Dad had the ELT, which was an eggplant bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich. He *said* he liked it, haha but when I offered to trade him half of his sandwich for one of my chalupas he did not protest (but this is probably a testament to how much the man loves him some Mexican food than anything else!) I liked the sandwich and once again, I was impressed with the bread. The texture was not at all cracker-like, not overwhelmingly flaxy either, soft and yielding to the tooth but not mushy or soggy.
And my mother ordered the nori roll appetizer and a side of sprouted lentil salad. These were fairly basic nori rolls but good for my mother because that is what she wanted- something familiar. The lentil salad was okay, but I soaked red lentils are just too starchy for my taste. Not a fault of the restaurant, just my personal tastes!
After, we had a selection of raw chocolates from the cool case up front. I thought the chocolate was good. It was clearly made with coconut oil in addition to cacao as it got melty really quickly. It was also the kind of chocolate where you taste mainly the dark chocolate flavor and not the flavorings much at all. My dad broke his tooth on a super hard goji berry though! 🙁
The service was great, our waitress was very personable and commented on how well-behaved Amethyst was being (although to me she was fussy!). There is tons of seating and I can’t imagine the place ever being full.
All in all, I would give Beets a 7.5/10
The menu had all the classics that you would expect to find- hamburgers, tacos, sandwiches, pizza, nori rolls, juices, smoothies, cheezecakes, etc. Everything was done well, tasty, reasonably priced and well presented. The only complaint I have is that there wasn’t anything that was really interesting or a new take on the classics.
Next in the series- locally made raw chocolate and The Daily Juice Café
I’d love to do this post in one looong entry, but alas i’ve got a baby who is WIDE awake although it is about 1 in the morning here. That sounds awful, but she is laughing and squealing with joy so I can’t complain too much, hehe.
So when we first got into Austin it was about lunch time and we were super hungry so we decided to hit up Whole Foods for some provisions, being as it is the flagship store and all. And I had also heard that they had a raw foods bar. Um, yes please.
We found this-
and this-
and this-
We ended up getting a broccoli salad with a creamy dressing, some pesto stuffed mushrooms (raw except daiya vegan cheese), and pumpkin pie
big ole kale salad
heaps of kimchi
some raw brownies
a fermented carrot drink
and I got this tasty thing here
and we also got some raw meetball things that for some reason i don’t have a picture of
Let me just say- Not impressed. I really hate to say that as I wanted to be blown away. There was such a variety of foods there, and maybe we just chose badly but I really don’t think so. The brownies were not good, tasteless and way too heavy. They were sort of indicative of the whole deal- everything looked amazing but tasted just really meh. Maybe my expectations were too high? But there was some good to come out of it.
1. The kimchi was good and I loved having loads to use as a condiment.
2. The local products we found were fucking amazing. The Pineapple Greens Buddha’s Brew Kombucha is the best booch I have ever had and I looooooved the raw brownies by New Earth (although they call them Chocolate Goddess Clusters, a name with which I am in complete approval) I showed you the other day. In fact, you get another peek as they deserve it.
Things did improve that night when we tried Beets, the raw food restaurant. That coming up tomorrow….
All in all, Whole Foods gets a 4/10 for even offering a raw food bar. I love that it is accessible, albeit pricy (as Whole Foods inevitably is). They tried really hard to offer a wide range of products freshly made but they could do with better recipes and trying a little harder with ingredients. I’m glad we went, but I probably wouldn’t eat there again. Especially not with all the other wonderful eats in Austin. I can however see myself popping in for a quick kale salad and kombucha (and probably some more Goddess Clusters!) next time I am in town.
Hi there! You know, I may not have made it this week because I know it is either extremely close to midnight or already past midnight. Oh well, better late than never. Consider it Thankful Thursday or something life that.
* Working the physical. Today I went to my first Kundalini class since moving back to Shreveport, and yeah. Just nice. Really, really nice. Also, I have Zumba again tomorrow.
* My new Prana pants. I love this brand for pants. If you know me, you will know my struggle to find pants that I love. Pricey, but where else are you going to find hemp and organic cotton yoga pants with a flared leg.
*Raw brownies in Austin. I bought these at Whole Foods when we first got into town and I went back and bought another pack. I love the slightly smoky flavor from the mesquite powder as it gives it an almost cooked taste, love that they are nut-free (not that I am against nuts, but they are heavy on the digestion and variety is awesome!) Also, the texture is chewy like a real cooked brownie!
* Pictures of my Amethyst.
