Restaurant review: Bliss Raw Cafe & Elixir Bar

by Staff of Gay List Daily

If you can’t stand the heat, get into a raw-food kitchen.

When we first heard about the “raw food” movement, it was when Courtney Cox first came out of the cooked-food closet. We have no idea if she’s still doing it, but eating only unprocessed plant foods that haven’t been heated above 115°F sounded crazy.

In other words, perfect for a celebrity. (Or anyone who gets their kicks from a steady diet of hummus and kale.)

So with an open mind (and an emergency corn dog in our back pocket) we ventured in to lesbian-owned Bliss Raw Café & Elixir Bar to see what this whole uncooked thing is all about. Prior to our lunch, the closest we’d come to a raw food diet was the lime on our Margarita, the celery stalk in our Bloody Mary and the Adam’s Apple of our favorite bartender at the Round-up.

We started out with a few potables from the elixir bar. Who knew that something non-alcoholic could be served in a stemmed glass without the world stopping! Each drink is made of nutrient-rich superfoods, so get ready to feel like you’re able to leap tall buildings (not to mention finally squeeze into that pair of Size 30 tights). The Minty Hemp was refreshing and delicious, as was the Paradise Lemonade, but it’s the Chocolate Bliss that got us revved up. So rich, so decadent, so good for us!

Now we were hungry and feeling a little more at ease about how delicious raw foods could really be. So we selected several things from the menu, including a delightful Gaucho Gazpacho, with a surprising ingredient to foil the spiciness of jalapeño and green onion: pineapple. It’s very tasty and quite possibly the perfect summer soup.

Almost ironic that the temperature outside is hotter than the food prepared in this restaurant.

Tacos and burgers made of sunflower seeds and vegetables are good, but a little too far from the real thing to feel like you’re really getting something taco-y or burgery, and there are much better things on the menu.

Rawsagna Supreme is the one we’ve been dreaming about ever since. A delectable combination of thinly sliced zucchini, fresh-made tomato sauce, portabello mushroom slices, fresh basil, pesto and cashew “cheese,” it looks like a large slab of lasagna, but eats like a super hearty salad. The portion is huge, and comes with an honest-to-goodness salad-salad, just so there’s no confusion.

Daily dessert specials are amazing, and like everything else at Bliss, contain no sugar, so you can indulge without really indulging. On our visit, chocolate pudding and coconut cream pie (non-dairy, of course) were both stupendously good.

We may not be ready to convert to a completely raw food diet, but we will definitely be returning to this “not-hot” hot spot often. And next time, we’ll leave the corn dog at home.

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