Raw vegan for a night: Saf
Photo by Mary Sweeney. Superfood, desert trio, chocolate ganache tart
On Thursday night Mary(of TKD and amazing vegan cheesecake fame) James, Ros and I finally ventured into trendy Shoreditch to Saf, a raw-food Vegan restaurant. For those of you who’ve just made an “ouch poor you” face, stop right there and for the rest of you who are sympathetic but imagine some kind of dingy hippyfest, again, SCHTOP!
Saf is a sleek restauarant in an area of shoreditch where you are more likely to see hair that is intentionally matted and bee-hived than hair that is the result of hippy soap-dodging. While it does heat some food to above 48 degrees, it flags this up on the menu as if they are slightly embarrassed by it.
All four of us are quite adventurous eaters and would often choose items from a menu on the basis that we’ve never eaten it before or don’t know what it is (although I do that mainly to help with my ginger-induced-indecisiveness). At Saf though, this isn’t an option as almost every dish falls into this category and the chances are that even if you have eaten the vegetable/seed/fruit before then you won’t have eaten it in the way Saf use it. When met with chive pearls, cauliflower rice and nut cheese (no joking) it’s fair to say that we had no idea what to expect. So, onto the food…
As expected from the various reviews I had read, my “Lasagne” bore less than even a passing resemblance to the actual dish, it wasn’t even alternately layered. However, it was very very tasty and what looked like cucumber on the top turned out to be crunchy raw courgette – who would have thought that would be nice! The rest was a pesto type rough puree which apparently also had walnuts in it, though I’m almost certain there was tomato as well. Also inside it were sliced mushrooms. One of the benefits of raw food is that the starting ingredients have to be of the highest quality with an intense flavour and this was certainly the case with mine. The Parmesan crust was the most surprising though – made from pine nuts but it tasted so much of cheese that for a moment we doubted the restaurant’s vegan credentials. It tasted lovely though!
Mary’s Mushroom Croquette was, to quote her “like it’s got the taste of 100s mushrooms condensed into it. It was creamy and delicious and had a slightly smokey flavour.
The nut cheese was, considering the Parmesan/pinenut triumph, surprisingly un-cheese-like. It was a favourite of Mary, but I found it more like eating a large slab of veggie pate with pesto in the middle. Nice but not my highlight.
The deserts were the highlight of the evening. Presented like little jewels on a plate, my Lucuma cookie with Maca ice cream was a super saintly version of cookie dough, and Ros’s chocolate ganache tart proved that adding milk to chocolate is just for those who can’t handle it!
I would definitely go back to Saf. I haven’t even started on the cocktails (om nom nom) and there’s so many more textures and flavours I’d love to experience. It’s pricey but it’s an experience and, since there’s no heated kitchen in the normal sense you can watch things being prepared but not feel hot or flustered by the work going on. More photos soon, but in the meantime check out the full menu below.
Saf interior
If any of you do go to Saf, or similar places, I’d be interested to know your thoughts.
Raw food
This post was initially part of the next post about Saf, but it made the whole thing too long.
The idea behind raw foodismis that once heated, the molecular structure in food is altered and is less useful to the body. Therefore, in order not to lose any of the nutrients in food it’s suggested by some that 80% by weight of all food consumed should be raw. Now, I wouldn’t totally adhere to this as I’m a fully commit ed meat eater and one that believes that whilst it’s our duty to care for animal in a responsible manner, they are none-the-less given to us to help with work and as a source of food. However, there’s a lot to be said for not overcooking vegetables and losing all the vitamins into the water. In addition to this, the recent spate of food investigation programmes and people looking into over processed diets has highlighted what is basically common sense: the more natural and balanced your diet is the better it is for you (and I’m not saying that I manage this at all!)
One issue I do have with this form of diet though is that whilst they claim that they are against the processing of food and that it should be consumed in its most natural manner, a lot of ingredients seem to be converted into new forms for the purpose of flavour. Take Lucuma for example: it’s Peruvian fruit that is very nutritious, having high levels of carotene and vitamin B3. However, instead of keeping it in fruit form, it is made into a dried powder and the same is the case with Maca. I suppose it is no worse that cinnamon or other spices, but why use these Peruvian plants and import them all the way over here when there must be equally good food nearby?
As a final note, whilst I do think that raw foodism could be a step to far, and I’m not about to become vegan (as stated above) I do have more sympathy for Vegans than vegetarians. I feel that their views are more consistent – why get angry about male cows being kept badly for meat, yet not care if female cows are in equal or worse situations for milk?
Grrrzzzz
Team Tiger
Mutant
Out of principle, I feel I should share this article which jumped out at me over the weekend.
James Medd’s tale of being a ginger-bearer is an interesting read and some of the experiences, particularly of male redheads may ring true. The bit that made me laugh most though was his admission that his first words on seeing his carrot topped child were, “Is he ginger or is that just blood?” which reminded me of the words I’m told my Nanna uttered onfirst seing me: “I do beleive she’s going to be ginger”. History doesn’t relate if she said this in a Victor Melrew-esque rising exclamation, but that’s how I like to imagine it.
Guardian gingers
Hole-y Mole-y
They (and I suspect that “they” are the people who need to fill weekend paper suplements, or those tiny little books that sit by the till in waterstones) say that you should always try new things. Usually it seems to involve travelling to far flung places or taking up a new sport.
So far I’m only an armchair traveller and I’m too scared of black eyes to try Squash any time soon, but when it comes to new frontiers I feel that food is my forte. As I recently went to Wales with vegan friend Mary, you could reasonably expected that Laver Bread would be the challenge ahead. However, much as munching/slurping black sludge is definitely a challenge, I managed to escape the delights of seaweed-that-isn’t-surrounding-sushi and instead I got to try Mole, or more to the point Mole Poblano.
What is it? Well, it’s a chocolate infused dish from Mexico. A Mole (pronounced Moh-lay) means any kind of sauce, hence guaca-mole. It sounds really weird but was actually very similar to a Korma. I think I would have liked to taste the bitterness of the cocoa more but it was still properly yummy and the corn bread…oh the corn bread.
Still, it’s not actually my delight that was important, but instead that of one very happy vegan who was positively delirious that she could have any of the puddings on the menu…
Om nom nom
Bake to the Future 
