Finally! A week has gone by on my 3 week cleanse. I actually almost forgot to post this hilarious video of Justin Timberlake hosting SNL last Saturday night. I thought it was a funny way to kick off my cleanse, as if he knew exactly I was planning to do for the next three weeks.
Justin dresses up in a tofu suit, and sings some hilarious vegan-cover songs, with my favorite, “We Found Love in a Meatless Place”. A-maaaaazing!
So unlike yesterday, Day 8 was actually a lot more happy for me. Instead of feeling sad that I wasn’t going to try awesome new restaurants over the weekend, I decided to shift gears and focus on some of the good things about being on the cleanse. The first one is that I woke up early on a Saturday morning with SO MUCH ENERGY!!
Usually Friday nights means drinks with friends, but since I cut that out, I was able to sleep a bit earlier than normal, and wake up not dehydrated and lazy. By 11AM, I was able to set up my Vanguard account & Roth IRA (more about that in a future post) AND went to one of the most challenging Spin classes ever. Turns out all the hardcore Spinners go to Spin Class at 9:30 in the morning and requests crazy workouts from the instructor.
45 minutes of continuous standing hill climbs later, I felt great and surprisingly refreshed to finish a day of errands. For dinner, in an attempt to expand our horizons, J and I ended up going to Angelica Kitchen, a vegetarian/vegan restaurant!
Dinner: Angelica Kitchen, Restaurant Review
I’m no stranger to Vegetarian restaurants, in fact, my mom’s actually been a vegetarian for over 20 years! However, if you follow this blog, then you probably know that my go-to food isn’t vegetarian food. Don’t get me wrong, I actually really like vegetarian meals, but when I go out to eat, I feel like I should order something with substance. And well, substance usually = meat.
In any case, funny enough, about 5 minutes after we were seated, another couple was seated next to us. Less than a few minutes they were seated, I noticed they bolted for the door. Turns out, they probably didn’t know they entered into a vegetarian restaurant. The waiter who picked up their glasses of water and menu laughed and told us that it happens quite often.
Since Angelica Kitchen is a restaurant that caters to vegans, they were SUPER accommodating with my special needs for this cleanse. When I told them about some of my restrictions, they gave me Gluten-Free and Soy-Free menus. In the back they also listed foods with nuts, and also foods with onion and garlic. So you don’t have to feel bad that you’re one of “those” people who are super picky about what goes into your food because Angelia’s caters to “those” people.
There were a few things that I really enjoyed from the menu. We ordered the Pantry Plate, which allowed us to pick from a variety of cold appetizers. The best thing on the dish was the Live Curried Cashew Spread. I also really enjoyed the sea vegetable salad, made with Marinated Hiziki & Arame. Finally, we had the Lentil-Walnut Pate, which really had the texture of a pate, which was pretty cool. J and I noticed that cleaning off this plate, that we felt really CLEAN & healthy.
As extensive of a menu Angelica’s had, there was still quite a bit of dishes that I couldn’t eat 100%. For example, the dish that I ended up ordering, the daily special called Woman Hollering Fenugreek. Zesty Moroccan-inspired roasted vegetables including turnips, butternut squash, carrots & celery, grilled green peppers & sauteed cipollini onions & shallots, accented with a ton of spices + a red-kidney bean tomato sauce.
Two things that I couldn’t have here is the green peppers and the tomato sauce. Substitute with navy bean soup on the side it is! Overall, it tasted…okay. I didn’t love it as much as I loved the pantry plate, and I felt like it was something I could have whipped up myself. Wish I got to try the tomato sauce…
J wasn’t too enthusiastic about eating a vegetarian dinner, but of course, went along with it since it was something I wanted to try. It’s good to have someone who is supportive of the cleanse! He ordered the Ole Man Seitan, which was basically a Seitan burrito. I pretty much couldn’t eat any of it since seitan is essentially a “wheat meat”, and it’s wrapped inside a whole wheat tortilla.
Towards the end of dinner, we were both stuffed. While the food was pretty good, I don’t think I would go back unless I really needed to bring someone to a vegetarian/vegan dinner. I took my mom to Lan Cafe in LES a year ago and had amazing Vietnamese style vegetarian food, including an amazing Banh Mi sandwich that even J approved of. With a vegetarian food fearer approval, you know it’s got to be good. Too bad it’s not CLEAN friendly.
All in all, at the end of the night, J and I both felt full yet, somehow not stuffed and bloated like we normally feel after a meal. If digestion is what you’re looking for, then this is a wonderful clean and easily digestible dinner.
