Archives for posts with tag: hawaii

Loving the Lotus

September 3, 2008 //
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Welcome to the Lotus!

Like a good raw foodie, I enjoy my fresh fruit, my salads and my smoothies on a regular basis. Their freshness and simplicity make me feel good, and I can appreciate the intense natural flavors of good, organic produce. But while I may be raw, I still put a lot of emphasis on the second part of my self-defined title – foodie. I have a weakness for the gourmet, for unexpected combinations, for well considered flavors, for skillfully designed dishes that go beyond what even an adventurous domestic cook can come up with in a modest home kitchen. It may often be at odds with the raw foods lifestyle, but I simply love restaurant food.

This passion for gourmet dishes, expertly prepared by someone else in a decked-out kitchen and presented to me while I sip a special beverage and lap up the luxury, is generally a bit of a problem. It doesn’t stop me going to restaurants, but no matter how I order it’s a bit of a compromise. Either I order whatever I can get raw on the menu, skipping the more exotic sounding dishes, or I go for cooked and end up with a troubled tummy. If only I could go to a restaurant that serves raw foods!

Tranquility greets you outside the Blossoming Lotus (photo from BL website).

Enter Blossoming Lotus. Okay, it’s on the island of Kauai, not exactly a hop skip and a jump from Australia. But seeing as I happened to be vacationing there, I made a point of having as many meals as possible at this oasis of raw and vegan cuisine. I started with brunch on the very first day I arrived, and it was beautifully satisfying after 30 hours of nibbling on plain vegetables and fruit whilst in transit. There was only one raw option, but it was so much more fancy than anything I’d make myself at home: a parfait of fresh tropical fruit, live granola (oh buckwheat, how I love thee), and lusciously decadent macadamia cream. I suspect the secret to a good macadamia cream is in the quality of the food processor, but it might also have something to do with the rich macs that grow in Hawaii. Later that day I bought a bag of the crunchy-creamy nuggets to nibble on, and they disappeared into the mouths of my family pretty quickly. I washed the parfait down with coconut water, a fantastic remedy for the dehydration of air travel.

Blossoming Lotus is not an entirely raw restaurant. It’s self-described as “vegan world fusion,” and the dinner menu is true to this moniker with dishes such as Pesto Lasagna, Thai green curry, Moroccan seared tofu, and Indian pumpkin curry – all entirely vegan, entirely delicious, and entirely enormous. Jayson’s dinner choice, “Senorita Bombla’s Enchilada Casserole,” was a particularly amazing cooked vegan dish, presented with style and tasting better than any non-vegan enchilada I’ve ever come across.

Vegan enchilada goodness swimming in carob mole. Exquisite.

For me, the highlight was the excitement of having gourmet raw entree and main dishes, and this excitement was actually matched by the exquisite preparations and flavors. Live Moo Shu featured lovely, soft, pliable little tortillas that seemed to be made of coconut and flax, overflowing with marinated Asian vegetables and served with sweet-tangy dipping sauce. This is something I will have to try to recreate at home if I can only figure out how to make such delicate wrappers in my modest home dehydrator. The main course of Live Pad Thai was fantastic as well – a generous mound of coconut meat and assorted vegetables cut into noodle-like strips and fantastically dressed with a well balanced almond-chili-citrus sauce. Spicy cashews added a bit of crunch and kept me going back in for bite after delicious bite. I was the only one of our foodie group who finished my entire plate, and I was also the only one who didn’t walk away terribly stuffed. It may be gourmet, but it’s still raw food – it satisfies in such a more comfortable way than cooked food.

Mind blowing moo shoo with super dip (photo courtesy of BL website).
Raw meets gourmet on my dinner plate.

The Blossoming Lotus is not open for lunch, but they have this market cornered with a tidy little cafe and juice bar just down the road in Kapaa town. I came back twice for their perfect individual raw pizza. A thick, crumbly base was hidden under a mountain of marinated veggies spiralized to the texture of angel hair pasta and topped with really intensely flavored pesto, garnished with a pretty little edible flower (which I just had to shock my grandfather by popping into my mouth whole). They also make really gorgeous and refreshing drinks – my favorite on a hot day was the living limeade, with fresh lime juice, coconut water and agave. Heaven. Or so I thought, until I encountered my true love…

What you should be looking at here is one big, lovely chunk of fudge. Not just any fudge, but raw fudge, and also the richest, most delicious fudge in the world. So amazingly decadent, in fact, that I had it twice and both times failed to take a photo because I was so deeply and appreciately present in the moment while experiencing it that all thoughts of photography were banished from my mind. Every non-raw member of my family was treated to a taste and they were all bowled over, even my mother who avowedly dislikes fudge. So there you have it. Raw chocolate, rocking my world once again.

Though this blog entry has mostly focused on the food, Blossoming Lotus is really so much more than a restaurant. With nightly live music entertaining diners, walls decked out with local art, and a menu that reflects consciousness of the planet and our bodies, this place is a mecca of inspiration and gratitude.

Blossoming Lotus, I want to take you home with me to Australia. If the Lotus can blossom on the tiny island of Kauai, there’s no reason we can’t create a similar place of joyous, blissful eating here in Oz. I put the challenge out there: let’s bring the spirit of the Lotus down under and create a vegan/raw restaurant, serving quality cuisine in an invigorating space, here in Australia. I’m on board, but I can’t do it alone. Who’s with me?

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Categories Places

For the Love of Chocolate, and Permaculture

August 12, 2008 //
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Our amazing tour guide under a coconut tree.

Perfect weather, sparkling beaches, chilled-out residents, daily rainbows, copious tropical fruits: these things and more make Kauai heaven, as I gushed in my previous post. But the reasons that I found this island to be my personal paradise run much deeper. Perfection can be found in the details. The best example can be found atop a hill, a short drive from Kapaa town.

Breadfruit

This is the home of the Steelgrass Chocolate Farm, which I was lucky enough to tour while on holiday in Kauai. It is also the home of Tony Lydgate and his family, the inspiration behind the vision and realization of Steelgrass. They moved from the mainland to Kauai in order to develop a sustainable farm, and there they met the first of many challenges. They found that their plot of land was covered in jungle, and not the good kind. This jungle was a tangle of invasive species, the same plants that have destroyed the majority of Kauai’s native species. The family set to work removing many of these plants and carefully considering what to plant instead. They wanted plants that would grow successfully, provide food, and not be invasive.

Pineapple

Mango
Soursop – tastes like cotton candy!

They found many answers to these problems by planting a variety of trees, many of them fruiting. Among those found in their orchards today are mango, tahitian lime, coconut, starfruit, orange, pineapple, and of course cacao, to name a few. Tropical flowers, including the spectacular vanilla orchid, make up a great deal of the land as well. They also planted several varieties of bamboo, a plant whose slender strength earned it the nickname “steelgrass,” after which the farm is named.

Local orange variety

All of these plants and more were revealed to a curious group of food-lovers on the chocolate farm tour. Our tour guide not only explained the significance of each plant and organized various tastings along the way, she also filled us in on the nature of many invasive plants and what the Steelgrass crew and others are trying to do to counter this barrage. After a gorgeous and informative stroll through the lush property, we got down to business and tackled the reason we were all really there: chocolate.

Tahitian Lime, which we tasted with raw sugarcane

Though the cacao beans had recently been harvested, a few had been left hanging off the trees for our curious eyes. Tony explained that cacao beans grow close to the ground so small animals can eat them. The cacao bean itself is quite bitter, but it is surrounded by a thin layer of sweet pulp. The inner kernel needs to be dried and fermented before it can be turned into chocolate. Sitting in the shade, we tasted plain cacao nibs – and as a raw foodist, I was quite possibly the only person there for whom this wasn’t a new experience. Then, while Tony delivered a captivating lecture on the history of chocolate, we blind taste tested ten of the world’s best commercially produced dark chocolates.

Tony Lydgate with torch ginger and other tropical flowers

Now, I consider myself a bit of a chocolate snob, but this was an eye-opening experience even for me. Having experience in sensory evaluation, I approached the task much as I would a wine tasting. Next to each numbered sample, I wrote down the characteristics of the chocolate’s aroma, taste and texture. I was actually amazed at the variety, considering that each sample contained the same three ingredients in relatively similar proportions: cacao, cacao butter, and sugar. In some chocolates I noted brighter berry flavors, while others had sophisticated earthy notes. Some suggested sunshine and lightness, others conjured up images of a worn leather chair and a glass of port, while still others were downright naughty in their dark richness.


Cacao tree with one one pod

Despite his obvious passion for chocolate (revealed by the admonition that we all eat several ounces of dark chocolate daily), Tony does not aspire to produce chocolate commercially. Rather, his ambition is to sell his seedlings to farmers all over Kauai in order to cultivate a local cacao industry. The main industry on Kauai is tourism, so the Lydgates see a need to develop sustainable industries that keep wealth on the island, and cacao farming is just that. Healthy for the body, the planet, and the local economy – who can argue with that?

Cacao bean and the nibs it crumbles into when peeled

There is a lot of passion among the staff at Steelgrass, and, even more importantly, a lot of action being applied to realizing and expanding their visions for a healthy future for the land and people of Kauai. I cannot help but draw a connection between the efforts of Steelgrass and the burgeoning farmer’s market movement throughout the island, which I discussed in my previous post. The fact that on any given day there are multiple farmer’s markets around Kauai means that people are starting to pay attention to the importance of protecting their local environment and economy – and their own bodies, incidentally. I am really pleased to see such a phenomenon take hold, and it gives a lot of encouragement that the lovely environment that can be found throughout much of the island is here to stay.

Vanilla orchid

To finish on a RAW note, and to tease you into checking back here again soon, I’ll mention that just down the road from Steelgrass some raw cacao is being put to excellent use. That’s a drool-worthy post for another day, but for now, drool over this gorgeous starfruit:

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Categories Places

Kauai = Raw Heaven

August 2, 2008 //
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If there is a heaven, it looks an awful lot like Hanalei. This tiny surf town on the northern side of Kauai, the northernmost and smallest of the Hawaiian islands, is as close to paradise as one can get. Obstensibly, the draw is a semi-circular bay whose water is placid in summer but produces killer waves in winter. Towering over the bay is an ominous mountain, home to the wettest place on earth and therefore covered by clouds most of the time. But the sun shines in full glory on Hanalei, only slipping away for brief showers that are always followed by brilliant rainbows.

Abundant natural beauty, check. But even if Hanalei didn’t have the perfect beach (as well as a dozen other perfect beaches within driving distance), it would still be an amazing place to live. The little town has everything I could want: an organic food shop, fish market, fantastic yoga studio, crystal and gem shop, a couple of really good restaurants and a few clothing shops (and they only sell summer wear, of course, as it’s always summer weather in Kauai). Everything is within walking distance, so no need for a vehicle unless it’s the 2-wheeled variety.

And with the lush tropical folliage that the rain showers provide comes my number one reason for loving Hanalei: tropical fruit. The fantastic selection, along with lots of lovely vegetables and other goodies, can be purchased at the farmers markets held twice weekly. Papayas, mangoes, mountain apples, apple bananas, the sweetest pineapples you’ve ever tasted, young coconuts with their hydrating water, lychees, black and white sapotes, soupsop, jackfruit, starfruit…on and on. I also picked up many different varieties of greens, skinny Japanese eggplant, okra, organic sprouts, tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchinis, carrots, avocadoes, and some lovely local goats cheese. All of this bounty is spread on folding tables in a green field, overshadowed by mountains and trees.

We arrived on Tuesday at 2:45 for a 3pm market start. Because the markets are small and popular, people crowd around a roped-off entrance as if awaiting admittance to a nightclub. But in a much more egalitarian fashion, everyone rushed through at 3pm on the dot. In a frenzy, I paid $12 for a sugarloaf pineapple – sounds steep, but believe me, it was a mindblowing pineapple, all sweetness and no acidity. With my grandmother, sister, boyfriend’s sister and dad, and friend, we managed to collect quite a haul. Here we are contemplating it back home on our lanai:

Any doubt yet that this is heaven?

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