Dining Out on a Cleanse
I often feel like social obligations are one of the biggest challenges to me eating healthy. I don't really have a problem eschewing refined sugars and processed foods on my own, but bonding with others over food is important to me. I have a general rule to eat as healthy as possible during the week or when it's just me, but when I go out no holds are barred. Eating is one of my great pleasures in life! But what to do when I'm on this cleansing regimen? Well last night I went out to COCO500, owned by "one of San Francisco's preeminent female chefs" Loretta Keller. Her penchant for locally sourced organic ingredients and rustic Mediterranean dishes is right up my alley. Amongst a menu that boasted braised tripe, salami pizza, and rabbit sugo, I was pleased to find a nice selection of crisp salads and gorgeous veggies that hadn't been through a concentration camp of braising or smothered in sauce.
Checking out the sides on any menu is a good place to find vegetable friends to complement your meal. I was pretty sure between a salad and some sides I could do a good job of not straying too far away from my cleanse. I ended up ordering an endive and arugula salad, burrata with fennel, wine forest mushrooms, and broccoli with fresno chilis. My dining companion ordered a dish of beef cheek with horseradish cream and watercress, of which I admittedly had a nibble. Some of the dishes also were garnished with cheese; I half heartedly attempted to eat around it. My other peccadillo was ordering a glass of Burgundy Pinot Noir, but I'll justify that by the resveratrol content of red wine.
Endive and arugula salad, with feta, walnuts, and what looked like Red D'anjou pears. I had already started digging into this before remembering to take a picture, so forgive the presentation. Also forgive the picture quality, these are all phone shots. Normally endive is one of those bitter chicories that I tolerate out of a sense of obligation, but between the sherry shallot vinaigrette and pears, I thought the bitterness incorporated nicely with the rest of the salad.
Burrata. The queen of cheeses. Definitely not cleanse-approved, but it was served with sliced fennel and a nice little bed of greens. I combined with the endive and arugula salad, the burrata probably helped with my enhanced enjoyment of endive ;)
Beef cheek. Also mercifully served with a generous portion of watercress, so my gastronomic guilt was assuaged. In David Wolfe's raw food bible The Sunfood Diet Success System, he stresses the importance of eating green leafy vegetables alongside a cooked meal. This beef cheek was tasty, but something about the breaded exterior and round pillowy shape turned me off a little. It kind of looked like a breaded meat cloud, and I think could have stood alone just fine without the breading. The fresh horseradish cream was spot-on. Maybe I should try my hand at whipping up a raw version of horseradish cream...
Wine forest mushrooms with ricotta salata. Gorgeous little elfin mushrooms perfectly sauteed. The big chunks of ricotta salata were completely unnecessary, tasty, but these mushrooms can totally stand on their own.
Broccolini. The menu says broccoli but these long tender stems clearly belong to the more glamorous cousin broccolini. I loved the rounds of red fresno chilis, they have a nice sweet heat that gives you a little kick but doesn't linger on the tongue. I'm going to start cooking with these little guys. I appreciated the simplicity of this dish - just lightly steamed broccolini, chilis, and olive oil. Yum.
So it wasn't that hard! I'm lucky to live in the food- and health-centric Bay Area, where gourmet almost always entails fresh ingredients. I could have been even more strict with myself, not nibbled at the cheese and beef cheek or ordered wine. The broccolini and mushrooms were cooked, so there goes my raw food ambitions. One indulgence I definitely avoided: dessert. I do feel strongly about avoiding refined sugars during this process. But I was still able to enjoy myself, experience a new restaurant, and feed my body an incredibly nutrient rich and healthy meal.
Checking out the sides on any menu is a good place to find vegetable friends to complement your meal. I was pretty sure between a salad and some sides I could do a good job of not straying too far away from my cleanse. I ended up ordering an endive and arugula salad, burrata with fennel, wine forest mushrooms, and broccoli with fresno chilis. My dining companion ordered a dish of beef cheek with horseradish cream and watercress, of which I admittedly had a nibble. Some of the dishes also were garnished with cheese; I half heartedly attempted to eat around it. My other peccadillo was ordering a glass of Burgundy Pinot Noir, but I'll justify that by the resveratrol content of red wine.
Endive and arugula salad, with feta, walnuts, and what looked like Red D'anjou pears. I had already started digging into this before remembering to take a picture, so forgive the presentation. Also forgive the picture quality, these are all phone shots. Normally endive is one of those bitter chicories that I tolerate out of a sense of obligation, but between the sherry shallot vinaigrette and pears, I thought the bitterness incorporated nicely with the rest of the salad.
Burrata. The queen of cheeses. Definitely not cleanse-approved, but it was served with sliced fennel and a nice little bed of greens. I combined with the endive and arugula salad, the burrata probably helped with my enhanced enjoyment of endive ;)
Beef cheek. Also mercifully served with a generous portion of watercress, so my gastronomic guilt was assuaged. In David Wolfe's raw food bible The Sunfood Diet Success System, he stresses the importance of eating green leafy vegetables alongside a cooked meal. This beef cheek was tasty, but something about the breaded exterior and round pillowy shape turned me off a little. It kind of looked like a breaded meat cloud, and I think could have stood alone just fine without the breading. The fresh horseradish cream was spot-on. Maybe I should try my hand at whipping up a raw version of horseradish cream...
Wine forest mushrooms with ricotta salata. Gorgeous little elfin mushrooms perfectly sauteed. The big chunks of ricotta salata were completely unnecessary, tasty, but these mushrooms can totally stand on their own.
Broccolini. The menu says broccoli but these long tender stems clearly belong to the more glamorous cousin broccolini. I loved the rounds of red fresno chilis, they have a nice sweet heat that gives you a little kick but doesn't linger on the tongue. I'm going to start cooking with these little guys. I appreciated the simplicity of this dish - just lightly steamed broccolini, chilis, and olive oil. Yum.So it wasn't that hard! I'm lucky to live in the food- and health-centric Bay Area, where gourmet almost always entails fresh ingredients. I could have been even more strict with myself, not nibbled at the cheese and beef cheek or ordered wine. The broccolini and mushrooms were cooked, so there goes my raw food ambitions. One indulgence I definitely avoided: dessert. I do feel strongly about avoiding refined sugars during this process. But I was still able to enjoy myself, experience a new restaurant, and feed my body an incredibly nutrient rich and healthy meal.
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