Years ago, I reviewed the Real Food Daily Cookbook. I liked the organic, vegan gourmet/comfort food so much, I told myself that if I ever went to LA, I was going to eat there. Well, this week my daughters and I took a trip to LA to go to the Museum of Tolerance. I looked up Real Food Daily online and found out that it was between the museum and the hotel, so great!
After spending an emotional day at the museum (don't get me wrong, the museum was great, but the exhibits were about the Holocaust, etc.). Anyway, we left the museum at the 5 pm closing time--exhausted and hungry and ready for a relaxing dinner. Of course, we were now in the middle of LA rush hour traffic. I found what I thought was the right street, but we couldn't find the correct number ... in fact the numbers weren't even close and then the street ended. So we drove around. It was now dark and there was so much traffic and then I got lost. I eventually found a road I recognized and we headed back to toward the hotel ... but further on, we saw the road that the restaurant was on (the one I thought I'd found before) and this time, the numbers matched up and hooray we saw the restaurant. But then we had to find a place to park, because it seems all LA neighborhoods are permit-only parking. As we circled around, we passed Bloomingdales realized that we were back at the corner we had been at over an hour ago! Man!!!!! Anyway, we finally found a metered space and walked to the restaurant. I was stressed, the girls were starving, and then the girls were a bit intimidated by the menu. Although they are used to vegan food, I don't use much fake meat or mock cheese sauces, so it took us another half hour to decid what to get. But I'm happy to say, we all LOVED the food and had a wonderful dinner.
I ordered the special which was the Hippie Love Loaf made with lentils, butternut squash, and millet and covered in a mushroom gravy and came with root vegetables and brussels sprouts. Very delicious but the portion of loaf was HUGE. I would have loved a portion half the size and a scoop of mashed potatoes, but still--yummy.
Aimie went for the pizza made with a herb cornmeal crust (gluten free), topped with sun-dried tomato pesto, tomatoes, spinach, basil, melted cashew and mozzarella cheeses, sautéed daily greens & cannelini beans. The waitress suggested adding avocado which sounded weird but according to Aimie was fantastic. Emily decided to play it safe with side orders of brown rice, black beans, and the house salad topped with a delicious vegan ranch dressing--and was very happy with her choice.
All of the desserts sounded incredible. Emily decided on the Gluten Free Double Layer Chocolate Cake, which I have to say was the best chocolate cake I've ever had. (I'm not a big cake fan, but this was moist and the raspberry was so good!) Aimie chose the Coconut Cream Pie but didn't care for it (though I thought it was fine), and the waitress was nice enough to let her switch to the Blackout Cake, which she liked.
Anyway, we made it back to our hotel without incident and next time we go to LA, we will most likely go again . . . this time I'll borrow a GPS though.
