A couple of weeks ago MrM found this place while looking for a lunch spot and couldn't wait to take me there. We lunched there this past Sunday, and he was right. Casa de Luz was totally up my alley. It isn't so much a restaurant as it is a community. They have volunteer cooks, event nights, yoga classes and even a non-profit school!
On to the food. For a fixed price of $12, you get to eat whatever is on their menu that day. This includes unlimited servings of tea, soup and salad. The entree is served on the table and you get a fixed serving size per person. On any given day, your plate will have all of: grains, greens, beans, vegetable and pickle. Dessert is not included but available for purchase. I have strong (negative) feelings about vegan dessert and decided to skip that. Here is what we ate, and I've added comments where necessary. Some things like rice just don't need commenting on.
Soup: Borscht with Walnut Sauce (unlimited)
Delicious and mild soup. I skipped the sauce since I hate walnuts but MrM said it really rounded out the taste.
Salad: Garden Salad with Cucumber Pecan Dressing (unlimited)
Grain: Medium Brown Rice
Greens: Mixed Blanched Collards & Kale with Roasted Garlic Tahini Sauce
Despite sounding boring, this actually tasted very nice. They had carly Kale and the flavors of the two greens worked well together.
Bean: Kidney Beans w/SunCheeze
Vegetable: Baked Kabocha Squash with Turnips
I've never had Kabocha squash. It was a non-sweet yellow squash with a pleasing flavor. The turnips worked well with the squash, despite being a questionable vegetable.
Pickle: Daikon with Radish & Fresh Lemon
Side of Green Hot Sauce
(Sorry - no food pictures. I had finished eating by the time I thought about it)
The restaurant isn't fine dining or gourmet. To me this place was about the ambiance. Walking in, the tall bamboo stalks immediately increased my Zen levels by a few points. The unoccupied tea benches on the side and the relaxed air of the place immediately made me slow my steps a little. Once inside the cafeteria-like dining hall, it gave me the feeling of being in a big community kitchen filled with people who were suffused with a yogic after-glow. A very "Meera place". Kid friendly. Very Austin. Thank you MrM, for finding this place and for knowing me well enough to know I would enjoy being there.
1 comment:
That restaurant sounds like a great find!
Oh, vegan desserts aren't so bad. Heh, most Chinese desserts do not contain dairy, so I guess if you had to put a label on it you'd call it vegan. Another thought I had while reading your post is that kobacha squash is delicious. A very good Thai dessert is a coconut custard (also vegan since it uses coconut milk... the sugar is also vegan since it is unprocessed palm sugar) that is steamed in a kobacha. To serve, you slice up the kobacha. OMG, so good! However, if the vegan desserts you speak of were called such things as "cheeze" cake, no thanks!
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