Roch Voisine.

No, not RoCH VOIsine.  RAW CUIsine.  A little misunderstanding with the roomie when explaining our plans for last night.  At that point I was skeptical and probably more interested in seeing Roch himself. 

But what Balls wants for her birthday Balls gets.  We headed over to Rawlicious in Yorkville to celebrate.  Before leaving the city I want to make sure I have tried all that this city has to offer in terms of awesome cuisine but I hadn't even considered raw.  Probably because it sounds a bit crazy.  The concept behind this food movement is that nothing we eat should be cooked/heated over 40-42 degrees celcius (or 106-115 farenheit).  Just above body temp.  When you cook cinnamon buns the over is at 350 so just think that over.  The point (i think) is to preserve nutrients.  As you can probably imagine, all kinds of other restrictions usually come along with this lifestyle...like fun.  It usually incorporates veganism, organic foods and, heck, let's throw local in there too.  Just to make every meal almost impossibly difficult. 

So, yes, I paid money for this food.  The restaurant was adorable and all the servers looked like they really believed in raw food (interpret that as you may).  My first thought was definitely:  salad.  I can have salad.  But it sort of defeated the purpose of trying raw food so I ordered the pizza.  So did Hi-C and RoRoW!

Looks pretty good, don't it?  I have to say, I was definitely surprised.  If someone challenged me to make a pizza without being able to use an oven or traditional cheese it definitely wouldn't be edible.  The first few bites tasted a bit like earthiness but it grew on me and was surprisingly filling.  There really was a crust, probably made of nuts or something.  Instead of cooking they use dehydration to get "bread-like" substances so they even had cinnamon buns! In theory that is, they were "all out" last night.  We thought the "cheese" was just the crumbled cashews on top but later hypothesized that the substance under the sauce may have been the cashew "cheese" they promised us. And yes, no ovens mean that the food is either room temp (ie cold) or lukewarm.  I would eat this again but I might get it to-go and pop it in the microwave for a bit.  B-Mac got the zuchinni pasta which was a mega-portion and surprisingly tasty.  This dish wasn't even warm, though, and could have used some heating.  Seriously.  Cold pasta?  Meh.

Pre-pizza Hi-C and I split an order of spring rolls with Thai dipping sauce.  Now those were delicious.  I could eat them every day.  Major props for that culinary miracle. 

So, if you're a vegan and it just isn't hardcore enough for you then I would recommend raw cuisine.  Otherwise, it is a nice healthy treat every once in a while.