On Friday night, I went for a healthy macrobiotic
dinner to fuel up for the Brooklyn Half Marathon that I would be running on
Saturday morning.
I’ve read a lot about Souen, but didn’t know much
about the whole macrobiotic diet.
According to handy dandy Wikipedia, someone who adheres to this type of
dieting believes that grains are a staple food, supplemented with
vegetables. They try to avoid processed
or refined foods and most animal products.
Meaning that the entire menu at Souen consisted of vegetables, soy
products like tofu and tempeh, and seafood. No meat here! Souen is also all
organic. They have three different locations in the city (Union Square, Soho
and the East Village).
The menu was a little overwhelming, because it’s
pretty freaking big! We decided to split an appetizer and chose the sweet
potato tempura roll.
When it arrived, we both looked at each other a
little confused. Sweet potato? Why is
there nothing orange in this? We’re still not really sure why, but we are sure
that this was a waste. It was super
boring. Oh well!
For dinner, after a lot of back and forth, I finally
settled on the tofu squash. I would have
liked to order it with the tempeh instead of tofu, but for $3 extra- no
thanks! It was SO delicious though. It comes with a bowl of brown rice which I mixed
into my plate of sautéed tofu, squash, onion, carrots, nappa greens, broccoli
and snow peas in an incredibly tasty miso tahini sauce.
I cleaned my plate.
My friend ordered the tempeh parmegiana and I think
I may have liked this even more than my squash tofu (although it’s a tough
call- both were really great!)
It was a deep-fried tempeh cutlet with whole wheat-crust
cooked in non-tomato marinara sauce, served with yam salad and a side of
steamed vegetables. The steamed vegetables and yam salad were both kind of
bland, but the tempeh with WHATEVER they made the marinara sauce out of-
killer!
The prices here aren’t terrible either, and the
portions are large. There’s no way I
needed to eat my entire meal- I easily could have saved some for lunch the next
day. I’m excited to come back here,
because I definitely want to try the $10 macro plate (steamed greens, vegetables,
brown rice, hijiki seaweed, beans and homemade dressing) and their corn bread
with apple butter!
I think it’s incredible when restaurants are so
delicious and so dedicated to being healthy and wholesome. I wish I could convince everyone to eat like
this and it makes me sad when I tell people about amazing meals I’ve have and they automatically tune me out when I
say it was a vegetarian or vegan or macrobiotic restaurant. That tempeh parmegiana was just as delicious
as any piece of chicken parm you can find me.
And the stuffed pepper from V-Note that I had awhile back- easily
comparable to a pepper stuffed with chop meat. Give it a try people! I promise,
you’ll feel better when you eat like this and your taste buds will still be SO
HAPPY!
(Gluten-free, vegan, macriobiotic- don't let these phrases freak you out! EAT IT)
