Love at Living Cafe

I think I have a new love… and its name is The Living Cafe. I just finished one of their delicious Brown Rice bowls, complete with hormone free chicken and plenty of veggies.

It’s the second time that I’ve been here in two weeks, and quite frankly, I’m surprised I haven’t been here more! The food is amazing, the coffee is so good I don’t even need to add sugar (that’s quite the statement for me), and the ambiance is just as amazing as the food.

I’m struggling to find a term that adequately describes the atmosphere and decorating style of this cafe. I’ll try to describe it but honestly, just come and fall in love with it yourself. There’s something charming and homey about the mismatched tables in radically different styles that somehow still fit together, the mason jars of cutlery on the tables, the wooden ‘FRESH EGGS HOMESTEAD’ box on top of the glass case of baked foods that immediately cheers me up and puts me at ease. It’s cute and chic, without trying too hard. The place gets tons of natural light, reinforcing the cheery atmosphere of the place. It’s the people who come here that make the place, too. Families reinforcing healthy eating habits in their young kids sit next to a table of fit older women catching up over lunch. As I sip on my coffee, I see both a lady still carrying her yoga mat and a old man with a shock of white hair who head straight upstairs to the health store above. Although there are lots of expats here, it’s clearly a place frequented by health conscious locals as well. Just being around this crowd inspires you to keep healthy, although you’d be hard pressed to find anything on this menu that was actually BAD for you!

I have a feeling I will slowly work my way through their entire menu over the course of the next few months, because everything on it sounds delicious! So far, I’ve tried their signature raw burger, and the chicken brown rice bowl. Out of the two, the raw burger was actually the one I liked better, but I’d happily order either one again.

Signature Raw Burger

If this place was walking distance from my house or office, I might just eat here every day, I like it that much. I have gotten so used to stressing about ingredients everywhere I go, its an unbelievable relief to be able to order off the menu without stressing about any hidden dairy in my food! When I eat here, I feel like a NORMAL EATER (strange concept for me, at this point), like I’m allergy free, because the menu is so incredibly gluten and dairy intolerance friendly. I could easily bring any of my vegan friends here, but they do have some meat dishes, if you have that friend who refuses to eat anything that doesn’t have some meat. The one thing I wish they had was WIFI! Then again, if that’s the only flaw I can find in this place, they are doing pretty great.

The Living Cafe isn’t the only new healthy/organic cafe I’ve finally gotten around to trying. Recently, I went to Original Sin, a well known Mediterranean vegetarian place in Holland Village.

I went with a friend for dinner and I’m already trying to figure out when I’m going to find my way back there. This place was extremely allergy-friendly. Between Original sin and Living Cafe, I feel like I’ve been so spoiled in that area! These places are total proof that healthy, vegan food can taste delicious.

Regardless of if you are a vegetarian or not, I’d recommend you give Original Sin a try!

I’m not much of a wine person myself, but for those who like wine, Original Sin not only has organic food but their wine is organic too! I had organic wine during my holiday in New Zealand, and my uneducated tastebuds thought that the organic wine tasted just as good, in some cases better, than the non-organic stuff. Perhaps those wine connoisseurs can go and sample the organic wines at Original Sin, and let me know what they think!

Pretty table on a quiet street just off the vibrant main drag of Holland Village

Us organic/health foodies based in Singapore are actually really lucky. We have become quite spoiled for selection, and new places keep popping up! The days of ‘I like to eat organic so all my meals are home cooked’ is LONG GONE. Eating out for breakfast? No problem, just pop by one of the Real Food locations (there’s a new one at West Coast Plaza near my office!) or World Peace cafe. Lunch? Dinner? There are too many to list (but if you want to try, check out my Healthy/Organic Cafes page, which will be seeing even more additions in the very near future). I could eat lunch or dinner out at one of these places for  every day for two weeks without repeating a location.

 That’s pretty amazing. I’m proud of you, Singapore. 🙂

Real Food is Slow. Wholesome. Organic. Tasty.

Afternoon snack before I left work: Z Bar.

It’s a good thing I keep two flavors in my cupboard so that I don’t get bored of them. These are excellent snacks when I’m too busy working to actually take time to eat something. Most of these types of bars don’t actually have very good nutritional stats and have very high calorie content. The sugar on these is high than i’d like, but overall not so bad. The lower calorie content is a nice little bonus (but it should never be a deciding factor. low cal does NOT mean healthy…)

Dad and I made a last minute decision to go to Real Food for dinner. Real Food is an amazing vegetarian, organic restaurant right near our house. In small towns in the US, people tend to have their go-to neighborhood diner. We may not be in a small town and it may not be your classic small town American diner, but we still like to think of it as our spin on the concept.

It’s a short walk from our house, in a cute little street that somehow manages to feel slower and cozier, even though it is right off the main shopping road.

I think it’s the little shop houses that gives it that feel.

Real Food on Killiney Rd

There are actually two locations. This is the second, larger of the two. They divided the space into three sections. One section is a cafe, where they usually have pies, cakes and gelato popsicles made entirely of fruit. The contents change based on what they have available. I had a slice of the pie once, it was INCREDIBLE. They have low couches and tables, and a long bookshelf that separates the section from the restaurant tables. There are a lot of very interesting titles and you often see people coming in just to sit and read over a cup of tea, coffee or juice (they have a very extensive list of teas and juices, including wheatgrass shots).

My one issue is that their lighting tends to be too dim, more like art gallery lighting than book cafe lighting. It makes the place look even more beautiful and relaxing in the dim light, but not so great if you are trying to read a book over coffee. Then again, I usually come here for dinner. They have very large all glass doors at the front of the restaurant and I imagine if you came here during the day, those would serve to light the whole place up very well.

The dining area is slightly more well lit, and you can choose between long tables, high tables or booths, depending on the size of your party. Once again, easy access to the large selection of books you can read in the store, but there is also a wide selection of magazines that you can read. I LOVE to come here and get caught up on the latest edition of Runner’s World, Women’s Health or Shape. I’m not one of those who re-reads magazines time and time again, and a single copy here can cost more than $10 dollars! Having somewhere I can come to unwind and read my favorite magazines over a glass of apple wheatgrass juice (my favorite combo)? This is one major reason why I love this place. Like World Peace Cafe, I always leave Real Food feeling more relaxed, centered and happy than when I walked in. I think all people need to have this kind of a go-to cafe they can retreat to after a long day of work.

Green apple juice, with a shot of wheatgrass, at Real Food

I finally had a chance to start reading the March 2013 edition of Runner’s World

Dad and I are slowly working our way through the Real Food menu. We try to order something different each time so that we can discover what are our favorite items on the menu.

This time, I ordered a soup and a side.

The soup: Dumpling Soup.

Real Food’s soup selection

I have now tried ALL of the soups here and can say with confidence that my favorite is the Miso Soup, followed by the Lentil and Potatoes Soup, which comes with bread on the side. The bread here is always superb.

The dumpling soup didn’t beat out my two favorite soups, but it was still pretty good. I think if the dumplings had been added to the miso broth, it would have made one absolutely amazing combination.

As a side, I got the stuffed portobello mushrooms.

This actually arrived first. It was REALLY, REALLY good! I think this is my new favorite dish on their menu! The salad had a little bit of light dressing on it, I’m not sure what the dressing was though. Perhaps some kind of light vinaigrette? It was good. There was a bit of soy mayonnaise that paired well with the stuffed mushroom. The grilled vegetables were really finely chopped, adding to rather than overpowering the meaty taste of the portobello.

Grilled Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms at Real Food. Isn’t the presentation beautiful? It tasted even better than it looks!

The one thing is that I’m not really sure why this is listed as a side. The portion was perfect as a main course. Not to big, but large enough that I didn’t want anything more.

I ended up having a bit of the soup and two of the dumplings, but packing most of it to take home. My dad had ordered the Miso Soup and we had them put his leftover soup in the same container. I’m really looking forward to having that for my next dinner!

Real Food is definitely one of my favorite places to eat and relax in Singapore. I love the ambiance of the Killiney location, and how they emphasize Slow Food (as opposed to FAST food). Their food and all of the items sold in the shop section of their store is ORGANIC, and I’ve noticed that their produce tends to come from the region.

They have great quotes on the walls of their restaurant, including the ‘Who Are We?’ quote in the bathroom. Unfortunately I didn’t think to bring my camera into the bathroom with me, but it says something along the lines of…

‘We are Indie. We are stubborn and passionate people who truly believe that WE ARE WHAT WE EAT.’

I love it.

World Peace Cafe

I woke up this morning still giddy from yesterday. I am pleased to announce that my legs feel GREAT! The muscles in the front of my thighs (my adductors maybe? somebody needs to explain muscle groups to me!) and my neck was a little stiff when I got up but it feels more like I got in a good workout from Physical Training Tuesdays, rather than experiencing an ‘I just ran 21k yesterday’ kind of ouch.

No complaints! All I can do is be grateful, and proud that I have gotten strong enough that I can run that far and get up and go about my day the next morning like it’s no big deal!

Treat your body right (by fueling it properly, exercising it well, and stretching as much as possible) and it will return the favor, right?

I did my best to continue the ‘treat my body right’ theme.

I let myself sleep in.

I actually woke up, sans alarm, at 5:55 (I guess my body has gotten used to the 5:30 wake up calls?) feeling like I had overslept. Still half asleep, I looked at my phone, saw the time, panicked at why my alarm hadn’t gone off, tried to remember the day of the week, then finally remembered that while it IS a monday, I get an extra hour of sleep today! Yay! I promptly passed back out for another half hour before my alarm finally got me out of bed.

Today’s exercise is brought to you by http://www.doyogawithme.com! 20 minutes of Yoga For Runners later, my tightness in my neck was completely gone. I’m really inflexible so I always struggle with poses, but I definitely felt EXTRA stiff today. Proof, in my opinion, that I really need this morning yoga! Good thing I am taking the time to try and stretch my muscles out!

Reverted my old FAVORITE breakfast: Yogurt Cereal. When I went to the grocery store this weekend, the organic store was completely out of one of my favorite cereals, Barbara’s Puffins. I usually like to put this in with my Nature’s Way cereals for an extra little puffy crunch. It mixes well with the others and provides an extra texture that I like. I was looking for something that had that same both the puffy crunch,high fibre and low sugar as Barbara’s Puffins. It was hard to find something. I eventually settled for Kashi Heart to Heart Warm Cinnamon. Thinking back on it, the high sugar content should have been a warning that this might not be my cup o’ tea…

I don’t think I am going to buy Heart to Heart again, at least, not for my morning cereal. I might try it as a dry snack and see if I like it better that way, but in my cereal, it didn’t keep its crunch and just absorbed the yogurt. The cinnamon flavor was a bit overpowering.  It was too sweet. If the cinnamon flavor was more subtle, I think I would have liked it better, but even then, the texture was all wrong. Cereal was still good, but just not it’s usual ‘I would eat a bucket of this if my stomach would let me‘ good.

The morning FLEW by and before I knew it, it was already lunch time!

I needed to pick something up from my dad’s office, so we decided that we would have lunch together while I was visiting. I wish our offices were closer! It was nice to get together for lunch, and there are a lot of great places to eat nearby. Betty, a colleague of my father and fellow member of our organic social entrepreneurship team, joined and took us to World Peace Cafe.

This was an ADORABLE vegetarian cafe that only served food made with ORGANIC and LOCAL produce. The place is really bright and open, with a simple, clean layout. They have a menu up front, and containers of ready made dishes that you can either take away or ask them to heat up. All the employees are volunteers. All proceeds to go world peace.

The cafe is right next door to a meditation centre and has a second floor where they offer free meditation classes several times a week. There is a bookshelf by the counter with books on buddhism and meditation, and a lot of flyers for upcoming meditation and buddhist activities.

I thought it was really cool that there were a couple of buddhist monks relaxing at one of the tables. It had a unique mix of patrons, both foreign and local. Everybody was united by their common desire for a simple but tasty meal in the happy and relaxing atmosphere the cafe exuded.

We all got the vegetarian bimbimbap. Apparently the recipe is by a korean monk who volunteered at the cafe. She was a very good cook who came up with most of the items on the menu.

And after it’s all mixed up..

I DEFINITELY believed them when they said she was a good cook. The bimbimbap was REALLY good, as was the carrot and coriander soup that Betty and I split (the bimbimbap was the best though, thanks Betty for the great recommendation!).

Say HI to Betty!

The tea had little flowers in it. Isn’t it pretty?

Organic, local produce…great atmosphere…tasty food… AND all the proceeds go to a good cause?! I think I’m in love! I wish this was right next to MY office! I would come here all the time!!

If anybody reading this goes to or lives in Singapore, you have to stop at World Peace cafe (Bukit Pasoh Rd).

Okay, lunch break over! I gotta go back to work.