Raw cucumber avocado dill soup.
Garden of Eden salad with creamy ginger dressing.
Live wrap with cashew sour cream.
Green Goddess bowl.
Crispy Thai BBQ wrap.
Raw vegan lemon cheesecake with raspberry topping.
Chocolate chai vegan soft serve.
Portland Oregon - No Shortage of Great Restaurants
When my son and his family moved from Seattle to Portland, Oregon I was pretty happy because they were moving within what I consider reasonable driving distance from where we live in Northern California. What I didn't know at the time is that I would become even happier when I realized that this town has a plethora of amazing restaurants.
Doug and I drove to Portland this week to bring our 7 year old grandson home who had been staying with us. It was a very short visit (one day up, one day there and one day back) but we still managed to try 2 new restaurants and one old favorite while in this great town. On this visit, I would say the most memorable one was the Blossoming Lotus.
Blossoming Lotus
Portland, Oregon is an extremely vegetarian friendly town with plenty of delicious vegetarian restaurants to choose from. Blossoming Lotus, on Broadway and NE 15th street, is certainly one of them. We decided to have lunch there on Wednesday.
They offered an all vegan menu with many "Live" or raw food appetizers, soups, salads, entrees and desserts as well as a good assortment of raw juices, smoothies and specialty drinks.
Walking in, it had a warm feeling and good energy. There was a diverse crowd from young people to baby boomers. For lunch, we ordered at the counter and they delivered our food to the table.
We tried a medley of both raw and cooked vegan food. We also got some input from the lovely women sitting next to us who described the dishes that she ordered and let me photograph them. (Wouldn't you love to sit next to me at a restaurant?)
For Starters
We started the meal with the raw cucumber and avocado dill soup. It was light with wonderful crisp flavors. Our "neighbor" ordered a Garden of Eden side salad with creamy ginger dressing. Although we didn't eat it, it looked extremely fresh as you can see from the photo.
Lunch Entrees
For entrees, we had a Live Wrap and the Green Goddess Bowl. Both were good sized portions.
The Live Wrap was filled with cucumber, sprouts and carrots. It also had a tasty tahini-cilantro pate inside and was flavored with an avocado goddess sauce. The wrap itself was a tender collard green and it was served with an amazing cashew sour cream. The dish was $10, plentiful and worth ever penny.
The Green Goddess bowl was my favorite. This hearty bowl was a combination of steamed kale, mixed raw greens, sprouts and brown rice (you can also get quinoa). It was served with avocado goddess sauce and roasted garlic balsamic vinaigrette and topped with regular and black sesame seeds. It was a truly wonderful dish and my only regret is that I'll probably order this every time I return and may miss out on ordering something new. It was a large amount of food and a bargain at $9.
Our neighbor ordered the Crispy Thai BBQ wrap for $8. It had these interesting "soy curls" inside. In addition to soy curls, it was filled with crispy rice sticks, carrots, cucumber, red cabbage and romaine lettuce. It was flavored with a sweet ginger sauce and wrapped in a whole wheat tortilla. It looked amazing and I'll have to try it next time if I can resist ordering the Goddess bowl again.
Leave Room for Dessert
By now, you must think we eat like pigs because this was a lot of food to try. But since I wanted to do a good job with this review, we made the sacrifice of trying two desserts.
The raw pie was good but not unusual for a raw restaurant. If you've never eaten a raw cheese cake, you're in for a wonderful treat but I've tried quite a few at different raw restaurants and this one was very good but not memorable.
The soft serve, on the other hand, was to die for. I do not eat dairy since I'm lactose intolerant so I dearly miss soft serve ice cream. The chocolate chai was delicious. Unfortunately, they only serve one flavor at a time so if you don't like their daily selection, you're out of luck.
Although we didn't try them (there is actually a limit to what we can consume), they had a big bowl of lovely vegan cookies and brownies at the counter.
So if you're in Portland you might want to give this place a try. They are open for lunch and dinner and offer a Sunday Brunch. Check out their Location and Hours and their Lunch, Dinner and Brunch Menus. They also have an interesting Cocktail Menu.
