Made a resolution to stick to sustainable seafood? Here’s one yummy place to start: Bluewater Grill.

Eco-pescatarians in L.A. will have to go a ways south to enjoy Bluewater Grill’s delicious fare, but the trip — especially when combined with a visit to the Aquarium of the Pacific, is well worth the trouble. Bluewater Grill’s very committed to sustainability — so much so that the restaurant hosted a small sustainable seafood summit late last month.

I made the trip to hear from local ocean sustainability experts, pepper Bluewater Grill’s owner and chef with all sorts of eco-foodie questions, and of course, enjoy delicious seafood while testing my own palate. The first dish let diners try out four different types of salmon — farmed and wild king salmon, farmed Atlantic salmon and a wild sockeye. The two kings were impossible to tell apart — but both perfectly cooked and delicious!

Bluewater Grill’s one local seafood restaurant that’s made a strong commitment to sustainability — with the help of The Aquarium of the Pacific’s Seafood for the Future program. As a partner restaurant of the program, Bluewater Grill’s made a serious effort to eco-fy its extensive menu of seafood dishes. “Currently Bluewater Grill’s menu is 85% certified sustainable, by Aquarium of the Pacific or the Monterey Aquarium,” says Bluewater Grill’s founder Jim Ulcickas, “but we won’t be satisfied until we reach 100%.”

What’s in that last 15 percent or so? It depends on the time of the year, but the biggest culprit is shrimp, which Jim says is still tough to source sustainably.

But there are so many delicious, sustainable seafood options here that you won’t miss the shrimp. Going beyond the simple green-yellow-red lists that group entire species of fish into one general category, Bluewater Grill does a lot of research to find smaller sustainable seafood companies — even finding sustainable options for oft red-listed fish. At this restaurant, you can get a sustainable Chilean sea bass — cooked to juicy and delicious perfection in butter and olive oil. Plus, there’s local swordfish sustainably harvested with no bycatch, delicious raw oysters from Washington, and much much more.

Plus, Bluewater Grill also offers sustainable wines to go with your sustainable seafood — like the organic and biodynamic King Estate Pinot Gris, a fruity wine great to enjoy with salmon. And for tequila fans, there’s an organic margarita — made with 4 Copas organic tequila and organic agave nectar — on the drink menu.

Stop by to dine at Bluewater Grill through Sep. 5, and you’ll get a free adult admission ticket to the Aquarium of the Pacific if you order from sustainable seafood menu. Enjoy –

Bluewater Grill. 665 N. Harbor Dr., Redondo Beach. 310.318.3474. Other locations in Newport Beach and Tustin.

8 Comments

Can’t afford the $37 sustainable Sunday brunch at Inn of the Seventh Ray? Then I’ve got a deal you’ll like. The healthy Mediterranean spot Savyon Cafe offers an all-you-can-eat Sunday brunch — for just $12.99 a person.

This tiny, relatively new restaurant on Pico is a humble little spot, squeezed in next to a pizza joint with outdoor seating that looks unattractively jailed in by the bare metal scaffolding. However, the eatery’s Sunday’ spread’s a delicious, all vegan, 90 percent organic indulgence.

Of course, there’s the usual Mediterranean fare — so you can nosh on fresh hummus, falafel, dolmas, and babaganoush to your heart’s content. But the brunch’s real highlights are the vegan comfort foods, like the rich and sumptuous chickpea soup! (more…)

4 Comments

Eating sustainable seafood can be a serious foodie challenge. Sure, you can refer to the Seafood Watch guide like a fishy bible — but a lot of fish appear on multiple categories (“best choices,” “good alternatives,” and “avoid”) depending on where and how they were caught or farmed. Trying to find out the nitty gritty details on a seafood dish in a restaurant (Is that salmon King or Chinook or something else? Farmed or wild caught? Where from?) can be a really trying experience — both for the diner and the poor actor-waiter subjected to your inquiries. Plus, restaurants sadly aren’t always honest about where their seafood comes from — sometimes even swapping out one fish for another!

Want to enjoy freshly-grilled seafood — without grilling the waiter? Spend your dining dollars at a restaurant committed to sustainable seafood that’s done the fishy research for you.

In Southern California, this task’s gotten a little easier, thanks to the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach. That aquarium’s got a Seafood of the Future program — which includes partnerships with local restaurants that have promised to commit themselves to sustainable seafood.

Of course, Aquarium of the Pacific’s list isn’t a complete list of all SoCal restaurants committed to sustainable seafood. Among the missing favorites: Border Grill, known for its commitment to buying only Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program approved fish. As you may have guessed, Border Grill shows up on that aquarium’s list of partner restaurants — along with a bunch more, mostly from central and northern California.

But even combining those two won’t give you a full roster of the good pescatarian dining options around you. M Cafe de Chaya, for example, has made a pretty impressive commitment to sustainble seafood — but doesn’t appear on either list because the restaurant’s worked on its seafood policy on its own, not under the umbrella of an aquarium program.

Looking for a one-stop website that’ll give you a comprehensive list of sustainable seafood restaurants in L.A.? Give up now, because it doesn’t exist.

One hopeful website might become just that in the future though: Fish2Fork offers rankings on seafood sustainability for restaurants. However, the site is currently tough to use because it doesn’t let you search by city — let alone zip code — to find the sustainable seafood restaurants near you. That said, if you have a particular restaurant in mind, you can search for it by name — and cross your fingers that it’s one of the ones listed and rated in the database.

Another possibly promising mobile app is Project FishMap, Monterey Bay Aquarium’s effort to crowdsource sustainable seafood dining info. Unfortunately, non-iPhone users can’t access this info at all — which is why I can’t tell you whether it’s helpful for hungry Angelenos.

As for cooking seafood at home, you can choose to shop at the supermarkets known to offer sustainable seafood by using Greenpeace’s Supermarket Scorecard (Safeway, Target, and Wegmans are actually better options than Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s), or use Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch Guide to point you toward more sustainable species wherever you shop.

Seafood lovers: How do you go about picking sustainable options, whether dining in or out?

Earlier: A Sustainable seafood guide for the digital age

Photo of M Cafe de Chaya’s Miso Salmon Macro Lunch — with miso marinated organic farmed salmon

2 Comments

Fans of Real Food Daily, rejoice. Ann Gentry, the woman behind the famous vegan restaurants in L.A., is out with a new book — “Vegan Family Meals: Real Food for Everyone” — pitched as a can-do cookbook for anyone who wants to enjoy more nutritious, vegan meals.

Does this cookbook indeed make vegan cooking easy and doable for everyone? Yes — if we limit that to everyone who has lots and lots of time to spend in the kitchen.

Ann, who reveals she eats dairy and seafood in this cookbook, isn’t all vegan herself — but recommends eating more plant-based meals for all. Her restaurants are all vegan, with a heavy macrobiotic bent — and “Vegan Family Meals” too also reflects that style with rich, well-cooked dishes like Maple-Dijon Tempeh and Vegetable Stew and Lasagna Rolls with Tofu Ricotta and Everyday Tomato Sauce.

I’ve enjoyed eating these types of dishes as a frequent diner at Real Food Daily. Little did I know how much time and effort creating these dishes takes! The recipes, to the simple cook, are dauntingly involved and time consuming — many requiring dozens of ingredients, multiple components that mandate lots of pre-planning, and a huge variety of kitchen tools I don’t even own.

I was excited to see a “Simple Meals” section — but quickly discovered Ann and I have extremely different definitions of simple. Even the simple-sounding One-Pot Vegetables and Tofu with Sesame Rice got quickly complicated. You first have to cook brown rice, then turn it into sesame rice by sauteing with three more ingredients — at which point you can actually get started on the recipe, which requires 15 more ingredients and a lot of chopping, roll-cutting, coring, slicing, and stemming — not to mention grating ginger into a sheet of cheesecloth to hand-extract ginger juice.

Also, Ann is apparently a huge fan of the oven — the humvee of the kitchen, according to some green cooking experts. Most recipes — including those for the salads! — required turning on the oven.

Well, it’s very hot in L.A. right now, and my apartment has no air conditioning — so all those oven-happy recipes were out, which left me with few options indeed. Luckily, raw food is also very hot in L.A. right now — so much so that even Ann the oven-friendly macrobiotic-loving chef dipped her toes into this trend with a few uncooked recipes in “Vegan Family Meals.”

So I made Ann’s uncooked dishes, starting with the simplest, the Super Vegetable Dinner Smoothie — which still required locating a dozen ingredients but limited the prep to hitting a button on a blender. The result? A rich delicious green soup — that balanced the freshness of organic veggies with the sweetness of coconut water and carrots with the savoriness of dulse and miso with the creaminess of avocado.

Feeling bolder, I made the Living Wrap. Having done so, I must warn you — Making these live snacks is frightfully time consuming! You have to first make a red pepper-sunflower seed spread in a food processor, then whip together a citrus dressing from scratch to toss a green salad with, cut up veggies into stick-like formations, then finally roll everything up in collard wraps! That said, these wraps were so divinely delicious, fresh and flavorful — that I hope they’ll show up on Real Food Daily’s menu soon so I can order them next time.

Want to make these dishes yourself? Keep in mind — These raw delights are not at all representative of “Vegan Family Meals” in general, which focuses largely on heavier, richer, baked-and-roasted vegan meals. If you’re looking for cool raw dishes, you’re better off buying a good raw cookbook.

But if what you want to do is spend your morning making your own Maple Tempeh Bacon from scratch with the help of a stovetop smoker and oven, your afternoon mashing, shaping together, and cooking Black Bean Veggie Burgers from 18 different ingredients, then an evening caramelizing onions, whipping together a dressing, tossing a salad, and assembling everything in a pretty fashion so you can enjoy Ann’s Burger in a Salad with your family for dinner, then “Vegan Family Meals” is for you.

“Vegan Family Meals” is now available in hardcover for $15.

4 Comments

I’ve gotten better at following through on goals I set, but I too am shocked at how fast I achieved this one. In just three weeks after the opening of The Veggie Grill’s newest restaurant at The Original Farmers Market, I’ve tried every single salad offered at the spot!

Granted, The Veggie Grill only makes four salads — but they’re all delicious!

I think my favorite right now is the Chop-Chop Chef (above), a cool romaine salad with green onion and roasted corn salsa made creamily decadent by the rich chipotle ranch dressing. This salad generally comes with tempeh as well as gardein steak and chickn’, but as you know, I’m not a faux meat kind of person, so I asked for tempeh only. That request appeared to confuse my order taker, who for some reason gave me my dressing on the side. I used it all!

For dark greens, go for the All Hail Kale salad (below) topped with blackened tempeh, which I’ve already hailed in a previous post. The marinated kale and red cabbage salad comes perfectly dressed in a zingy ginger-papaya vinaigrette — and the agave-roasted walnuts add a delicious sweet touch.

I love this salad so much I’ve already had it twice, the second time as part of a soup and salad combo. I opted for the bean chili and added blackened tempeh to the salad. The salad was yummy as usual; the chili was passable but too heavy right before a hike!

For a fruitier, tropical flavor, there’s the Baja Fiesta salad (below) — a refreshing dish that not only comes with papaya, but arrives doused in a tasty ginger-papaya vinaigrette. I asked for mine without tortilla strips.

Last but not least: The Thai Chickin’ Salad (below) is pretty good too, with sweet mandarin oranges, savory toasted sesame seeds, and spicy roasted corn salsa. As you may have guessed, I substituted tempeh for chickn’. The one drawback: I find the spicy Thai dressing too sweet, and hope they’ll reformulate to keep the spicy kick without all the sweetness.

I love how The Veggie Grill makes substitutions easy for picky healthy eaters. What’s your favorite salad at The Veggie Grill?

5 Comments

Back when I first visited Cru in 2007, the vegan spot was a different restaurant. The restaurant served all raw foods with a decidely Asian bent, exquisitely presented to look as delicious as it tasted.

Since then, Cru‘s added cooked foods — and earlier this year, revamped the spot and even switched chefs, with the new Vincent Krimmel simplifying the menu and giving it a more seasonal, locavorian bent.

So after leaving Big Parade LA at noon on Sunday, I stopped by Cru to try out the new menu. The cool raw tomato soup — decorated with a savory cream sauce — was flavorful and refreshing after the long walk.

But the highlight of the meal was the raw Pizza (top photo). Each layer of this live dish had its own distinctive flavor — the fresh raw salsa pomodoro, the savory marinated shitake mushrooms, the rich vegan mascarone, and the mysteriously flavorful vegan Italian sausage, all on a delicious crisp raw crust.

Sadly, the cooked dish I tried was very disappointing. Called Body Ecology, the entree was described as an Austrian red potato salad with sauerkraut and mixed greens. Well, the mixed greens were fine, but the sauerkraut was not fermented enough — and the quinoa-with-potatoes concoction was bland and uninteresting. Perhaps cooked food really isn’t Cru’s thing.

The raw dessert was better, though not much for presentation, especially compared to the beautiful raw raspberry chocolate crepes I had back in the day. The plain, undecorated, and slightly dented, piece of raw Strawberry Cheesecake had a lot of great fruity flavor — but I found it a bit too dense. I suppose cheesecake is supposed to be dense — so those looking for a super heavy dessert may appreciate it.

To give Cru’s desserts a second chance, I picked up a slice of Cru’s Chocolate Truffle Cake from Erewhon last week — but found it even denser, to the point I can’t recommend it. Basically, the “cake” is a big hunk of solid coconut butter — that’s been made more palatable with a whole lot of cacao powder and agave nectar. Simple, clean, and pure? Yes. Decadently delicious chocolate cake? No. Since I can’t handle eating big amounts of coconut butter straight out of the jar, I’ll be steering clear of Cru’s heavy cakes.

But I loved Cru’s raw pizza, and would like to give Cru’s other raw dishes a try. I’m especially curious about the Raw Nori Hand Roll! Want to go Cru at home? Here’s the recipe for the roll, on KCET’s The Public Kitchen.

Earlier: Raw vegan restaurants in Los Angeles

3 Comments

Can America’s fast food culture embrace local, organic vegan food? Yes — if it’s served up fast and tastes yummy! That’s the lesson from The Veggie Grill, a Southern Californian vegan joint that opened its seventh restaurant last week at the popular Original Farmers Market in Los Angeles.

I stopped by last week — and again this week — to see that the spot’s already popular with diners. The casual restaurant gets a lot of foot traffic from both the Farmers Market and The Grove, because both carnivores and vegans alike can find dishes to love at The Veggie Grill, which offers everything from traditional burgers to comfort food to healthy salads — all with a vegan twist.

I went for the healthy fare, opting for the All Hail Kale salad topped with blackened tempeh. The marinated kale and red cabbage salad was perfectly dressed in a zingy ginger-papaya vinaigrette — and the agave-roasted walnuts were a delicious sweet touch.

Most people, however, opt for a burger or sandwich — which make up the bulk of Veggie Grill’s menu. With faux Chickin’ from Gardein and faux cheese from Daiya, Veggie Grill makes some decadent burgers — like this VG-Cheeseburger my boyfriend ordered, El Dorado style with jalapenos and caramelized onions. I had a big gooey bite — and think it’s a pretty tasty indulgence for meat lovers (though I’m still not a fan of processed faux meats).

The Sweetheart Fries — sweet potato fries with vegan chipotle-ranch sauce — is a must-try side dish. Crispy on the outside yet moist on the inside, they’re a deliciously tastier treat — though obviously richer and higher calories — than the baked sweet potato fries at Greenleaf. The produce at The Veggie Grill is either organic or local (the manager says they’ll often opt local, if the option’s available, over organic, because the company prioritizes reducing food miles), and all the food’s free of high fructose corn syrup and trans fats.

For dessert, the carrot cake’s your best option. The vegan icing doesn’t quite capture the cream cheesiness of traditional carrot cake, but the cake’s been revamped since I last tried it for a moister, denser taste I’ve come to really like. The cookie’s decent — a generously large vegan treat made mostly with organic ingredients. Chocolate pudding’s also available, but is the weakest link, IMHO.

The best part about Veggie Grill — aside from letting lactose-intolerant people like me eat stress-free — is that it makes local, organic, and healthy meat-free eating easy and quick for Angelenos on the go who might otherwise be hitting up McDonald’s and Jack in the Box. Order at the counter and pick between a table inside — where you can take in the reconstituted bamboo flooring and eco-friendly Kirei counters — or out on the sunny outdoor patio. Either way, your food will be delivered to your table in 10 minutes or less.

The Veggie Grill. 110 S. Fairfax Ave., Los Angeles. 323.993.3997. Other locations in West Hollywood, Santa Monica, and Orange County.

Earlier: The Veggie Grill: Tasty vegan dining, now in West Hollywood

2 Comments

When asked to recommend a good salad spot, I always mention Greenleaf Chopshop in Beverly Hills — where you can get healthy salads made with local, organic greens for just $10. Then just a few weeks ago, I discovered that Greenleaf actually also has a spot in Century City that opened up last year!

This sunny quick lunch restaurant’s a lot like the Beverly Hills counterpart — except it’s open for breakfast and lunch, while Beverly Hills offers lunch and dinner. I stopped by last week and got to try some of Greenleaf Chopshop’s new healthy sides along with its classic big salads — and have a new lunch favorite: The Lemongrass Chicken.

Here’s a salad that brings cool tropical twist to the chicken salad. I loved the mix of mango, grilled pineapple, jicama, and agave nectar-sweetened roasted cashews — tossed with a lemongrass lychee vinaigrette and topped with a generous sprinkling of toasted coconut flakes. As with all of Greenleaf’s salads, the greens come from Scarsborough Farms in Oxnard — while the local chicken’s free-range and free of antibiotics.

For a little more sweet, opt for The Antioxidant Orchard — a tart, fruity blend of dried cranberries, strawberries grapes, apples, and walnuts on a mixed green salad with a pomegranate mustard vinaigrette. (more…)

1 Comments

L.A.’s locavores are lining up in front of Santa Monica Place today. Why? At 10 am, the doors open to The Market at Santa Monica Place, where local, sustainable, and artisanal delectables await you.

The Market’s like a cross between the prepped-food section of your local farmers market and a posh mall food court. Walk in, and you’ll be greeted with a curated collection of small, indie shops offering everything from organic ice cream cookies to biodynamic hand lotion. Here are ten of my favorite treats to try:

1. Beachy Cream. You’ll be hard-pressed to miss this booth. Not only is it right at the very front of the market, but it’s also run by retro swimsuit-clad girls. Stop by to pick up an organic ice cream sandwich.

2. Groundwork Coffee. You’ve probably already tried the organic coffee from this local roaster, but this new small cafe has a new treat: Organic, fair trade, and gluten-free cookies from Gluten Free Goddess Bakery. Some of these square cookie slabs were a bit too dry, but I liked the moister texture of the chocolate chip flavor.

3. Magical Blooms. This flower shop’s the best place to pick up an eco-friendly letterpress card — made by Elum from eco-friendly cotton rag paper using soy-based inks.

4. The Curious Palate. Get farm-to-table meals at this cafe, which embraces carnivores and vegans alike with its eclectic menu.

5. The Cookie Guru. Love organic, fair trade TCHO chocolates? Get them embedded in an all-organic chocolate chip cookie. This is one eco-luxe, moist cookie, made by a local baker using local eggs.

6. Artisanal LA. Once an occasional seasonal event, Artisanal LA has now become a permanent fixture — at least for a month. Stop by the pop-up booth between now and June 12 to discover new local, sustainable, and handmade products — featuring companies like Raw Bites and Bare Skin Organics.

7. N’ice Cream. Can’t do Beachy Cream because you’re lactose-intolerant like me? N’ice Cream offers both organic ice cream and sorbet cones and cups — I recommend the sweet-and-tart raspberry sorbet flavor (below), which you can get a scoop of free if you stop by between 11 am and 3 pm today!

8. The Gourmandise School of Sweets and Savories. At the preview party last night, LA Weekly’s Pulitzer prize-winning food critic Jonathan Gold and Evan Kleiman of KCRW’s Good Food did a cooking demo for a hungry crowd. Such yummy events will happen all the time at this small school, where you can drop by to take a sustainable cooking class. In fact, free demos are planned all this weekend — like a chef demo with Alex Weiser of Weiser Family Farms and Chef Walter el Nagar of Lagunda del Lago and a sustainable chocolate making demo with Patricia Tsai of ChocoVivo.

9. Benedetta. After a day at the beach, pamper your sand-and-sun roughened skin by stopping by this booth, which offers handcrafted organic and biodynamic skin care. The Neroli Body Lotion is an especially moisturizing skin treat — and the store’s offering free hancials all weekend.

10. Movies on The Deck. Enjoy the outdoors while taking in a couple free screenings of food films this weekend. “Ratatouille screens at 8 pm on Friday, “Julie & Julia” at 8 pm on Sunday.

The Market at Santa Monica Place also boasts local and sustainable treats like beer and wine, charcuterie, and cheeses — none of which I tried, but you may be curious about. Enjoy the artisanal delights all opening weekend — and beyond.

The Market at Santa Monica Place. 395 Santa Monica Pl., Santa Monica. 310.260.8300.

7 Comments

When I first heard the Bay Area’s famed raw-friendly restaurant, Cafe Gratitude, planned to open up a spot in L.A., I vowed to be first in line to dine at the place and enthusiastically interviewed the founders, Matthew and Terces Engelhart. Well, I was one of the first to dine at L.A.’s Cafe Gratitude when it opened in March — and have stopped by a half dozen times since — but am finally getting around to blogging about the delicious fresh eats!

Though known as a raw restaurant, Cafe Gratitude does also offer dishes with cooked brown rice and quinoa — making the casual spot a good choice whether you crave an all-raw meal or desire a warm rice bowl. For a refreshing but rich starter, try the creamy Thai Coconut Soup — often available as the live soup of the day. KCET’s The Public Kitchen has the recipe, if you’d like to try blending it yourself at home.

My favorite meal so far? The “I am fulfilled” salad, a big garden salad with greens, tomatoes, shaved carrots and beets, and tomatoes — topped with fresh sprouts, creamy avocado and deliciously savory teriyaki almonds. The salad’s listed under the starter section, but the filling dish can make for a light lunch!

I also love the “I am Whole” bowl — which I describe as Californian bibimbap. Get your sea veggies, kim chee, leafy greens, and sprouts all in one bowl — warmed by your choice of quinoa or local brown rice and flavored with with tahini-garlic sauce and teriyaki almonds.

Mediterranean food lovers can go for the “I am Complete” raw mediterranean plate (top photo), which comes with a delicious almond hummus, tangy olive tapenade, and cool mint tzaziki sauce — all fresh and tasty live versions of the traditional bites. I did find the live falafels a bit too dry and nutty for my liking, but enjoyed the rest of the dish.

Prefer to drink your veggies? Cafe Gratitude offers not just one, but two green juices — the all-veggie “I am Healthy” (below) for the sugar-avoidant and the beet-and-apple sweetened “I am Worthy.” Plus, you can get liquid elixirs ranging from wheatgrass shots to rich cacao-hazelnut. Sip them at the bar for a quick pick me up — or get the drinks to go.

Cafe Gratitude is one restaurant where organic is de rigeur. In contast to the ever-growing number of restaurants that hedge by saying they buy organic “whenever possible,” Cafe Gratitude’s bold green menu announces that its ingredients are organic, period — conventional produce simply won’t be served at this casual eatery. The restaurant also sources its food as locally as possible and avoids plastic packaging both at the front and back of the restaurant, making the spot a hot spot for eco-foodies.

Next time I stop by, I’ll finally try dessert!

Cafe Gratitude. 639 Larchmont Blvd., Los Angeles. 323.580.6383.

5 Comments