PHUKET: If you hear the time period “raw food” you might, like I did, take it to mean “food waiting to be cooked”. But in Rawai, within the island’s south, the proprietor of Atsumi Raw Food Cafe, Anna Wasin is championing the well being advantages and sublime, simple flavors of pure, raw, organic, unprocessed and uncooked components by crafting dozens of tasty and nutritious dishes for her patrons.
The thought for opening a raw food cafe grew from her expertise in working the Atsumi Retreat Healing Center, a religious and health centered spa retreat, also in Rawai.
“I started Atsumi Retreat Healing Center eight years in the past and as a half of our detox applications we now have raw food applications, which included simply fundamental uncooked meals, very strictly controlled, quite completely different from the style of meals we do at Raw Cafe,” says Anna.
Seeing that lots of her prospects were looking for methods to continue a healthy lifestyle after completing their detox program, she determined to open Atsumi Raw Cafe so as to present healthy and scrumptious uncooked food dishes, not solely to former detox program participants, however to all those seeking a wholesome eating possibility in Phuket.
“We need vacationers and expats alike to come back and have a chance to attempt tasty and healthy food. I would say we’ve about 70 per cent organic produce and all our menu objects are suitable for vegans,” she said.
The belief within the health advantages of eating vegan uncooked meals has grown exponentially in popularity over the previous couple of decades and is predicated on the preposition that cooked meals (defined as any food that has been heated to over 40 levels Celsius) loses its pure enzymes and far of its nutritional content, making it harder, and less productive, for the physique to digest. To be vegan, the food must have no animal merchandise in any respect, which leads to some attention-grabbing “substitution” elements such as almond milk and almond butter rather than their dairy primarily based variations.
The restriction of not with the flexibility to heat meals has led uncooked meals chefs to turn into highly inventive in getting ready their dishes – necessity is the mother of invention, after all. So, as an alternative of being suffering from fry pans and pots, the kitchen at Raw Food Cafe is somewhat spartan, stacked with containers of fresh unprocessed components and containing a couple of simple home equipment – a blender, a juicer, a dehydrator, a fridge and freezer. With these simple tools, the group at Atsumi Raw Cafe manages to offer a big menu with some amazingly tasty and distinctive dishes.
I determined to try the beneficial Caesar salad and was very impressed with its uncooked interpretation – fresh and crunchy romain lettuce served with a creamy horseradish dressing, smokey eggplant, cashew cheese and black olive and sun-dried tomato croutons. Next, it was on to the Thai coconut dumplings, which featured a wonton-like wrapper produced from seaweed, filled with fresh julienned vegetables and a cashew and black sesame dipping sauce.
One of the most well-liked menu items is the “Raw-Sangna” featuring layers of zucchini with fermented almond cheese, marinara sauce, smokey eggplant bacon and walnut, macadamia and fig pate – I undoubtedly recommend it for those wanting to see simply how tasty, fascinating and creative uncooked food may be. To wash it down, there is a vary of juices and smoothies, all of them embrace superfoods similar to cacao, spirulina or chia to give you that extra boost, and if you are on a food plan or eating mild, they can also be a meal in themselves.
If you wish to indulge your candy tooth, without the guilt, make certain you attempt one of the fabulous desserts. I selected the uncooked blueberry cheesecake, which is served frozen – a way which is employed to keep all the elements in place. Authority to consider how candy and refreshing this healthy various is compared to old-fashioned cheesecake.
The neatest thing about eating raw meals is that there is not a feeling torpid or bloated after you eat – you are feeling full, your hunger is completely satiated, but you can additionally rise up and run a marathon straight afterwards if you had been so inclined.
So in case you are in search of a healthy meal, whether you’re doing a detox program, on a diet, coaching hard, or simply wish to attempt one thing completely new, be sure to stop previous Atsumi Raw Food Cafe.
Atsumi Raw Food Cafe is situated on Wiset Road, at the corner of Soi Mangosteen, roughly halfway between Chalong and Rawai piers. For more info and some inspirational uncooked meals recipes, see the internet site: atsumirawcafe.com