Ungaro Raw, Rozelle

It was the day after the Halloween party. We both woke up worse for wear. Mr NQN's trauma was self inflicted via wine and cocktails, mine was a mostly to do with being run down and sick and not drinking enough water. I'm firmly of the belief that you are what you eat so I think I knew a solution. We hopped into the car and headed to Ungaro Raw in Rozelle.

I first heard about it on Mykikicake's blog and will readily admit that I have a minor obsession with raw food. Okay perhaps it's major and I've scoured the few places that have opened up in Sydney catering for raw food eaters.

Ungaro Raw is located on the corner of Darling and National Streets and it's right opposite the Rozelle Markets that are on this Sunday afternoon. Because of this, we decided to go a bit later around 2:30pm but come 2:40pm all of the indoor and outdoor tables are taken in this cafe. Service is friendly and the menu is several pages long. There are about half a dozen raw items (i.e.items that have not been heated above 38C/100F) as well as "some like it hot" cooked items. All items are organic and there is a decent vegan and vegetarian selection.

Mr NQN chose this drink. I'm not fond of spirulina so I just had a taste of it. All of the green smoothies have the same base of kale, spinach, banana and lemon and this one had spirulina and cucumber in it. It's refreshing and oh so green, the spirulina adding its own distinctive flavour to it.

The tea is lightly sweetened with honey and flavoured with fresh mint, ginger and lemon. It's refreshing and sweet-the only thing that I would have loved was a pot of it.

They let us know that because they were down one person in the kitchen that lunch would have an half hour wait. That was fine but we were hungry so we decided to order dessert first as that was displayed in the front cabinet and could be plated there. Their raw cakes are made for them and the pecan tart is sweet and moreish although it tastes mostly of dates rather than pecans which is curious because of course pecans can be eaten raw. The salted caramel tart has a thick layer of salted cacao ganache, a cacao base and a creamy raw date caramel. The only thing that I didn't really like was the sprinkling of salt in the centre of the tart which was very strong and we couldn't really eat that part of the tart.

More of a salad with some elements of a lasagne, the raw lasagna has thin slices of zucchini with layers of rocket, sun dried tomato paste and basil pesto. To the side is a sweet beetroot puree. I'm curious to know how they got it that soft as raw beetroot is so firm but they're very busy so I don't want to bother them.

We both liked the combination of flavours in the spicy almond tacos. There were four tacos to a serve, two on red cabbage and two on green. They were topped with corn, tomato, green onions and squiggles of cashew cream. I can imagine recreating this at home to eat on a hot summer's day.

So tell me Dear Reader, do you think that what you eat determines how you feel? What do you think of the raw food movement?

Ungaro Raw

656 Darling St, Rozelle New South Wales 2039
(02) 8964 9223
Open: Monday to Thursday and Sunday 7:30 am - 5 pm
Friday to Saturday 7:30 am - 10 pm
http://www.ungaroraw.com/