Well Fed Network

Posted by Alfonso Cevola on Well Fed on the Town.

What’s a wine lover doing in a vegan restaurant? Last week, working in Austin, I spent lunches and dinners with clients and in client’s restaurants, trying out different wines to match with their cuisine. After a couple of days, I started to feel like a vacuum cleaner with a full bag. One evening I met up with a young couple, Anna and Jordan, who I am close to, to take them to dinner. The young lady, Anna, suggested we go to a vegetarian place. No problem for me, when I lived in California I was happily meat-free. Moving to Texas in the late 1970’s proved to be a bit more challenging. Once I got into the wine business it got even harder. Anna’s beau, Jordan, suggested a vegan place, Cafe de Luz in Austin.

Understand, I am in great restaurants all over the world, being served what is thought to be great food. But lately I have been thinking about where the food comes from, who grows it, how it is prepared and if the cooking is straightforward and respectful of the ingredients, or if they merely exist to be molded and manipulated into some wild chef’s idea of food as art.

Cafe de Luz was not any of that. It is part of The Center for Integral Studies, an interdisciplinary convergence of healthy practices and respect for life. Like Slow Food, this is Slow Living.

Understand I am a wine person, but upon entering the Café, where there are community tables that have no servers, except to bring out the main course, I felt relieved that this night I was going to be treated with simple, wholesome food that didn’t just fill me up. Fresh soups and organic salads, not some pre-packaged mesclun mix that was lifeless and wilted, but crisp and tasty greens.

An entrée plate with a grain, a green and a bean. Simple, yes, but filling and fulfilling. Live music, peaceful and not loud filled the room with a wonderful audio perfume.

Yes, one can go back for seconds, but it almost seems like the initial serving is what you are meant to have. Not that anyone is forcing you to leave hungry.

The total cost of the meal was only $12.00, and one must bus their own dishes, just like home. And being away for a week, this seemed more like home than all the exotic food I had been served all week. What a blessing that was.

Casa de Luz
1701 Toomey Road
Austin, TX 78704
(512) 476-2535

MapQuest Map

Prices
Breakfast $7 (you can choose to pay more or less based on how much you eat.)
Lunch $12
Dinner $12
Saturday and Sunday brunch $14
(All prices include tax, beverage and free seconds.)

Each Meal includes:

1. A beverage: Warm kukicha Tea, cool rooibos & red raspberry tea or Vortex filtered Water (Water is triple filtered and run through 3 vortex chambers to revitalize it.)

2. Salad with dressing (self-serve)

3. Soup (self-serve)

4. A raw food bar (self-serve)

5. A grain, (example: organic brown rice or quinoa)

6. A bean dish (example: lentils, black beans, or hummus)

7. Greens (example: collards, kale, mustard greens)

8. A vegetable medley (example: oven roasted yams, or broccoli stirfry)

9. A salt pickle (example: Kim chi, or sauerkraut