Vegetable Magnetism

[Guest guest]

Connecticut? ( or however you spell it ) The city that's home to the world's greatest pizza and the nation's first burger will soon be hosting another pioneer - the area's first full-scale restaurant featuring cuisine free of all animal products.Ahimsa - the Sanskrit word for nonviolence - is slated to open next month at 1227 Chapel Street. Across the street from Miya's sushi and bracketed by two Indian restaurants, the new eatery adds to a mini-restaurant row near the corner of Chapel and Howe streets downtown.The vegan restaurant and attached juice bar is the brainchild of high-school senior Nirav Shah and his family."My focus for the restaurant is to create very, very flavorful food," says Shah, who plans to take a year off before starting college to help run the place.Shah test-drove the concept last year with Imagin CafÈ, a juice bar inside his father's photo shop on the New Haven Green. Imagin built a

dedicated following with offerings including raw food, an all-vegan cuisine in which nothing is heated above about 100 degrees Fahrenheit.The new restaurant will feature lots of raw food in addition to animal-product-free dishes inspired by world cuisines from Ethiopia to France to China, "so people can experience vegan food from around the world," Shah says.The 50-seat restaurant will also serve organic beer and wine, Shah says. A juice bar and cafÈ will operate in an adjacent storefront on Chapel, and both sites will be fully certified kosher by Jewish dietary authorities, he adds.The number of vegans, or "extreme vegetarians," has more than doubled nationwide since 1997, according to a Vegetarian Resource Group study cited in the New York Times. The market for animal-product substitutes like egg replacements and veggie burgers is valued at $1.2 billion and grew 63.5 percent from 2000 to 2005, according to the newspaper.Interest in more

environmentally and ethically sound eating has also fueled the growth of Duck's Soup in Hamden, a vegetarian restaurant near Quinnipiac University.The two-year-old eatery does serve some animal products, but has expanded its vegan offerings to meet demand, says Bo O'Connor, one of three partners in the restaurant, at 584 Whitney Avenue."There are a lot of requests for vegan food," O'Connor says, citing the popularity of breakfast dishes like "scrambled eggs" made from tofu. "They come a long way to come here," she adds.Customers from as far away as Boston and New York stop at Alchemy Juice Bar CafÈ in Hartford, which "went raw" last summer and now features a wide selection of uncooked dishes.One of the cafÈ's biggest hits is a raw pizza made with a buckwheat crust, macadamia nut "cheese" and marinated vegetables, says owner John Zito. "It has a real pizza look to it - it is so rich, it is so filling," he says. "People say, 'I can't believe

this is not cooked.'"Zito himself started an all-raw-food diet six months ago and says he's lost 45 pounds and now feels fit to practice yoga, run his restaurant - and home-school his six children under 15."The raw food has given me the energy," Zito says. "I feel great." Peter H

 

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[Guest guest]

and to think...vegetarianism use to be such a dirty word there...

peter VV Jan 23, 2007 2:03 PM Re: Vegetable Magnetism

Connecticut? ( or however you spell it )

The city that's home to the world's greatest pizza and the nation's first burger will soon be hosting another pioneer - the area's first full-scale restaurant featuring cuisine free of all animal products.Ahimsa - the Sanskrit word for nonviolence - is slated to open next month at 1227 Chapel Street. Across the street from Miya's sushi and bracketed by two Indian restaurants, the new eatery adds to a mini-restaurant row near the corner of Chapel and Howe streets downtown.The vegan restaurant and attached juice bar is the brainchild of high-school senior Nirav Shah and his family."My focus for the restaurant is to create very, very flavorful food," says Shah, who plans to take a year off before starting college to help run the place.Shah test-drove the concept last year with Imagin CafÈ, a juice bar inside his father's photo shop on the New Haven Green. Imagin built a dedicated following with offerings including raw food, an all-vegan cuisine in which nothing is heated above about 100 degrees Fahrenheit.The new restaurant will feature lots of raw food in addition to animal-product-free dishes inspired by world cuisines from Ethiopia to France to China, "so people can experience vegan food from around the world," Shah says.The 50-seat restaurant will also serve organic beer and wine, Shah says. A juice bar and cafÈ will operate in an adjacent storefront on Chapel, and both sites will be fully certified kosher by Jewish dietary authorities, he adds.The number of vegans, or "extreme vegetarians," has more than doubled nationwide since 1997, according to a Vegetarian Resource Group study cited in the New York Times. The market for animal-product substitutes like egg replacements and veggie burgers is valued at $1.2 billion and grew 63.5 percent from 2000 to 2005, according to the newspaper.Interest in more environmentally and ethically sound eating has also fueled the growth of Duck's Soup in Hamden, a vegetarian restaurant near Quinnipiac University.The two-year-old eatery does serve some animal products, but has expanded its vegan offerings to meet demand, says Bo O'Connor, one of three partners in the restaurant, at 584 Whitney Avenue."There are a lot of requests for vegan food," O'Connor says, citing the popularity of breakfast dishes like "scrambled eggs" made from tofu. "They come a long way to come here," she adds.Customers from as far away as Boston and New York stop at Alchemy Juice Bar CafÈ in Hartford, which "went raw" last summer and now features a wide selection of uncooked dishes.One of the cafÈ's biggest hits is a raw pizza made with a buckwheat crust, macadamia nut "cheese" and marinated vegetables, says owner John Zito. "It has a real pizza look to it - it is so rich, it is so filling," he says. "People say, 'I can't believe this is not cooked.'"Zito himself started an all-raw-food diet six months ago and says he's lost 45 pounds and now feels fit to practice yoga, run his restaurant - and home-school his six children under 15."The raw food has given me the energy," Zito says. "I feel great."

 

Peter H

 

 

 

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