Rah Rah Rah: Three Cheers for Raw Food at Grezzo

Wow! Very rarely in my jaded life do I have an experience where I say 'Wow, that was truly amazing (I don't know, maybe I need to get out more!). But last night, with my friend (and beyond the pale food blogger) Tammy, I went to the much buzzed about Grezzo in the North End. Wow!

Grezzo is Italian for raw, and nestled as it is in the heart of Boston's Italian food district, it holds its own as an eatery that deserves--and will likely receive--lots of attention.

On the way over, Tammy and I were stuck in Red Sox traffic and admitting to one another that we were both a little nervous, not quite sure what to expect. Tammy is a quasi-vegetarian and I am a bring-it-all-on carnivore, so this was going to be interesting. However, we are also both great lovers of food and food adventures, so we were the perfect companions for one another to try this new spot. (Tammy will be blogging, too, about Grezzo today, so check out her post.)

We arrive to this very small but very warmly colored room with huge paintings of vegetables on the walls and a server who both Tammy and I were immediately drawn to: she was energetic and obviously very passionate about the food and took great care to explain to us each of the dishes.

We chose the chef's tasting menu--a good choice since it came with a delightful sampling of several of the dishes on the short menu. (We also each ordered a glass of biodynamic wine--with a very healthy pour for each of us, that was a nice bonus!)

I'm going to leave it to Tammy to do a food overview, but I will tell you that from my perspective, I am very intrigued about the idea of raw food as a weight loss / healthy lifestyle choice.

Alissa Cohen, who has been eating raw since the 1980's and who works with people to turn them onto a raw life, has some impressive results to show on her website. We are all used to the before and after pictures of fat to skinny people, and this site has them as well. I'm listening!

As I was eating last night, I was thinking that since so many of these foods are based on nuts--nut creams and ground up nut pastes--the point count must really be adding up. So, while I would have loved to have lapped all the cream on my plate, I didn't. But then, my main entree was a marinated piece of papaya with a salad of shredded zucchini in a yogurt dill sauce. Once you get past the nuts, all the other foods are fruits or vegetables. How points free is that?

When I left last night, I was sated and happy and I didn't have that horrible post-big dinner feeling of needing to go immediately to bed and snore like a fat old man. I felt light and energetic and... well, alive. When I woke up this morning, I wasn't starving, I just had this really good feeling.

I've ordered Alissa's cookbook, so I'll report back in later posts about my attempts to cook with it and what my thoughts are then. But right now, I'm really impressed. I'll probably go back to try the other dishes.

Rah rah rah!!!