Last night, Eric took me to a raw & vegan restaurant in Mississauga called Raw Aura. I’ve been wanting to check this place out for a while now, so it seemed like a good time! I was slightly worried going to a raw restaurant, after my Birthday experience at Live 2 years ago, but I’ve also had a great raw food experience at Rawlicious, so I figured it was worth a shot!
From the website: ‘The goal of Aura is to provide familiar food that everyone knows and loves, in the most delicious, nutritious, and environmentally – friendly way. By using 100% raw ingredients, this means nothing is heated above 43C / 105F. These living foods are simple to digest, leaving the body light and energized since this simple form requires no extra energy from the body. Flavours are pure, fresh and intense, honouring the divine banquet provided by the earth.All of our ingredients are organic and harvested sustainably, this means you are not only doing yourself a favour, but you are creating fertile space to grow for generations to come.’
The restaurant is café style, and it is basically a cozy & intimate hole in the wall which is common of many vegan restaurants that I have been to. They prepare a lot of the food right in the dining room.
There is seating for about 16 people, so you can see how small the room is.
We started with drinks and appetizers. I had ‘The Green Juice’ which was made up of Kale, celery, cucumber, romaine lettuce, parsley, lemon and ginger. My cuppa tea juice! Eric had the Old Credit Amber Ale which was their only beer and he said it was horrible (he is not an ale fan, but if you were you might enjoy it!). Their menu boasted organic beer & wine, so maybe they were running low on beer?
For appetizers, we ordered the Kale Chips which were seasoned with a delicious sour cream cashew, red onion, and chive sauce and dehydrated until crispy.
They were THE BEST kale chips I have ever tasted! Eric and I both agreed that they tasted just like Sour Cream & Onion chips. We could not detect the kale at all and we polished off the bowl fast. I have to try and recreate these!
We also ordered the Nacho Platter which was made up of crispy corn chips, guacamole, cashew sour cream, fresh tomato salsa and walnut taco meat.
They were also amazing! We polished off the entire plate. :)
I put a little bit of each topping onto each chip and it was a party in my mouth. The raw nacho chips were also fantastic…I prefer them to corn chips actually.
After our appetizers, we lingered over our drinks while our stomachs settled for about 10-15 minutes before our main entrees came out.
I ordered a ‘small’ Big Salad which was a huge mix of kale and romaine lettuce topped with avocado, cucumber, tomato, mixed seeds, red pepper, onions, sprouted chickpea hummus, and a live breadstick. I had it with the Herb Citrus dressing.
It was perfect. Creamy, tangy, flavourful, and extremely filling. I loved the ‘breadstick’ too, it was like a thicker and more flavourful Mary’s Cracker.
Eric and I both ordered the Pizza, which came highly recommended by everyone I talked to. I figured we couldn’t go wrong with pizza!
The pizza was on a delicious red pepper and sunflower seed flax crust and was topped with a cashew tomato cheese, kale, zucchini, ‘parmesan cheese’, red pepper, and more.
We loved it. It is VERY filling though, thanks to the dense crust and cashew cheese, so we wrapped up some of it to go. The only minor critique I have of this pizza is that it needed to be served warm. Supposedly it was served warm according to the menu, but we both found it cold, or at minimum room temperature. I will definitely be heating up my leftovers today!
By this point, we were stuffed, but we wanted a little something sweet to end the meal. They offer a sampler dessert plate for $12 and you get to sample 4 desserts. They know the way to a girl’s heart.
On our sampler plate: Mint Chocolate Ganache Cake, Chocolate Banana Cake, Strawberry Cheesecake, and Brownies.
All of the cakes were mousse-like in texture with a nut-based crust. I’m not a huge fan of raw cashew-based mousse cakes, but they were pretty good. My favourite was the Mint Chocolate Ganache Cake (the raw ganache was incredible) and Eric couldn’t decide which one he liked the best. Our least favourite was the Chocolate Banana Cake because we are both not big fans of straight up mousse. The brownies were very rich and just a couple small bites was enough.
All in all, it was a great meal at Raw Aura! My favourite Raw restaurant in the GTA is still Rawlicious, but only because the atmosphere at Rawlicious just can’t be beat (see here for my full review and pictures!). If Raw Aura had the same atmosphere, I would say they are both on par. I think the portion sizes at Raw Aura are larger and you get a bit more value for your dollar. We ordered a lot of food and were surprised at how low the bill was!
I was also happy not to have stomach pains like I did at Live a couple years ago. My stomach is very sensitive to nuts, but it seemed to be just the right amount in my meal last night. I tried to select dishes that were not completely nut-based so I think this helped a lot.
I left a Happy Birthday Girl. :)
happy . . . and absolutely glowing :) happy birthday!!
thank you :)
haha I was going to say the same exact thing!! Must be all the green monsters for sure ;)
I am in desperate need of a raw, vegan restaurant in my small Ontario city, this might be worth the drive to Mississauga, of course, I will need to stop at Fresh on Queen St on the way. Yummy review, Angela!
you should also check out Rawlicious if you are in Toronto….awesome!
Are you close proximity to those areas? I need to move! LOL. Interesting – I wondered about Raw food though – I love nuts, oils etc. But it seems to be the focus of most of their dishes and it seems that combined with other stuff can definitely be hard on the stomach. I don’t know how people do it! – give me a flour pizza crust any day…warm :)
That place looks great…and Happy Birthday!!
The entire meal sounds wonderful!! And the photo of you is beautifull!! You really do GLOW!!
I was thinking the same exact thing! Such a great photo.
So glad to hear that Raw Aura is still good even though their main chef has moved on! My hubby and I went there once (it’s a trek for us) but were also very impressed. Your meal looks fabulous–and so do you! Birthdays agree wtih you! :D
You look beautiful I am so glad you enjoyed your birthday dinner I would love to find a raw cafe around here to try.
You look SO happy! Happy birthday!!! Great to hear your party and the dinner were filled with love and happiness!
woop woop! sounds like you had a great meal. there’s nothing better than leaving dinner and feeling refreshed and not bogged down. I want to eat all that food NOW!
what a wonderful evening out! your photo is dazzling!
thanks for the review, angela. everything looks fabulous!
maybe a spot for a southern ontario blogger meet-up?!
Looks like a fabulous birthday meal! Happy Birthday :-)
Ange you look GORGEOUS in the last photo!! Sounds like a delicious meal (minus the beer of course) and I can’t wait to go. I haven’t done much experimentation with raw food but I feel like it’s something I’d want to try. Thanks for the great review!
Angela, my father-in-law (whose birthday was yesterday as well) lives right in Mississauga and we’ve been meaning to go to Raw Aura for ages! It’s so weird to see it on your blog too!
Happy Belated Birthday and I hope you had a fabulous time.
You have such a beautiful glow. :)
So lucky to have all of these raw choices! I wish Atlanta would get in on this trend. Unfortunately, we are in the middle of a hamburger explosion in my city. *sigh*
The place looks really great, but you look totally divine! That is the kind of glow everyone would like to have:)
Wow, the food looked delicious. I am quite nervous about trying a raw restaurant but it looks like they found their niche pretty well. What a great picture of you, too! :)
I was so excited to see you chose Raw Aura for your b-day dinner!
When you said the place you wanted to go was closed on Monday I thought of it only because I live about 5 mins from it in Port Credit and crave it when they aren’t open!! They have a new(ish) chef and I haven’t been in since but have plans to go with a girlfriend next week. I usually opt for one of their ‘pasta’ dishes (zucchini noodles) as they make a mean cashew cream sauce. Their smoothies and kale chips ARE amazing and dessert is always a tough decision.
Glad you liked it, and it didn’t hurt your tummy.
I have been to Rawlicious once (the new one in Yorkville) and was equally impressed.
Port Credit is just gorgeous! We had such a beautiful drive up :)
it is, too bad the weather was blah. come back in the summer for a nice afternoon/evening!
You ARE glowing! (must be all the raw food). I love how raw food always has lots of kale– something I could probably do with a bit more of in my life :)
Angela, your meal and experience sounds great and I love the last pic of you…you’re glowing. As your blog title would suggest :)
“My stomach is very sensitive to nuts, but it seemed to be just the right amount in my meal last night. I tried to select dishes that were not completely nut-based so I think this helped a lot.”-
ME TOO!
When I moved from vegetarian to a GF vegan (pretty much overnight) due to food allergies, I made the mistake of tons of raw nut pates, raw desserts w/ cashews, nuts in my smoothies and i was in just as much (if not more) agony with tummy issues from all those nuts than i was with my food allergy/gluten issues. It took me awhile to figure that out, too.
Now, I am mindful of how many raw nuts I use in cooking and really limit my raw nut eating to those IN desserts (as much as possible)…I find that nothing works as well as raw cashews in raw baking and that’s where i put my priorities :)
Love this review and so glad you had a great time!!!!
Averie, this is so encouraging for me to hear. I think I am just getting over making a similar mistake. I jumped with both feet into a lot of raw and vegan food for the last few months. And the last month, I have been in excruciating pain when I eat. Although I love and crave all those nutrient rich foods I have gone back to my old way of eating because I don’t hurt as much. I am hoping that I can get myself healed a little and maybe try again with a slower, more careful approach. I was beginning to think that I was the only one who couldn’t do all the healthy foods that I love so much.
Yes, raw nuts, even ones that are soaked, then dehydrated (the whole enzymes being released and that school of though) doesn’t matter for me. Nuts are nuts, according to my tummy. So yes, reduce your nut consumption way back, let your gut heal a bit, and then you can ramp back up to a more moderate level if things are on track….that’s my suggestion at least but of course do what works for you. Good luck :)
Gorgeous photo of you!! They weren’t kidding when they that raw food will give you clear skin — beautiful!!
*blushing* thanks!
That photo of you is absolutely beautiful. Your skin is looking amazing! I’ve never been to a raw restaurant before, but you’ve definitely piqued my interest. I love the look and sound of those kale chips ~ I hope you are successful in recreating them at some point :-)
thanks Andrea!