It is the season of diets in the Kyiv Post's Lifestyle section. We know first-hand how for dieters eating out can be torture, forcing the dieter to stare at forbidden offerings, such as pasta and cake on a friend‘s plate. We required an alternative and found it. Venues with healthy and low-calorie meals do exist on the Kyiv map. We tried two of them.
Healthy fast food at Simple
As I walked along busy Saksahanskoho Street, I couldn’t miss wooden exterior of a small newly opened restaurant. The signboard said: “Simple.” Since life has been getting complicated for me lately, I walked in.
Right at the entrance the waiter welcomed me with a cheerful smile. If I wasn’t hungry, that would have been enough, but I proceeded to the food offerings anyway.
The interior was even cuter than the exterior. Pots with greenery covered the wall along the first of the restaurant’s rooms – modern and stylish, not the kind my grandma stuffs her house with. Another room was smaller, better for private conversations.
A booth next to the cash register displayed prepared yogurts, salads, soups, sides, fresh drinks and baked vegetables. It radiated health. Some of the cereals offered as side dishes were unfamiliar to me, but the waiter promised they would taste good.
I found the rest of the Simple menu on the chalkboard above the cash register. There were soups, salads, baked meat, groats and a lot of baked desserts, including pies, muffins, and cakes.
I ordered squash soup for Hr 27 (although I usually never eat anything squash-related). I am on a diet, but the waiter suggested I would miss the pleasure of life if I didn’t taste their muffins, so I went for pleasure and got myself a carrot muffin. I also bought one of the original Simple fresh juices. Mine was called “Immunity” and cost Hr 25.
I chose a table in the smaller room, which seemed to be cozy because of the muted light. The wooden tables and sofas added to the feeling of comfort in the room.
The waiter was prompt and popped up at my table with the order in around three minutes. I would go on explaining my usual disgust for vegetables and greens, but this time I loved the squash soup. It was spicy, but I did not catch the taste of non-organic spices.
The “Immunity” drink tasted like a mixture of ginger, lemon and cucumber.
It did not taste like vegetable juice, more like an energetic smoothie.
The muffin wasn’t too sweet. I would say it had the minimum amount of sugar. Those who like sweets for sweetness might not like the muffins in Simple. But I do recommend trying them.
After I was done I thanked the waiter for a meal and left Simple with a full tummy, glad I finally had a quick, but healthy lunch.
Raw food at I Live
When one of my Instagram friends posted photos of I Live, a raw-food and diet venue next to Sports Palace, I took it as a sign of the universe’s love for me, no less. By then I was five weeks into an insufferable diet and was craving a juicy yet healthy alternative to my usual fat-free cottage cheese.
For the next day’s lunch time, I was there. I Live turned out to be a small basement-level café, with a wood design augmented by green decor. So far, so good.
The menu proved to be broad and a bit complicated. It features raw food and “normal” sections. The normal food was vegetarian except for some fish and shrimp dishes. There are also two dessert pages – for raw-food fruity cakes and more traditional desserts. But don’t come here looking for tiramisu or a nice creamy cheesecake – even the regular menu has only low-cal options, like baked apples or pears with nuts and cinnamon (Hr 24, Hr 31), pancakes and homemade biscuits.
I opted for a hardcore raw-food lunch and started with “vitamin porridge” (Hr 52) – oatmeal with dried fruits, seeds and spirulina. I remembered spirulina, a dietary supplement made from seaweed, as a powder that was added to my food when I was a child to foster a better appetite.
A little powder would be OK, I thought, and so I made the order.
Unfortunately, my reunion with spirulina didn’t go smoothly. After 20 minutes (the service was friendly, but slow) I was brought a plate full of dark-green paste. Little bits of cereal gleamed from under it. The plate must have contained more of this greenish supplement than I ate in my entire childhood.
This Incredible Hulk of the porridges proved to be too hardcore for me to eat. Certainly nutritional, but extremely weird-tasting – not for raw-food newbies.
The “Pleasure” cocktail (Hr 38) didn’t help to clear out the weird after-taste. The menu said it was a shake of almond milk, bananas, figs, ginger and dates, but the biting taste of ginger prevailed above all.
Trying to wash out these strange flavor combinations, I stole some of my friend’s mushroom risotto. She ordered one of the café’s business lunches (Hr 49-89) and opted for a regular set, which included a smallish portion of Greek salad, spinach soup and the said risotto. The food was mediocre, but matched the price of Hr 59. It came with a refreshing drink made of pine needles. It tasted better than it sounds.
The take-out raw vegetable rolls were quite nice and lifted my opinion of the venue. They were greased with “mayonnaise” – which turned out to be a paste made of nuts and seeds.
But even being traumatized by the whole “green oatmeal” situation, I’m thinking about coming back to I Live, and doing so sooner rather than later. The choice of vegetable dishes here is outstanding and finding a baked apple on a dessert menu of a Kyiv restaurant is a challenge.
Kyiv Post staff writer Bozhena Sheremeta can be reached at [email protected]. Kyiv Post lifestyle editor Olga Rudenko can be reached at [email protected].
