Last weekend, Chris and I went out with friends to Souen (http://souen.net/) on East 13th Street. I had never been to a macrobiotic restaurant before, and really didn’t know much about the macrobiotic diet in general (aside from Gwyneth Paltrow), so I read up a little. It was pretty similar to what I learned while working for a Chinese medicine practitioner about eating certain foods in certain seasons and balancing the yin and yang aspects of various foods and flavors.
The meal was delicious. Normally, Chris and I share an appetizer and an entrée when we go out, but we were both pretty hungry, so we got our own entrees. I also ordered a glass of syrah.
Our meals came with miso soup to start. What I particularly liked was that it wasn’t overly salty, and they didn’t skimp on the seaweed.
For my entrée, I had “Box B,” which came with salmon, brown rice and the grain of the day (wheat berries?), homemade pickles, hijiki seaweed, and steamed vegetables (kabocha squash, daikon radish, and greens). Of the available dressings I could have chosen from, I opted for the carrot dressing, which was mildly sweet—so good.
I was basically in heaven. I loved the way the box was segmented. It was a nice change to have the veggies be the focus of the meal. In so many non-vegetarian restaurants, the meat is the main event, and you sometimes feel like you’re getting shortchanged if you order something meatless.
While I’m not sure I’d take my steak-loving dad there, I don’t think you have to follow a macrobiotic diet to like Souen. I would definitely go back.
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