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About Ina Melny

foodie photographer vegan minimalist psychologist make up lover obsessed with beautiful things

MOM Park’s Organic farmers market

farmers market organic veggies fruit mom park organic market budapest peaches peach organic

Amazing. Organic. A must go to market in Budapest.

I just wanted to spend 4 days in Budapest but I came 2 days earlier to get some organic produce from this amazing market for 6 days. This market is very large, I didn’t count, but there were 15-20 farms selling their produce, 1 stand with imported organic produce like bananas and avocados. Couple of stands sold superfoods, spices, oils. Many artisan pickled goodies you will not find somewhere else. And stands with organic or natural body care, detergent, essential oils.



What I’ve got


mom park organic market budapest tomatoes organic

Veggies

The amazing variety of tomatoes caught my eye. I bought so many different tomatoes ($1.50-$2.45/kg). Large ones, yellow ones, pink ones. Some tasted amazing, some had no flavor. You should try the tomatoes before buying many of one kind. I also got some cucumbers and corn ($.65/ear). There were all kinds of veggies. Mostly the locally grown, but also some avocadoes, but as I didn’t have much time to make something with them, I focused on fruit.

mom park organic market budapest tomatoes produce organic
mom park organic market budapest bell peppers produce organic

mom park organic market budapest egplants vegies organic

farmersmarket organic peaches fruit mom park organic market budapest peaches peach organic

Fruit

Fruit, berries, melons. The variety was not spectacular, every stand had the same, but enough for some amazing fruit meals. I bough watermelons ($.80-$.90/kg) and cantaloups. Both were ok. The watermelons had amazing pink or yellow flesh inside, not very sweet though. The cantaloups were little dry and didn’t store well. I also bought peaches ($2.4-$3.00/kg) from 3 different farmers. All of them had neither sweetness nor flavor. I still had organic peaches from a supermarket, which were delicious, so I had something to compare to. I wish I would have tried the peaches before buying. The grapes I got were delicious and sweet ($2.4/kg).

farmersmarket organic peaches fruit mom park organic market budapest purslane greens salad

Greens

The variety of greens is amazing. Lettuce, kale, dandelions, purslane. I got a small lettuce head ($1), sorrel, and purslane. Everything was so fresh. With the amazing veggies and apples, one can do a great affordable all organic juice cleanse here.

farmersmarket organic peaches fruit mom park organic market budapest mangold salad produce

Tipps

I went very early, around 6:30, all the stands were set up and started selling but the customers arived by 8 and nothing I was interested in was sold out by 8:30, so the next time I wont go before 8.The Market seems far from the city, but it is easy to get to, I choose a bus that goes not stop to the market, 105, and it took me pretty close to the market. Don’t be afraid taking the bus.

mom park organic market budapest entrance

More Tips

The market has a beautiful sitting are, a great view, water to wash your fruit. Bring a knife, a spoon, maybe a bamboo plate for a little picknick.
mom park organic market budapest picknick grass entrance area
mom park organic market budapest bell supeerfoods organic

Mannatural Ételmanufaktúra| Budapest, Hungary

Mannatural Etelmanufaktura Mannatural Ételmanufaktúra restaurant raw vegan Budapest, Hungary

Came, ate, left.

It my first time to Budapest, the very first day actually. Due to the St. Stephen’s Day many shops and businesses are closed, so I was pleasantly surprised this restaurant wasn’t.


What I had


Mannatural Etelmanufaktura Budapest Mannatural Ételmanufaktúra, Hungary

Mix Plate and Smoothie

Noodles, tabouli, spinach banana smoothie.

My whole ($17) was delicious and nourishing. Exactly what I needed after the flight and the disappointment of the bio store being closed. I usually apply 2 scales when I rate the food. Quality of the ingredients and the taste. And I sometimes talk about the restaurant itself, the stuff, the prices, but these things are subsidiary. Most of the item of the mixed plate were noodles and the sauces were delicious.
The taste first. The food tasted delicious.

It’s a really simple food I could and do prepare in minutes at home, there is nothing wrong with serving this kind of food, but rather unusual for a restaurant. The ingredients are not organic. And eating all organic is very important to me, so it was a huge exception for me trying some of the food there. I’m am very grateful that vegan and organic places exist here and more and more people get to try the amazing raw food, but I don’t believe that making raw food conventionally is sustainable as many people who are not eating raw are willing to try the juices and cakes if they are organic.
And organic is not that hard to get. I just came back from the MOM Park where a huge all organic market took place today. The biggest all-organic market I’ve been to ever. So not using organic is a conscious decision that I don’t understand in the context of raw food (besides of the economical reasons which are obvious) or support. Raw food is about healthy food. Most effort goes into prepping the dishes, making them out of conventional ingredients is a pure waste of time. This is my opinion, someone else might see it differently.



Mannatural Etelmanufaktura plate Budapest, Hungary, Mannatural Ételmanufaktúra

Mannatural Etelmanufaktura adress Budapest, Hungary, Mannatural Ételmanufaktúra

Tips

The food is absolutely worth trying if you are into raw foods and are not so much into organic, or would make an exception. For everyone who eats everything it’s a great way to try new flavours and textures.


It was a holiday weekend, so hardly anyone at the restaurant. There was not much in the display and no visible menu in English or Hungarian I could have chosen from. Just pre-made salads in the display, the 4 pre-made smoothies and the cakes. Maybe another day there will be more variety. It also seems to be better to come earlier, as the salads are being made in the morning and once sold out, they are gone for the day.

Mannatural Etelmanufaktura door Budapest, Hungary

M.A.K.E. | LA, USA (Closed)

make restaurant raw vegan

Long, long ago

It has been 2 years since our visit to M.A.K.E., and we still talk a lot about their food. This year we rented a place in Santa Monica, the second day we went for a walk and ended up in the mall where M.A.K.E. is supposed to be. We found a space closed for renovation. It must have been so recent, there was no mention of this on the internet whatsoever. Friends told us rumours, but we couldn’t believe it till we saw it. It’s a big loss for the raw food lovers. We have been here 6-7 times and would love to share some of the food we had with you.


What we had


cheeses make restaurant raw vegan

Tree Nut Cheeses

Sweet mustard, market fruit, fennel chips.

The cheeses ($14) are delicious. The smoked cheese is my fav. The mustard is exceptional. Sweet, mild and flavorful.

kimchi dumplings make restaurant raw vegan

Kimchi dumpling

With sesame foam & coreander.

Beautful little treats ($11). I’ve never had kimchi before and this dish inspired me to make my own kimchi, I filnmed a video and it’s my most watched video to this day.

lasagne make restaurant raw vegan

Market Tomato Lasagne

With macadamia, Santa Barbara pistachios, & basil.

One of the dishes ($16) I was looking forward to try and wasn’t disappointed. The sauces are amazing.

soup make restaurant raw vegan

Bartlett Pear Soup.

With young celery & juniper oil.

dessert amke out make restaurant raw vegan

Take out deserts

A little dry but beautiful.

sweets amke out make restaurant raw vegan

Tips

Some of the dishes are served at MAKE OUT and PLANT FOOD AND WINE in L.A.
Both places are not entirely raw and don’t have the exciting menu M.A.K.E. used to have.

la make restaurant raw vegan

Rockin’Raw


8rockinraw

Anniversary lunch

It’s our one year anniversary. We got married exactly one year before in Berlin and went out for a raw vegan dinner. It should become a tradition, so we thought. We’ve been to Pure Food and Wine and we have couple more restaurants to try. Rackin’Raw is the next on the list.

What we had

Rockinraw nyv raw vegan FULLY LOADED NACHOS

FULLY LOADED NACHOS

Seasoned flax chips fully loaded with seed meat, sour cream, nacho cheese and guacamole, good for two people.

Everything about this dish ($14) was perfect. The guacamole, the other sauces, the meat. It was definetely a portion for 2 people. Great taste & value! The zebra plate the nachos were served on was just ugly, it hurt my eyes.

Rockinraw nyv raw vegan eggplant aji

EGGPLANT AJI

Breaded eggplant tossed in a creamy yellow pepper aji sauce – Spicy.

This might be one of the best raw dishes ($9) made out of an eggplant. The aji sauce tasted great. I can’t really tell what the chef has done to the eggplant, but he transformed it into some kine of meat. Amazing! My husband found it too spicy, but I loved the spiciness of it. It deserves to cost more than it does. It might e an easy to make dish but still, very great value.


Rockinraw nyc raw vegan cheezy burrito

CHEEZY BURRITO

Mixed greens, salsa, guacamole, seed meat, sour cream, nacho cheese wrapped in a sundried tomato wrap served with Cajun Jicama Fries or Chips.

The burrito was delicious. More of the yummy dressings and meat we had on the nachos.

Rockinraw nyc raw vegan 5rochiraw

10rockinraw

Chocolate Cake with Vanilla Frosting

I’ve read so many great review on the dessert here and my husband really liked the cake we ordered. I really hated this cake. It was oat and flax based and contained for my taste too much coconut, it was heavy and tasted like dried mud with vanilla. I wish I could have tried 5 small size desserts instead, I’m sure I would have liked other desserts better than this cake.

Rockinraw nyc raw vegan

Tips

Bring friends and share the food. Try many things. The servings are pretty lange so you can share everything with 4-5 friends easily. Swapping and sampling is fun.

Rockinraw nyc raw vegan

Rockinraw nyc raw vegan

Quintessence | NYC, USA


2 Quintessence NYC raw vegan

Quite brunch in NYC

We usually work at home on Sundays, but today we decided to eat out. I was not in the mood of meeting new people of being in a crowded place, so I was pleasantly surprised that Quintessence was not too busy. We got a great table by the window so our little camera had a chance to take a decent picture of the delicious food. First thing, we got a green juice sample and a raw soup sample. The green juice was delicious, but I was in the mood for some solid food. The soup tasted slightly bitter and was olive oil based, I’m not a fan of oily soups though.

What we had

Fofu Florentine

Fofu Florentine

Sprouted Kamut Bread, Marinated Spinach, Avocado, Fofu, Hollandaise Sauce, Caramelized Onions, and Black Pepper.

I assumed that fotu is kind of raw tofu. But it was soft, very soft. Plain and wobbly. It didn’t taste bad, it didn’t taste like anything at all. It’s Brunch time, let’s forget the tofu and focus on what’s on my plate, this fofu dish could although be the perfect breakfast egg, it’s got the texture of an egg white for sure. And with the delicious Hollandaise sauce and creamy avocado, the breakfast egg is complete.

2 Avocado Florentine

Avocado Florentine

Avocado, Tomato, Sprouted Kamut Bread, Hollandaise Sauce, Caramelized Onions, and Black Pepper.

More of the delicious Hollandaise. And avocado. Delicious.

Avocado Florentine


2 All American Burger with BBQ Sauce

All American Burger with BBQ Sauce

Sprouted Kamut Bread, Veggie Burger, Tomato, Onion, Sweet Pickles, Romaine Lettuce, BBQ Sauce, and Mustard.

The burger was very delicious. Easy to eat. So many yummy layers perfectly assambled.

All American Burger with BBQ Sauce
3 All American Burger with BBQ Sauce

Chocolate Lava Cake

Chocolate Lava Cake

Pecans, Coconut, Dates, Cacao, Avocado, Vanilla, Sea Salt, Coconut Sugar, and Stevia.

I was waiting for a soft, decadent cake, as the menu promises. I found the cake crust dry, not sweet at all, the melting lava filling was very good though.

Chocolate Lava Cake raw vegan


ice ceram quintessence

Ice Cream.

Ice, macadamia nuts.

The ice cream was actually pretty good. I love macadamia nuts, they taste so “real”-milk like.


The Quintessence Experience

It’s a great lower price option for eating out raw in NYC. The food is not necessarily made “cheap”, it’s actually very great value, creative, some dishes were absolutely new to me. The location is great, right around the corner from where we live. We instantly felt welcome and relaxed. But after starting to eat, we didn’t like the place so much anymore, it had to do with the way the place was run on the particular day was an other thing. There was a very loud annoying customer who was not even eating anything and didn’t have a life to go to apparently, so he shared his boring life with the waitress in the loudest way a male human can talk without to scream. He didn’t stop for an hour. She was pretty much consumed by him and her waiting performance suffered a little. We kindly asked her to shut him up, she was not able to do anything about it, but was very sorry about it. Am I too sensitive? Should I say something to the persons face?
This is what I’m talking about.

Tips

Be prepared to try new things. The dishes taste very different, make sure to try at least couple pf them.

4 All American Burger with BBQ Sauce

Quintessence NYC raw vegan

Pure Food and Wine (closed)

<guacamole pure food and wine nyc raw vegan copy

Birthday lunch, dinner with friends.

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dinner friends pure food wine new york city restaurant

What we had

friends dining pure food and wine nyc raw vegan copy
falafel salad plate pure food and wine nyc raw vegan

Falafel Salad

Falafel with tabhouli. Tossed with greens, lemon tahini, and red pepper hot sauce.

This falafel salad ($16) is one of the kind and a true speciality of this raw vegan restaurant. It doesn’t happen all too often that I get the maximum satisfaction from just one dish. This salad is so delicious that I had it t least 10 times during our time in NYC. The tabbouleh is light and well seasoned. The falafel are the best ever. Hearty, nutty, meaty, with the Mediterranean flavor you would expect, plus a touch of sweetness. On the outside dense, on the inside moist. So delicious. I wish I could eat a plate full of falafel balls, but honestly, after eating 3-4 of them, I’m full. This salad goes straight onto my fav food list! Check it out if you want to know what else I loved eating.

falafel salad pure food and wine nyc raw vegan


tacos guacamole pure food and wine nyc raw vegan copy

Tortilla wraps

Spicy sun-dried tomato filling, corn cilantro guacamole, tomato-lime salsa, cashew sour cream.

For those who love guacamole, these tortillas ($19) are a real treat. The shells are awesome. If you’ve ever tried to make them in a dehydrator, you can tell how hard, if not impossible, it is to make such perfect ones. Beautiful and delicious. The only thing I didn’t like, was the cashew sour cream. It tasted like yeast to me.

tacos pure food and wine nyc raw vegan
tachos plate guac pure food and wine nyc raw vegan

lasagne plate pure food and wine nyc raw vegan

Zucchini and heirloom tomato lasagna

Sun-dried tomato sauce, pistachio basil pesto, pumpkin seed macadamia ricotta.

I wasn’t expecting to like this lasagne ($21). I’m not a zucchini fan. And here, such this zucchini slices. But, everything I though by looking at it was wrong. Just wrong. This lasagne is so perfect, so delicious, the zucchini slices just like they are supposed to be. The 3 sauces delicious. Delicious in combination. Delicious on their own. I was a huge lasagne fan back in my cooking days. As I started to eat raw, I was ready to give up lasagne suspecting that there is no way to make lasagne from veggies and nuts. Pure Food and Wine prooved me wrong, there is a way to make a raw lasagne that tastes better than a backed one.


lasagne zucchini pure food and wine nyc raw vegan


nachos pure food and wine nyc raw vegan

House-made chips and guacamole.

Corn cilantro guacamole, chili-lime chips

You can’t go wrong with chips and guacamole ($15). Creamy rich guacamole with thin crispy chips. The perfect appetiser or a main. Depending on how much you eat.


lunch friends pure food wine new york city

tacos salad pure food and wine nyc raw vegan copy
tacos salad 2 pure food and wine nyc raw vegan copy

Mediterranean Salad

Arugula, kale, kalamata olives, tomatoes, pumpkin seed macadamia parmesan, balsamic vinaigrette.

This salad ($15) was an accident. If you have been reading my other reviews, you might know that I don’t order salads so much. Why? Because they are easy to make and because I make the best salads. So what happened here? We took the prix fixe lunch and I had to choose a salad. This one sounded the best and I’m glad I got to try it. Besides the salty olives and the oily dressing, the macadamia cheese came to the rescue and promoted this simple salad to a worth-trying one.


tiramisu pure food and wine nyc raw vegan

Tiramisu

Flax-based garlic bread. Served with herbed olive oil dip.

We tried couple of dessert here, tiramisu ($7 for half the serving) is our second favorite. Our favorite dessert, mallomar, is getting its own page here. Back to the amazing tiramisu. It totally resables the tiramisu. The flavors, the textures. Amazing what chefs are creating here at Purer Food and Wine.

The Pure Food and Wine Experience

We dined here several times. Always on the patio. In great company, with 20 friends, or just us. Every time was amazing. I couldn’t think of anythink that wasn’t perfect. The service, the atmosphere, the food.

Tips

Definitely try different dishes. Go with 2-3 friends and share everything.

lunch dining pure food and wine nyc raw vegan copy

friends pure food and wine nyc raw vegan copy

wraps pure food and wine nyc raw vegan copy

rolls pure food and wine nyc raw vegan copy

Falafel salad

falafel salad taboule and tahini dressing

Inspired by the amazing raw vegan falafel salads I had in NYC and Los Angeles, I made my own version of falafel keeping it as low in fat as possible and salt-free. Last year, I was literally obsessed with the falafel salad at Pure Food and Wine7One Lucky Duck and had it at least 10 times out of 12 visits. Coming to L.A., I didn’t expect to get served an equally amazing falafel salad at The Springs, but I got one. Back in Berlin, I’m enjoying fantastic falafel balls, dehydrator warm.

falafel salad dehydrated romatoes
falafel salad lime juice

falafel salad dressing raw vegan

falafel salad taboulleh vegan raw cauliflower

falafel salad plate raw vegan

walnut falafel recipe

Falafel balls

Published:
      Food Processor, Dehydrator, (Coffee Grinder)    

Falafel Ingredients

1 cup raw, organic
walnuts
2 cups organic
mushrooms
1 ripe, organic
tomato
18 cup organic
onion
1 glove organic
garlic
14 cup organic
flax seeds
to taste organic
cumin
to taste organic
chili
to taste organic
black pepper
to taste dried, organic
parsley
to taste organic
nutmeg
to taste organic
cilantro seeds
to taste organic
cloves
to taste organic
cardamom
to taste organic
cinnamon
Place the walnuts into a food processor and process till they turn into a fine, fluffy, sticky powder. Place the flax seeds into a coffee grinder and process toll they turn into white flour. You can try it with the food processor or your blender, but I had more success with the grinder. Now, add the spice to the grinder if you are using whole ones. Otherwise, add everything you have so far and the spices to a medium size bowl. Add the mushrooms to the food processor and shred them into small peaces, but stop before you turn them into a mush. Add the mushrooms to the bowl. Once again, process the remaining ingredients just a little. 10 seconds too long, and you will end up with tomato juice, but we are looking for small peaces here. Combine all the ingredients using your very own clean hands. Form falafel balls of desired size and dehydrate them over night at 105ºF.
To shape the balls easily, I used a small ice cream spoon. As I'm using stainless steal sheets in my dehydrator, I need to dehydrate my falafel on baking paper for the first 4 hours. Then, I place them directly onto the sheets. If you are using plastic sheets, you might be able to place the falafel balls directly onto the sheets. The spices are optional and you can use what you like as long as it stays within the Arab cuisine range. I used organic store-bought spice mixes which explains the long ingredient list.

How to make tabbouleh

I have a recipe video on how to make raw vegan tabouleh, it’s really easy and delicious.