Plantiful Superfoods - Healthy Eating Without Sacrifice.
/
So often health food establishments try hard to convince people that they should eat healthy. That this is the right thing to do no matter what. But all too often “plant-based food” doesn’t appeal to the average eater. One tends to hear descriptions like “soybean sawdust”, “cardboard with ketchup,” “almond-soaked styrofoam” or just plain “terrible.” But what if a health food joint tried to attract eaters who think about delicious food first, and the positive benefits of that food second? The real question then would be: Why not eat healthy if the food is delicious? The answer: Plantiful Superfoods, a sleek new plant-based restaurant in Kirkland with non-meat eats that will knock your Birkenstocks off.
Walking into Plantiful gives you a feeling of someplace special and upbeat. Everything is clean and bright, with simple white walls highlighting an energetic plant mural and enthralling photos of the food flipping by on hi-def video screens. Perusing the menu reveals that this place specializes in superfoods — whether in their variety of smoothie options, purpose-driven bowls or turmeric and matcha lattes. But here’s the kicker: also on the menu at this almost-vegan venue are burgers and pizzas.
Many of the offerings reflect flavor trends that are sweeping America’s fast-casual palate, including Vietnamese, Korean, Mexican and Southwest. It makes good sense to offer the food that people want to eat, rather than just pushing the healthy angle. Like the Banh Mi Burger — everything in this sandwich is plant based but you would never know it. From the first bite it delivers a completely meat-like experience; a muscle texture and toothiness of the lemongrass-infused patty nestled amongst crisp cucumbers, pickled daikon, carrots, red cabbage and fresh herbs. The mouthfeel of the patty is completely porcine, the fibres holding it all together like proteins rather than crumbling apart like so many wannabes. The plant-based umami sauce delivers a smooth sense of fattiness that even the best aiolis strive for. Most importantly, a bite into this sandwich is a delicious, fresh banh mi burger experience that you will never fully believe is not the real deal. It stands up to any real-meat competitor this side of Ho Chi Minh City.
Açai bowls seem all the rage in the plant-based eating universe these days, but some taste less like food than they do medicine to choke down. At Plantiful the açai bowls eat like gourmet, fruity desserts, as do the purpose-made concoctions including the Super Bowl (for recovery), the Incredibowl Hulk (for detox), and the Rainbowl (for immunity). Each has some combination of superfood, like dragon fruit (pitaya), spirulina, and other high-protein ingredients. And they’re as good as any fruit forward dish you could want, healthy or otherwise.
Owners Luan Duong and Son Nguyen believe that if you keep flavors in balance, manage the textures and prepare it beautifully, you can make food that is not only good for you, but that tastes good, too. So they developed plant-based alternatives to non-vegan essentials, including a cauliflower pizza crust, a mixture of plant cheeses that actually taste like cheese and three kinds of meat substitutes — each tweaked to deliver better flavor and texture. “We experimented with most recipes more than 60 times before getting them right,” explains Luan. “Our families, friends and staff were our guinea pigs along the way, and the flavors gradually balanced out.” They incorporate ingredients that create distinct differences in flavor — including nine varieties of seaweed — each with a specific taste or texture to suit the recipe. These are just some of the things which make the food at Plantiful so good that, health-minded or not, you’ll go back for more. And that’s spoken by an unabashed carnivore who prefers sour cream over silken tofu and an extra pork chop over dessert. So when I say Plantiful Superfoods is “good,” I don’t mean “health food good’ - I mean Foodwalker good or, in other words, Damn Delicious.
