Life

Rebel with a cause: Raw Food Rebellion, Lisburn Road, Belfast

&nbsp;Raw Food Rebellion, 336 Lisburn Road, Belfast<br /><br />07711 933656
 Raw Food Rebellion, 336 Lisburn Road, Belfast

07711 933656
 Raw Food Rebellion, 336 Lisburn Road, Belfast

07711 933656

MY wife and I once shared a table at a wedding with a couple who were cutting loose that weekend and taking a break from their 'paleo' diet.

In the normal run of things, they only ate foods that would have been available to our cavemen (and women) forebears.

So, lots of fruit and veg, nuts and seeds, fish and meat.

No diary, no pasta, no bread and, until fossil evidence turns up a fragment of plastic that says 'fill level' on it, absolutely no Pot Noodles.

They also abstained from added sugar and salt – but not that particular Saturday night.

Between their soup and their turkey and ham they piled enough salt onto their plates that anyone walking past table six might have thought they'd stumbled upon a recreation of the scene from Scarface where Al Pacino's Tony Montana is nose-deep in a mountain of Colombian marching powder.

Maybe their paleo diet is so flavourful that a return to the ways of the modern world revealed its food to be shockingly bland.

Or maybe living on caveman grub meant their tastebuds were crying out for seasoning – even when the chef has already taken care of it.

I was reminded of my one brush with paleo eating when I visited the Twitter page of Raw Food Rebellion, a cafe on the Lisburn Road in south Belfast that, according to its profile, offers "vegan, paleo, dairy free, gluten free, wheat free, guilt free and gorgeous food and bevs".

Not really caring if my food is any of the above apart from gorgeous, a trip to the cafe for lunch was undertaken with a narrow focus – something tasty to eat.

While diners who restrict what they eat due to medical, health, ethical or fussiness requirements are catered for, there's enough tastiness on offer at Raw Food Rebellion to satisfy everyone else too.

A trip for a late lunch on a Thursday found the small, bright cafe almost full.

After nabbing the one remaining table we found the friendly, helpful, efficient staff eager to answer any menu questions.

Everything was vegan, not everything was 'paleo' and nor, despite the name above the door, was everything raw.

The all-day lunch menu – they also serve breakfast – had two nods to the application of heat: a Malaysian sweet potato, chickpea and spinach curry, and a roasted chickpea Caesar salad.

My wife chose the salad while the Mighty Mexican Sandwich's big talk of 'famous pickled red onions' was enough for me.

The salad of kale and cos lettuce came tossed in an excellent garlic-laden dressing with herbed cashew nut cheese (don't be scared) and, the stars of the show – roasted chickpeas – that added smoke, crunch and the hope the vending machine at work might stock them in bags next to the Tayto.

The pickled onions' fame may be a little unearned – think Kim Kardashian – but along with similarly vinegared shredded red cabbage and carrot they provided the perfect crunchy, spiky contrast to the very garlicky, but very good, guacamole in the Mighty Mexican.

Everything sat on a flax seed number that skilfully avoid the you-could-rob-a-post-office-with-this level of denseness that sort of bread can often inflict.

It was a very good lunch – although at £6.95, not a cheap one.

The honestly not that scary cashew nut cheese also featured in the less successful, though not at all bad, slices of cheesecake.

My wife's caramel choice came closer to what you think of as a cheesecake than my blackberry, rose and lime slice, though the best bit of both was the oaty, nutty, datey mixture that formed the bases.

If anything disappointed, it was the sweeter side of things, with a takeaway selection of 'bliss balls' – essentially sweets of rolled up combinations of nuts and oils and the like – ranging from the sickly, peculiar tasting cookie dough to the perfectly sweet, delicious oat and raisin.

A hot chocolate made with hazelnut 'mylk' was just okay, but the best stuff to drink at Raw Food Rebellion (apart from the excellent soft drinks from local producer Panacea) are the smoothies and shakes.

While my Taylor Swift (don't tell those Kardashian onions) monikered 'Swifty's' combination of pineapple, flax seed, green tea, coconut oil and vanilla would have been even better with just a little more sweetness, across the table the 'Jay-Z' was a sharp, spicy mix of orange, lemon, ginger, cayenne and maple syrup.

All ingredients were present, correct and perfectly balanced. Even the strictest caveman couldn't complain about that.

The bill

Roasted chickpea Caesar salad – £7.25

Mighty Mexican sandwich – £6.95

Caramel Slice cheesecake – £4.95

Blackberry, lime and rose cheesecake – £4

Hot chocolate – £3

Panacea soft drink – £3

Jay-Z shake – £3.95

Swifty shake – £3.95

Bliss balls – £1.50 x 5

Total – £45.55