Enjoy a Rawnchy start to the year
Raw food and hot vegan dishes café are big on health – and on taste
Welcome to day one of January. It’s 2022 and I hope it brings you health, happiness and a splendid steak pie with plenty of mashed potatoes and peas on the side.
But today also marks the start of Veganuary and dry January. It’s national make a resolution day, also known as thundering hangover day.
Are all these connected? It’s traditional, after the bonkers overindulgence of the festive season, to plan an austere start to the year. Vigorous exercise, early nights, light meals made mainly (or solely) of plants beckon.
By this point, most of us are ready to eat something that is not wrapped in bacon or roasted in goose fat and wash it down with something other than prosecco. But January is long, the days are short and dark and spinach salads are not exactly comfort food.
This is where Rawnchy may be able to help. Even the name, the perfect pun for a business that started making beautiful cakes from uncooked ingredients, is cheering.
It has now expanded well beyond its first premises in Maryhill and has a small and cute café in Dennistoun. There are still raw cakes but also hot vegan food and exuberant floral drinks made with plant-based milks.
On a Saturday afternoon it is filled with young people in funny trousers with asymmetric haircuts and incomprehensible tattoos. One couple is having a raw afternoon tea, served on a traditional tiered cake plate.
I am the oldest customer by a good 30 years.
My 24-year-old daughter looks around approvingly. She’s always up for a lavender latte with her old maw.
The menu is breakfast-brunchy, with pancakes, things on toast, toasties, tacos and waffles. Fillings include cheeze, huney, chick’n and lobster made out of jackfruit.
There are a few specials, including porridge of the day with miso, maple syrup and persimmon. This very much had
my attention but did not feel in the spirit of self-denial January.
Instead, I opted for soup. Cabbage soup. If any dish screams New Year’s resolution, this is it. I had visions of the evil vegetable broth that formed the basis of a popular diet in the 90s, a watery witch’s brew of cooked coleslaw with tinned tomatoes as the base note. This was not that.
Instead, it was about as rich as a creamy vegan soup gets. I could tell there was cabbage in there but it didn’t announce itself with that bitter smell that hangs around in old hotel dining rooms. It was thickened with potato and savoury with plenty of seasoning. A good hit of chives on top gave a sweet oniony contrast. The accompanying sourdough toast was a fine slice of crunch. I would have preferred butter, or even olive oil, to vegan spread but not so much that I didn’t finish it.
The Millennial stopped reading the menu at the Big Rawnchy Breakfast. It sounded epic and what arrived was a magnificent platter of hot morning nourishment.
I had initial doubts about the “bacon”, made in-house. The two thin oblongs were the rich oxblood colour Paul McCartney used to dye his hair. It looked nothing like the real thing but it did deliver a salty, chewy hit. The flavourings were perhaps more from the barbecue spectrum than the usual rashers of smoked back but it worked pretty well.
The supporting cast was strong – butter beans in a smoky tomato sauce, garlicky mushrooms, a decadent pile of fried potatoes. There was even a small amount of spinach hiding between the ketchup and toast.
She made a solid attempt but, half way through, faced a dilemma. Finish the totties or leave room for a cake?
After studying the glassfronted display of uncooked magnificence, she requested a takeaway box and a slice of strawberry and matcha cake.
This is the kind of confection that built Rawnchy’s reputation – an Instagramtastic combination of fruit and oats, artfully sprinkled with rose petals.
My chocolate and caramel brownie was more obviously raw – flatter than the baked version, to say nothing of denser, fruitier and more chewy. If I had vowed not to eat actual chocolate or caramel for 31 days, I would be all over this. Even without such a rash promise, it went down well.
Rawnchy has such a sweet, cheerful aura, and such pretty hot drinks, that it’s impossible to be the grouch who wants a double cheeseburger. It is serotonin in snack form and every variety of January needs a bit of that.