The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
New year, new diet?
If you’ve resolved to eat healthier in 2019, you may consider visiting two Mentor spots for inspiration
A pair of women operating two of the dozens of restaurants along Mentor Avenue in Mentor are helping to bring change to the way people eat.
Both places — Urban Soul Grille and CLE Juice Box — put the focus on vegan preparations but showcase two entirely different lifestyle choices. Most of their business is carryout, giving those who wish to sample vegan eating the opportunity to try the foods at home.
Unlike vegetarians, who eat fish, honey, eggs and cheeses, vegans consume no animal products.
Ebony Thomas, who opened Urban Soul in the summer in a space once dedicated to pizza at 7502 Mentor Ave., serves traditional soul food remembered from her girlhood in Cleveland but with a vegan twist. She began cooking at her Southern-born grandmother’s side when she was just 5.
“I had a restaurant in Cleveland where I served soul food,” she said. “Because I had friends who were vegetarians, I adapted some of my recipes for them. One of them showed the dishes on Facebook, and suddenly I had more than 1,000 hits.”
That’s when she figured she was on to something.
“I became really good with vegan ingredients,” she said. “And people were loving it.”
Using vegetables, nuts and seitan in place of meat soon became second nature to her. Her fiance and business partner, Kelvin Davis, learned how and joined her at Urban Soul when it became established in July. They now are working toward adding more tofubased dishes to their repertoire and will soon roll out a new menu with options for diners to build their own bowls, salads or wraps.
Plant-based seitan is wheat gluten made by washing wheat flour dough with water until starch granules have been removed. When it’s cooked with other ingredients, it takes on their flavors. She also uses jackfruit, banana blossoms and other uncommon plant ingredients.
Thomas’ Southern Style Soul Rolls and Boneless “Wings” quickly became menu favorites. Both are deep fried in canola oil. The Soul Rolls combine mixed greens, red bean and rice with peppers all wrapped in an eggless roll before being deep fried. The “wings” are chunks of cauliflower battered and deep fried and served with homemade barbecue or buffalo sauce.
Other customer favorites include “chicken” and waffles, fried “fish,” BBQ “ribs” and a vegan smoked “sausage” called a Polish Boy.
“Our food looks like chicken, pork and beef,” said Thomas.
It’s the combinations of sauces and condiments that give dishes their soul food flavors.
When switching to a vegan diet, it’s important to think about the cravings experienced for the former diet, says Erika Zakrajsek, owner of CLE Juice Box, a few miles to the east on Mentor Avenue.
“A lot of it is perception,” she said, noting that when she became a vegetarian, she realized it was the condiments and sauces she most missed when cravings for a hot dog or ribs arose.
The menu of freshly made vegetable and fruit juices on which her business was begun in 2015 has since seen the addition of veggie burgers, soups, salads and spring rolls. Fresh juices and other menu items are made each day
CLE Juice Box is open: Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.
“I fuel on our juices,” said Zakrajsek, who ran 28 marathons and a 50-mile race in 2018. The juices and other foods all have names taken from rock and roll.
Her Kent State studies in nutrition and personal experience have led to discovering that the celery-based juices are good for gut health and energy, while the beet-based juices oxygenate and detox the blood.
“Powerage is our customers’ favorite, especially for those with kids,” she said. “We even made frozen popsicles from it last summer.”
The bright-orange Powerage is a mixture of carrot, apple, lemon, ginger and turmeric juices, she explained while pulling out a fresh rhizome of turmeric to show what it looks like. Turmeric is available fresh at the Mentor Heinen’s, just up the street, so customers who use recipes on the CLE Juice Box website have a ready source for their ingredients.
A newly created juice — De Puff Daddy — stands to become another favorite. Made of juiced fennel, celery and dandelion, it reduces bloating and relieves pain, she said.
“Some customers stop by on their lunch hours and drink their juice on the way back to work,” she said. “I’ve had many of them call me to say they felt better by the time they finished their juice.”
The juice goes immediately into to blood stream, she said, without the timeand energy-consuming process of digestion.
Just as she shares her
own recipes, customers share theirs with her. Some foods even make it onto to the Juice Box menu, such
as the African Peanut Stew from Zakrajsek’s friend Janis Nelson she’s sharing today.