Love Life Alive — William Charleton

This past week, Life Alive was kind enough to invite me to try a few new additions to the menu. And I was not disaapointed. I’ve always been a fan of Live Alive. Been going since ’08. I even worked as a dishwasher for a short while, before being fired. No hard feelings. Still love the place.

While I love the consistency and pretty much always know what I’m going to get, it’s nice to have a few new additions. I was actually have lunch at Life Alive, when I received the invitation to try the new menu items. I was chowing down on the newly added Devil Eggs with Cashew Aioli.

So the tasting started out with the Life Alive Tonic. I think it’s their signature juice. I loved it. It was a pineapple base with flavorful herbs like mint and cilantro. I love cilantro and pineapple, it’s a great combination. The spice from the jalapeño wasn’t overly stimulating and balanced the drink out nicely. Finished off with a hint of green apple. Leah instructed us to savor it, and notice how the flavor changes as the ice melts and as we acclimate to the spice.

Next up were the Devil Eggs. I love eggs. I thought these were funny because they’re eggs, with vegan spiced cashew aioli. I don’t think you’d know it though. The flavors were all there, and topped with a pickled pepper, smoked paprika and sea salt. Perfect appetizer.

The eggs were followed by the Aphrodite Hummus Bowl. What stood out for me in this dish was variety. There was salty, there was sour, there was sweet. Creamy, crunchy and tender. Sliced pickled carrots scattered throughout also added a nice little bite and digestif. Marinated cauliflower was "piled" atop smooth hummus with tomato, radish, cucumber olive, the aforementioned carrots, covered in a spicy lemon vinaigrette. Topped with zucchini chips that added a really nice touch (crunch) and facilitated faster hummus consumption.

Street corn is all the rage. It's trending, at least in Boston. However, most of the time it’s at a restaurant, I’m assuming the corn is genetically modified, it’s probably burned and carcinogenic and then loaded with cheese that has a spray-like consistency.

Not the case here. The corn was perfectly tender. The nutritional yeast gave all the cheese flavor that was necessary and had a nice smokey aspect. And there was more aioli, although this time lemon garlic.

The last real dish was tofu peanut satay. It was amazing. And I don’t even really tofu. The peanut sauce was perfect, and paired really well with the sprouted nut and seed mix. There was something velvety about the tofu too. I'm not sure if it was specific to the tofu or the marinade or both. Along with the peanut-marinated tofu was a sesame ginger vinaigrette, which perfectly balanced the salty-sweet of the tofu.

All of this was followed by a raw cacao truffle. I ate it before I took a photo. But honestly, it looked like a regular truffle. You don't really know how good and smooth and uplifting it is until you eat it. It was just a simple, truffle made with high quality ingredients so you can't really go wrong. Mine was dusted in coconut flakes, however I've gotten goji in the past and believe there are other options as well.

Just so you know, I ate everything. I love all the sprouts and sprouted seed and pickle additions. "The details are not the details, they're the design." and that's exemplified here. Everything is so intentional, that it has to be good! From sourcing local and organic ingredients, to perfectly balancing meals with a great variety of ingredients. Let me know when you want to go! They gave me a gift card. :)