Nama - Vegan Raw Food Restaurant

On Sunday I went to Nama, a raw vegan restaurant in Notting Hill, with three of my lovely friends Lucy, Frankie and Georgie. This was my first trip to a fully raw vegan restaurant - very exciting!

Having been a vegetarian pretty much my entire life, it was a new (and really amazing) experience for me to be able to pick absolutely anything from the menu - usually I just give it a quick scan for the little v sign.. Anyway, so Nama had me at the menu. There is a huge choice of a range of different foods, from wraps and salads to pizzas, curries and spaghetti dishes - and ALL the food is unprocessed, free from dairy, wheat and refined sugar.

I had the 'Italian Pizza'. The base was made from courgette and walnuts and it had the most delicious tomato sauce topped with a nut and seed 'cheese', caramelised onions, mushrooms, olives and sun dried tomatoes. It was amazing.

The Italian Pizza

Frankie had chilli which was made from walnuts, carrot, mushroom and pepper, with guacamole, vegan sour cream and corn chips - so yummy!

Frankie's chilli

Lucy and Georgie went for zucchini pasta with tomato sauce, caramelised onions, sun dried tomatoes, olives and mushrooms which was also really yummy (I tried them all..)

Beautiful Lucy with her zucchini pasta

After my unprocessed, raw, vegan pizza I felt like something sweet so I had a lovely little bottle of chocolate nut milk. Frankie ordered the chocolate ganache tart which we all had a little taste of - it genuinely tasted better than any other sugar-filled, processed chocolatey tart I've had in the past; the coconutty base made it incredible.

Chocolate ganache tart

Gorgeous Georgie with her chai tea, almond milk and coconut sugar (she was obsessed with that teapot)

I definitely recommend Nama to anyone who is interested in trying out some amazing raw vegan food!

Oat & Banana Energy Balls

I made these a while ago when I did the London to Brighton bike ride to keep my energy up for the 56 miles!

They're really quick and easy to make and you can either bake them or eat them raw, both options are really yummy.

This recipe makes about 15 energy balls but obviously this depends on how big/small you want to make them.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups of gluten free oats
• 1 cup ground almonds
• 2 ripe bananas
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tbsp agave nectar
• 1 tsp Organic Burst's Maca powder (for an extra energy kick)
• Handful of dried cranberries or any other dried fruit (optional) 

Method

1. Mash the bananas into a bowl
2. Add all the other ingredients and mix well until it forms a doughy kind of mixture
3. Shape the mixture into bite-size balls
4. To bake place on a baking tray greased with a little coconut oil
5. To eat raw, refrigerate them for about an hour

These were a great snack during the ride as you can just pop them in your mouth. Also it's a common misconception that snacks that are high in refined sugar like haribo and many types of cereal bars are good for energy - they are at first but then because of all the sugar you are likely to have an energy 'spike' and then crash after a little while, which is not ideal.

Enjoy!