KindMeal Review: Greenlicious @ 10 Boulevard Petaling Jaya

I live but a short bike ride away from Greenlicious Restaurant, 10 Boulevard, and dine and shop there so regularly that when requested to review the restaurant and meal deal for KindMeal.my, I agreed with the smug satisfaction of a preschooler who has just been asked to introduce his mother to his classroom.

 

 

Greenlicious is a lifestyle restaurant and cafe that not only serves food but also sells organic, vegan and health products. It is here that I get to purchase personal care products from certified vegan brands such as Florame and Living Nature NZ.

 

I downloaded the 30% Discount KindMeal voucher and invited two of my best friends, Nicole and Aravind, to join me for dinner on a Saturday evening after helping out at the SPCA shelter.

 

 

While Greenlicious is not an exclusively vegetarian restaurant, it does have a wide variety of vegetarian and vegan products and food. I believe its animal-based dishes are prepared with organic and free-range meat, but since I am a herbivore, I usually skip those parts of the menu. The menu is an incredibly helpful one, with clear coloured symbols indicating if a particular dish is vegan, vegetarian, ovo, lacto, ovo-lacto or onion-and-garlic-free vegetarian (for Mahayana Buddhists, Brahmins and Hare Krishna adherents).

 

 

The mysterious thing about the menu is that it also has symbols indicating the percentage of the dish that is organic. How does one come to the evaluation that my Lei Cha King is 90% organic, I wonder? Does it mean that out of 20 ingredients, 18 are organic, and 2 are conventionally-grown? I love their transparency and accountability to their customers by posting such information, but I ended up doing a lot of arithmetic in my head each time I dine there.

 

 

For drinks, Nicole ordered the wolfberry chrysanthemum tea (RM6.90), Aravind ordered the iced honey lemon vinegar drink (RM7.90) and I ordered the barleygrass lemon drink (RM7.90). Nic's wolfberry chrysanthemum tea is a comforting warm beverage with strong floral and herbal notes. Aravind surprised me with his choice of lemon and vinegar because he isn't usually a fan of anything sour or vinegary, but the drink was a lot milder-tasting than it sounds and was sweet and palatable. I've always loved food and drinks with strong notes of chlorophyll (e.g. wheatgrass, barleygrass, alfalfa) and the barleygrass lemon drink hit the spot with its grassy sweet flavour and citrus accent.

 

 

Nicole ordered the House Vegetarian Unagi Don (RM17.90). Aravind had wanted the individual steamboat but it was sold out, and so he opted for the Mixed Vege Beehoon Soup (RM18.90) instead, surprising me yet again with the uncharacteristic healthfulness of his choice. I asked him if he was alright, and his cryptic answer was that he was tired. This was for once justified -- we had spent most of the morning clearing weeds and rubble at the Malaysian Nature Society Urban Nature Centre in order to convert the place into a seed bank and community garden, and Aravind was probably too overcome with fatigue to eat something complicated that would take a long time to consume and digest.

I usually order Nasi Lemak Tower when on my own. I was hooked from the day my friends Sheela, Liza and Illani invited me here for my birthday in 2012. But I decided to order Lei Cha King (RM18.90) for a change, since it looked like a veritable rainbow in the menu.

 

 

Aravind's Mixed Vege Beehoon Soup would win a nutritionist's award, with its variety of organic vegetables. The soup is very clear and mild-tasting, with plump wolfberries swimming around in it. The mushrooms added texture and were perfect as a meat alternative. If ever any dish exemplified clean eating, this would be it. Aravind, true to his nature, requested chili padi in soy sauce, without which he could never eat anything.

 

 

Look at him, eating all those healthsome vegetables. I want to email this photo to his father. Uncle, look! Aravind is actually eating his vegetables! The sky is falling!

 

Nic was quite pumped up about her unagi don, and it is easy to see why.

 

 

The presentation is terrific and you have a good balance of complex carbs, proteins and lots of vitamins all in the same dish. The dome of steaming fragrant rice came surrounded by neat battered pieces of vegan unagi, tempura enoki mushrooms, salad and vegetables. Nic assumed, like most omnivores do, that it will be quite a piece of cake to finish everything on her plate, since it is all plant-based, but she underestimated how filling this dish could be flagged towards the end and I quite cheerfully finished her last chunk of unagi for her. (That's what best friends do -- stop each other from wasting food!)

I have had vegan unagi at Raku-Raku before, and the one at Greenlicious tasted quite different. The Raku-Raku one is made of soy and nori sheets, grilled with sweet soy sauce, and has a soft and slightly chewy texture. The vegan unagi chunks at Greenlicious are a combination of soy, vegetables and nori sheets and has the texture of vegetable cutlets in that it crumbles under one's fork. The nori sheets gave it the desired chewy texture similar to real unagi, as well as the complex umami flavour that makes this dish so satisfying and memorable.

 

 

  

My Lei Cha King was the perfect choice as it is a veritable rainbow of colours, scents, flavours, textures and nutrients. Lightly-cooked greens, firm cubes of tofu, cucumber, tofu, chickpeas, beans, carrots, roast shelled peanuts and preserved vegetables formed a pretty ring around a bowl of organic multigrain rice, accompanied by a bowl of thick, hot green tea soup which is so full of ground up vegetables that it had the consistency of porridge.

Eating this is like a spa for the stomach. The peanuts and preserved vegetables gave the dish a savoury crunch, while the natural sweetness of the pumpkin and carrot cubes really sparkled in this healthy dish. The green tea soup tasted sweet and minty, with its combination of green tea, vegetables and basil. This is comfort food that one can eat every day without ever feeling guilty.

The total bill for the 3 of us came up to only RM68.50 after using the KindMeal.my discount voucher, and one would be hard-pressed to find another eatery that would serve you high-quality, delicious organic food for such a reasonable price. Our all-star meal left us feeling very satisfied without feeling guilty for having indulged.
 

 

I returned another evening after work to use my KindMeal.my coupon for the Nasi Lemak Tower and organic soy milk. This is a huge combination set (RM12.80) consisting of a 'tower' of fragrant organic pandanus rice, fried nori seaweed crisps, batter-coated fried enoki mushrooms, sambal petai, creamy pumpkin paste, roasted peanuts and slices of tomato and cucumber, and a glass of warm or iced organic soy milk. I remember eating this as a birthday treat back in 2012, and it still feels like a huge treat today despite having eaten this at least a dozen times (Thank you, KindMeal.my! You make eating like a king so very affordable!) Aravind once mentioned that he found this meal a little dry. However, I don't have a tendency to drown my rice in sambal the way he does, and so I don't share the same view, although I do think it would be wonderful if the restaurant could offer a top-up of the sambal petai to customers who prefer their nasi lemak a little moister. So far, I have not attempted to ask for a refill of sambal, but I might try my luck next time.

For hygiene, ambience, price, taste, variety and nutrition, I'd rate Greenlicious 4.8 out of 5 stars.

☆☆☆☆☆

 

And now, if you would excuse me, I am off to download yet another coupon for the Nasi Lemak Tower combo set and eat this, all over again. Because not all good things need to come to an end.

 

 

Location:
Unit A-G-12, Block Allamanda, 10 Boulevard, PJU 6A, Lebuhraya Sprint, 47400 Petaling Jaya, Selangor.

Opens: Mon - Tue, Thu - Sun: 10.30am - 10:00pm; Wed: Closed

Tel: 03-77241109