Honest Food Tales – Slow Vegan Travel

A Minimal Raw Food Experience At Giva in Chiang Mai

Chiang Mai is a very popular destination for people who live and breathe healthy living, yoga, meditation and healthy food too. We soon perceived it after walking around the city and noticing that there were so many healthy food restaurants, cafes, stalls for smoothies prepared on the go, fruit vendors and open markets with fresh organic vegetables pretty much everywhere.

The reason why we were in Chiang Mai though wasn’t for its healthy living popularity, but simply to visit the city and see with our eyes why everybody kept saying to us how incredible Chiang Mai is. Being there, we couldn’t miss the opportunity to enjoy freshly made fruit salad at the local market store almost every morning for breakfast and the refreshing and very nutritious smoothies too. Whilst in the city we actually found out that it was much cheaper to eat out or buy some street food than actually going shopping and making our own food which we’d grown quite used to in Southeast Asia, so we tried probably most of the vegetarian and vegan restaurants in Chiang Mai and feasted on delicious food.

Since travelling to Singapore and learning a little about raw food from our awesome Couchsurfing host who is a raw food chef, our curiosity increased enormously and we kept checking every location we went to for some raw food restaurant to go and try some dishes. Our interest wasn’t only because of the healthy benefit of raw food, but we particularly liked the unique flavors and tastes of raw food dishes which are very different from cooked meals. After a bit of research we found out that there was a raw food café/restaurant in Chiang Mai and, even if it was more pricey compared to the other places we used to go to eat, we decided to give it a try, and for a change, to splurge on ourselves.

Cozy Atmosphere

Giva is a small raw foods & drinks café located not too far from Chiang Mai’s lively Night Bazaar and apparently at the time it was the only place serving vegan raw food in the city, we aren’t sure if any others have opened since we’ve been there. It’s a very small place with limited seating area but it has air conditioning which for us was a plus, we were so pleased to sit down in a cool environment for once. Giva’s owner and chef made us feel comfortable and welcome from the moment we stepped in and, considering we were the only two people in the café, we had no trouble finding a place to sit down. Giva has a very tidy look with a minimalist interior design which brought all our attention to the food. The menu selection was all raw vegan which was exactly what we were looking for. It wasn’t easy to choose because there were too many things we’d have chosen but eventually we went for the raw version of the popular Pad Thai and a bowl of Sweet Beet Soup.

Whilst waiting for our food to be ready, we started asking the very friendly owner and chef questions, we took some pictures and happily watched him patiently and calmly make our food which we observed was all made from scratch with nothing coming pre-made or stored. Everything was very fresh and done right in front of our eyes. We could tell that the chef was a perfectionist, he wanted his food to be supreme in its flavors but also for the way it looked.

Building Up Our Anticipation

Soothing music was playing in the background and made the whole atmosphere at Giva very relaxing. Time went by and eventually our food was ready and it seemed delicious only to look at. We heard a lot from other vegetarians and vegans that raw food can be very heavy and over coated with oils, dressings and spices to make it tasty and more succulent to the palate. Our being completely new to the raw vegan food world we didn’t know what to expect and we were only hoping for the best and digged straight into our dinner without hesitation. We weren’t disappointed at all, both the presentation and the taste of our meals were excellent! It was an explosion of taste for our taste buds, despite each dish being a combination of many raw ingredients, we could still taste each single one of them. The food was very healthy and definitely not over dressed but just done right.

Needless to say that we loved Giva’s food a lot, we would recommend it to anyone whether they’re vegan or not, or remotely interested in raw food and healthy living because we think it’s worth trying for the taste alone. Don’t be disappointed though if you have to wait a little bit for your food to be ready, the chef likes to prepare everything freshly and in a perfect way.

The experience at Giva made us want to try more and more raw food, perhaps one day when we’ll stop somewhere for good and we’ll both have a go at experimenting our own raw recipes without giving up cooked food altogether though, we like it too much!

Slow Vegan Travel! is the British-Italian couple of Dale & Franca who left the UK in June of 2012 searching for architecture, art, design and music and haven’t looked back since.  Follow them on Twitter, Facebook and/or Google+