Kaya Island Eats!

I'm testing two new recipes today in my kitchen, both are scratch made meat analogues.  I'm not really sure why I'm bothering to try these recipes, I'm not really one who enjoys "fake meats" anymore.  I have eliminated them almost entirely from my breakfast rotations, although I occasionally do make a soy sausage biscuits and gravy recipe.  Mostly though when I do things like biscuits and gravy, I use organic beans for the base instead of a meat analogue or soy substitute.  I think these ramblings here are to reinforce to you that food is at the forefront of my mind.  If you saw me Saturday night drinking my dinner and eating my world class Vegan Dreams (cookie), you may have a hard time believing I'm on a food wondering binge, but I am.  I pulled out almost every cookbook I own this weekend and began pouring over recipes.  Simply put, I'm bored but usually too tired to do anything about it when it comes to food (hence the Vegan  Dreams and cocktails combo for dinner this weekend).

To rescue me from myself, I'm delighted to say that a new restaurant has joined our Keys community.  I waited a while before really beginning to publicly jump for joy, but I think its fair enough to say they're good.... really good.  Kaya Island Eats opened a few short months ago, they're located down on Saddlebunch Keys.  Its about 25 minutes from here, depending if you get behind normal drivers or not.  Kaya Island Eats is what I would consider something along the lines of Caribbean fusion cuisine.  They offer conventional food, but also are turning out to be exceptionally veg friendly.  I'm not sure if they were born that way (veg friendly) or are being bred this way (quite a few vegans, including us, are making their way to Kaya, thus morphing into very veg friendly is a smart move), but I can say, they are making this happy vegan even happier.

We have been there no less than four times.  After the initial visit during the grand opening time period, I thought the food was good, and the place had mega-potential.  I don't think its fair to judge any new business fully upon its opening, there's always kinks to be worked out.  I think I had realistic expectations about that, meaning I felt any rough edges would improve if they really were all they were hyped to be.  Indeed, I was right.

Every visit has gotten better and better.  No one is being served thoughtless food, especially us vegans, nope there is none of that nonsense going on.  At our last visit, the chef on a whim whipped up a scratch vegan pesto (OMG, PESTO.... that rates up there with vegan tiramisu in my world) because he had fresh lemongrass on hand in the kitchen.  So, he experimented for me and I was rewarded with an amazing lemongrass vegan pesto; I was delighted when my meal was served to me.  Remember a couple weeks ago when I wrote about an awful eating out experience where some dispassionate chef plated cold, unseasoned, undrained, straight-out-of-the box nasty tofu at a restaurant?  I'm happy to report that Kaya Island Eats is the opposite of that experience.  Each time we have gone there we have been served delicious food that I  would consider innovative.  The chef seems to "get" that vegans are not pasty lentil eating people who don't care about food, or don't know about food.  Kaya is going out of their way to serve really good food, and have some fun in the kitchen along the way.

I'm all about experimentation with food.  Its food, not brain surgery.  The world will not end if something doesn't turn out as hoped for when we're combining ingredients.  And, truth be told, a real chef with culinary training and experience probably has far fewer kitchen "fails" than someone like me who has some professional training, coupled with daily workings in my own kitchen.  I love that when I ate there a couple weeks ago, the chef thought about my food enough to look at something he had on hand in the kitchen as a "special" and wondered "what can I do with this for a vegan?"  I love that the thought was there, and even more I love that the wonderings became a beautiful meal for me.

I'm really looking forward to seeing Kaya here for the long haul.  If you're looking for me and I'm not on my beach having cookies & cocktails for dinner, you may very well find me down on the Saddlebunch Keys at Kaya Island Eats being served vegan food as it should be.  Yum!