LOHAS stands for "Lifestyle of Health and Sustainability". Be Lohas is a restaurant that is committed to promote healthy vegetarian cuisine which promises their customers only the best, delicious healthy organic dishes. I was invited to try the very healthy and organic food at Be Lohas , a restaurant under BMS Organics two weeks ago. The Be Lohas outlet in One Utama is next to Cold Storage and opposite Obanhmi. It serves as both an F &B outlet and a retail store. The store was medium sized. It could fit about 50 ish people. The tables were very close together. BMS Organics started promoting healthy organic vegetarian lifestyles since 1997. While there were many vegetarian shops out there, many of their dishes contained MSG, GMO ingredients, preservatives, pesticides and were prepared with high temperature deep frying. BMS wanted to be the first in the market to provide genuinely clean and healthy food. Be Lohas Healthy Cuisine organic Cafe was first introduced in 2007 with their outlet in Bandar Puteri Puchong. They now have 16 outlets around KL and another 46 retail outlets. Check out their FB page here. I brought along the Grumpy Cat and his family for the review because good food needs to be enjoyed with good company. Before our meal came, we were each given two complimentary organic Spirulina pills to chew and a cup of lemon grass ginger tea. It even came with instructions! Never have I been to a restaurant where I needed to take pills first before I eat. This was rather exciting for me. Out of the 4 of us that day, 3 of us were completely new to this experience.
"What is this foreign pill that I am about to consume?"
Questions running in our head were "Should we really be eating this?" , "MMM, let's smell it first? ", "Okay, Smells like an ordinary vitamin pill". However, the grumpy cat's mom, who is not a stranger to such organic restaurants assured us that it was a very okay and even a healthy thing to do. To read about the benefits of Spirulina click here to be directed to the Wikipedia page or here to read an article about it on Live Strong. The lemon grass ginger tea was really good. If I hadn't already got my months' supply of tea in the office, I would have definitely bought it. I would not mind drinking only that for the rest of the day. #GoodTea #IReallyLikeTea
It was really good tea!
Aunty ordered the famous " 5 Colours Energy Lei Cha". Though the dish was completely foreign to me, I have to say it was a very Instragram worthy dish.
What it looked like in the menu.
All the pretty colours! According to aunty, you are supposed to have different colours of vegetables and fruits a day. Each colour nourishes different parts of our organs. You can read about it in the Be Lohas E-Book Menu here. This is the Lei Cha's "soup". You're supposed to combine all the ingredients given with your rice and then soak it with the soup given.
Look at this colourful and healthy goodness
It was such a fun dish to have. It felt like you were playing masak-masak. Taste wise, Aunty gave it a 7/10. When I asked her what could be improved more about it, she said that she wished it had more taste but that would mean adding MSG. She says that maybe her tastebuds were already used to food with so much MSG that when she ate something as healthy as this, it taste very plain and bland. Health wise however, she gave it a big 10/10! I did give it a try myself. I've never had Lei Cha before so I don't think I'm the right person to review it. It did taste very 'green' though. I later realised from tasting that the soup was actually made out of mint. Definitely gave my tastebuds a good jolt! It was something new for me that I got to experience. However, I don't think I could order it in the future. It's way to "green" for my liking. Grumpy Cat got himself the Soy Cheese Baked Spiral with Tomato Sauce.
What it looked like in the menu.
In my opinion, this was the best dish among all of them. It was so cheesy. I was under the impression that soy cheese would not taste as good as regular cheese but I was wrong. In fact, it was way cheesier but tasted less 'heavy' (or ' zhai' in chinese) which meant that I could eat way more! I stole this dish after trying it and he ended up eating the rest of mine. Inside the dish was spiral spaghetti, vegetables and more cheese that have been mixed with tomato sauce and it was goooooood. I wold give it an 8/10.It was missing more points was because I kept thinking that some ground beef or pepperoni slices would have gone so well with the dish. Oh well, you can't have best of both worlds. The Grumpy Cat's younger brother was not too pleased to come along. Being a teen, I don't think eating healthy was his interest yet. However, I do see a new trend emerging among the young to be fit ,strong and healthy. Maybe he had not picked up on it yet. He got himself a Pesto Sauce Spaghetti
What it looked like in the menu.
Doesn't it look delicious?
I love how they had olives and pecans in them. The younger brother however was not a fan, He mentioned that the dish had no taste and felt like he was eating plain noodles. He playfully gave the dish a rating of 3 but later changed it to 5.
But doesn't it look like a pretty dish?
I tried the dish as well, and I have to agree that it was rather tasteless. Maybe there was not enough pesto sauce. However, it did taste very clean . I would give it a 5 as well. I believe that it would have tasted better if there was more tasteful ingredients or more sauce. I ordered myself their "Rainbow Claypot Rice"
What it looked like in the menu.
*GAAAAH. I was editing the pictures and then accidentally deleted all the pictures of this dish*
Sigh blogger fail.
Never mind, I'll
This picture was taken from www.selinawing.com . She blogged about Be Lohas as well.
I enjoyed this dish. It had a mix of flavours that the spaghetti was lacking. The rise was cooked well. I would give it a 7/10. I only wish they had some of those fake meat in it. (Haha, I don't think I can ever be vegetarian, I want meat in everything). Maybe fake salted fish? Or a fried egg?
This picture was from secret-spices.blogspot.com .
I could not finish the entire thing on my own. Had to share with the Grumpy Cat. He enjoyed the dish as well. He said it tasted like 'usual clay pot rice, just without the meat and way healthier"
I surely did enjoy myself. I think the lesson I learnt today was that tasty and flavourful food does not always translate to healthy food. Sometimes, you just need to go back to basics and have a clean , green meal! After our meal, we walked around a bit in their retail outlet. They had a large selection of products to choose from. Some of them were even at really reasonable prices. I don't think I could ever bring myself to go fully organic or vegetarian. I have been influenced by the wonders of burgers and tacos way too much. However, it would be something I turn to whenever I feel like my body needs a cleanse. Do give Be Lohas a visit if you're ever looking for a clean, healthy and green meal. LG 310, One Utama Shopping Mall (New Wing), 1 Persiaran Bandar Utama, Bandar Utama, 47800 Petaling Jaya, Selangor D.E. Tel: 03-7725 0828 Business Hours : Mon-Thurs & Sun : 10am-10pm / Fri-Sat : 10am-10.30pm Website: http://www.bmsorganics.com/home/ Want to keep in touch? Follow my daily adventures and escapades on Instagram! Labels: adverts, food, health, kl, malaysia, reviews 0 lovely comments ✿ |