Ungaro Raw, Rozelle

Last Sunday, we made the drive out to Rozelle /  Balmain area to check out the Rozelle Markets and the $29 breakfast buffet at Efendy. This breakfast buffet is only available on Sundays and you can’t book for it online, so we arrived relatively early at 10am (it goes until noon).

I was super hungry already, having woken up before 9am on a gloomy day in order to make the 45 minute or so drive down to Rozelle. So I was rightly disappointed when we went up to ask for a table for two and they said there was no availability until 1pm!

This was rather confusing, because there was no one else waiting around for a table – it’s not like we walked up and there’s 20 other people waiting around for table (which happened at Chat Thai and even then, the wait was 45 minutes, not three hours).

We agreed that this put us off Efendy and we probably would never bother going. So instead, we walked down the road to Rozelle Markets and spotted this cafe / restaurant:

Ungaro Raw

Ungaro Raw

• Web: http://www.ungaroraw.com/
• Address: 656 Darling Street, Rozelle NSW 2039
• Call: 02 8964 9223
• Open: Sun to Thurs (7.30am – 5pm), Fri and Sat (7.30am – 10pm)

Vegan, vegetarian, raw – this is how Ungaro Raw likes to serve its food and drink. You can read their food philosophy here, but basically they aim to serve food in their most natural and unprocessed form. The most ‘extreme’ take on this is raw food.

What is raw food?

Ungaro Raw says “It’s the consumption of uncooked, unprocessed & often organic foods such as fruits, vegetables, seeds, nuts, algae, sprouts, legumes, honey, cold pressed oil and spices. Raw food dishes are never exposed to heat over 38 degrees Celsius – this allows us to preserve important enzymes & nutrients.”

I need to improve my sneak-shot photography…

We popped in at around 10.30am, so the Lunch menu wasn’t available yet (it starts at 11am).  For drinks they have a variety of organic teas, coffee, smoothies, juices, and even organic alcohol!

But it’s a bit too early for that, so D2D orders a smoothie:

Berry yoghurt smoothie

Their online menu doesn’t show any prices, which is a bit annoying, because I have to now rely on my memory… This smoothie was very fresh and tart and you can see them running the juicer behind the counter.

Their yoghurt smoothies allow you to choose your milk (almond, soy, cow, rice) and yoghurt (cow or coconut), which is pretty cool! You can tailor the smoothie to your preference of vegan/vegetarian.

Omelette: a fusion of flavours to seduce your taste buds – onions, tomato, capsicum and feta (GF)

For brunch, D2D orders the gluten free omelette – he says it’s very tasty and cheesy, and not too filling because it only comes with one piece of bread. Again, when we ordered, they also gave us the choice of bread. This is soy and linseed bread.

Big Breakfast: tomatoes, avocado, mushrooms, spinach & eggs served with toast. Eggs can be scrambled, fried or poached. (Vegans can replace eggs with Baked Beans)

I was really hungry – having not eaten anything after waking up and then being denied the breakfast buffet at Efendy.

So I ordered the Big Breakfast, choosing scrambled eggs and soy and linseed toast. They ran out of avocado so offered me baked beans or hash. This breakfast is really big. Like seriously, usually a big breakfast only comes with 1 tomato chopped in half – this had like 3 tomatoes, and lots of mushrooms, and on top of that – two slices of bread. Everything was quite yummy, but I found the spinach and hash to be lacking a bit in flavour.

Even before getting our food, we were a bit greedy and had resolved to get dessert. So despite struggling to finish our brunch food, we still ordered not ONE but TWO desserts:

Raw Carrot Cake: with cashew cream, buckwheat flour, dates, pineapples & cinnamon (R/V/GF)

Yes, raw! Vegan and gluten free too. And sprinkled with flowers.

This was very different – the carrot cake is not very sweet at all and as the carrots are uncooked, there is a lot of crunch to the cake. I wasn’t a big fan of it, to be honest, but it was something different.

Raw Lemon & Lime Tart: with spelt flour & organic cow’s milk (R)

We also tried their raw lemon and lime tart, which was a lot more tasty and zesty.

After our visit to Ungaro Raw we felt super full and super healthy! Sadly it was drizzling quite a bit so we couldn’t do the Bay Run. Instead we did some cardio shopping at Birkenhead Point…

What else is around:

• Rozelle Markets – a second hand market between 9am – 4pm
• Urban Walkabout for Balmain/Rozelle – guide to the area showing interesting shops and places to eat
• Birkenhead Point Outlet Centre