| Take It In Visit Au Lac if you’re already a raw food lover, or to change your beliefs about raw food if you’re not. Then ask Chef Ito to mix you up a tonic – it’ll be an experience you won’t forget – or regret. 714.418.0658 :: aulac.com |
Chef Ito told us insistently: When we finish eating at Au Lac, where he is head chef, we must stop by the bar.
The terms “told” and “bar” are used loosely here at Au Lac, a Vietnamese-inspired vegan and raw restaurant in Fountain Valley. For starters, Chef Ito gestures rather than speaks, having taken a vow of silence for the last eight-plus years; notably, his silence goes unnoticed in our group conversation, during which he uses gestures and facial expressions to communicate remarkably effectively. And the “bar,” which is not stocked with alcohol, is filled with a vast supply of tonics, herbs and elixirs that would put most naturopaths to shame.
It’s here that Chef Ito sits us down and begins to pour a variety of liquids into a shot glass, the mixture changing from clear to milky to brown. After we’ve been instructed to swish it around in our mouths for five minutes, then gurgle and swallow, he points to the menu, to a drink called the Jim Jones. It’s named after the man who founded the Peoples Temple, a group best known for its 1978 mass suicide in Jonestown, Guyana, in 1978. Chef Ito has a wicked sense of humor, one regular customer tells us. Another tells us confidently that Chef Ito would never give us anything that isn’t good for us.
Still, I’m panic-prone, and despite Chef Ito’s calming gestures and recommendation to breathe, I’m not; soon, the liquid causes my mouth and tongue to go numb. As the last of the yellow sand drains from the hourglass timer and we prepare to swallow the brown mixture, I make a game time decision to spit it out. Chef Ito looks horrified and my boss, Coast Editor in Chief Justine Amodeo, immediately tells me I must drink it. So I do.
There is, of course, this side to Au Lac, in which Chef Ito challenges diners to go beyond their comfort zone, not only with his menu of elixirs and tonics (which, incidentally, are very good for you) but also with his food. Made with the highest quality raw and vegan ingredients available, Chef Ito’s cuisine can only be described as remarkably delicious, the antithesis to the carnivore’s argument that raw, living food can’t possibly hold a candle to the taste of meat (there is also a cooked menu at Au Lac, which is all vegan and equally tasty). Dubbed “humanese cuisine” by Chef Ito, in reference to his belief that we all have much more in common than we realize, the menu is equal parts whimsical and mouthwatering, with dishes like “cream cheese,” a ball of avocado atop a flax cracker with basil, mushroom, onion, and red pepper or a simple herb salad with romaine, mixed herbs, tomato, onion, and umeboshi plum dressing awakening the senses and challenging any preconceived notions of what raw food is or should be.
Like Chef Ito himself, the cuisine at Au Lac is pleasantly unexpected. Just remember to breathe – and to trust the chef.
