G-Zen, Branford, CT

Info: All vegan menu including beer, wine, desserts, breads, and raw food. All ingredients are plant-based (except cow milk offered for coffee only) and mostly sustainable and organic. Main entree prices range $18-$22, handholds and other dishes less. Opened in October 2011 as reported to HappyCow. Has outdoor seating. Accepts credit cards.
Hours: Open Tue-Sat 4pm-9pm (Thu-Fri 9:30 pm), closed Sun-Mon. Offers now a Saturday brunch.
Price Range: Expensive.

(after happyCow http://www.happycow.net

Park: On streets in front, left or right of the restaurant.

G-Zen offers an European-like dining experience outstanding in atmosphere, food, presentation and service. The staff was wonderful and compassionate in accommodating my needs for a low-fat and low-salt diet. Several dishes were available and others could have been be easily modified to fulfill such special requirements. Voted by Shape Magazine (click also on picture to the left) as one of the ten best upscale vegan restaurants in America!

Raw Pasta

$22 (glass of wine 8.50) plus Tax

Dim Sum Plate

$14 (glass Mimosa 9.00) plus Tax

Dinner Served

Brunch Served

Raw pasta is a dish of raw shredded vegetables in sundried tomato marinara, sprinkled with vegan cheese and served with dehydrated spicy kale chips (N, E, S and W on plate) on a bed of fresh Mesclun greens: Carrots (ES and NW), red beats (SW) and daikon (NE) as well as a center of carrots and beats laden with marinara sauce. The contrast of the spicy crunchy kale and the creamy-moist shredded veggies produces a heavenly gustatory experience without any other earthly comparison. Ask for regular nutritional yeast as toping.

Dim sum is a vegetable dumpling of deliciously mild flavors. Served on a bed of Mesclun green it comes with different sauces. I ask for fat-free sun-dried tomato marinara that provided the right support as did the included vegetable roll. It combined a filling of shredded red beat and daikon with fresh whole mint leaves producing an unexpected refreshing tangy bite. What a great combination of mild steamed dumplings and raw spicy roll. This brunch (only on Saturdays 11a-4p) was rounded off with a cool mimosa and a side order of spicy kale chips (my favorites).

Custom No-Fat Brunch Plate

$12 (Izzy’s spritzer 4.00) plus Tax

(No Mimosa serving outside L)

Brunch Served

Chef Frank Shadle offered to create a custom brunch platter so that I would have some diversity in my no-fat a-la-carte orders. He prepared a custom plate of cuscus with broccoli and a pickled vegetable roll on a bed of Mesclun Green. This combination was just fabulous. The warm cuscus with red bell pepper, shredded carrots and chives was joined with lightly steamed broccoli rosettes. As compliment the pickled vegetable roll combined red cabbage, kale greens and thinly shaven carrots, a great colorful and substantial serving. For having some sauce to dip in the dry vegetables I ask for a fat-free dressing like their carrot-ginger dressing but was provided only with a nice paste-like vegetable salsa. (I would have given everything for my fat-free Annie’s raspberry balsamic or Cindy’s pomegranate vinaigrette dressings, which I unfortunately left at home with my Emergency Kit. L Next time I will remember! J ).

G Zen uses exclusively Bridge Tofu

A 3oz serving is roughly 1/5 of a brick, i.e. a very small volume. Thus, unfortunately tofu derived dishes might be well out of reach in a 10% fat diet.

(From The Bridge website)

Label: One serving = 3oz (85g). Servings per container about 5.

Total Fat	3.5g	5%
Saturated	0g
Trans Fat	0g
Polyunsat. Fat	g
Monounsat. Fat	g
Cholesterol	0mg
Sodium	45mg
Potassium	mg
Total Carbohydrate	3g
Dietary Fiber	0g
Sugars	1g
Protein	8g

The Bridge is a Connecticut company in Middletown specializing in artesian tofu. However, they cannot produce low-fat tofu (<1%) requiring steam treatment of the rolled soy beans for fat extraction.

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