Delicious It Must Be

I used to eat at M Cafe de Chaya on the regular. When it first opened, macrobiotic food seemed glamorous like its most famous acolyte, Gwyneth Paltrow herself. I quickly learned, however, the similarities didn't end there. M Cafe was expensive, annoying and somewhat blandish. But it was still talented, sort of delightful, and worth patronizing. The major rupture between me and M Cafe was the stupid parking situation (at the Melrose location), but more so, it was the wholesale invasion of Whole Foods onto Fairfax and 3rd Street. Whole Foods was cheaper, had great prepared foods and plenty o' parking. But M Cafe and I go back further, so for old times' sake, I sometimes pay homage to our once great bonds of eatership. Look at them beans. Don't it make you drool?

Yum. Yum.

I always have to get an inari. They're so fat and complacent. I love that about them.

I got the lotus root and decapitated it in the car. Thing didn't stand a chance. It was lemony good.

The desserts are overpriced which is what the korean women behind me in line were saying. They also kept saying, "mashee get-dah". A literal translation of this is, "delicious it must be". Decoding the Yoda like and biblical tones imparted by the verb tense reversal, it means, "looks delish." They said it about everything. And they called the nut bar, "pecan pie" but with an accent, so "pickon-paie". Koreans. Made from the best stuff on earth.

My favorite is the seitan bowl. It can't be healthy for you given that it's fried, topped with some kind of thick sweet sauce and contains a really large serving of brown rice. Nonetheless, you can rest assured, it's from a healthy kitchen so it's healthy by association.

The best part of the M Cafe Melrose location is the near proximity of Pinkberry. If you don't get a pinkberry on your way out, you're some kind of android clearly.

I think this is the prettiest Pinkberry and believe me, I been to many of 'em.

I had a coupon for a free parfait courtesy of Sinosoul and his mysterious largesse - I should say largeass because he pretty much accused me of packing same myself simply for chowing on a slice of vegan pizza, mowing down an Indonesian buffet meal and chugging a large tea within like 3 hours and more recently for wanting an ice cream after a 4 stop Thai town crawl - but I don't want to start a flame war with a Taiwanese. I'll just say konichiwa. Oh, that means "good afternoon"? In japanese? That works.

So, yeah, tasty, but to quote Amy of Roaming Belly, a parfait is a "fat move". Who needs all that granola with their froyo? Unless you're a Romanian weightlifter or aspire to look like one, sticking to regular froyo may be a better call. I'm a Romanian weightlifter and I aspire to look like one, so I'm doubly immune to this Code of Hammurabi. Don't worry. I find you loophole too so you can partake of the parfait. We Romanian-Koreans are crafty.