Morning Friends!

How was your weekend? I hope you had a good one. Mine was lovely because I had the pleasure of enjoying an amazing meal with some of my lovely blogger buddies. Rather than driving to Toronto this time, I managed to convince them to make the trip to Waterloo so that I could take them to one of my favourite restaurants (which I raved about here and here), Thrive Juice Bar.

In case you’re a new reader, Thrive is a restaurant in Uptown Waterloo that specializes in vegan and vegetarian friendly food, smoothies, juices and teas. Local and organic ingredients are used to make dishes that (and I’m not exaggerating) are the bomb.

At this particular blogger meet-up, I enjoyed lunch with these ladies:

Morgan and Steph

Sarah et Moi

The owner of Thrive Juice Bar, Jonnie, and his team did an unbelievable job on Saturday afternoon. I can honestly say I have never received such great service!

Our meal began with a few olive dishes and fantastic sesame seed crackers. I ate a ton of these!

Before we ordered, Dani surprised us with a huge box of goodies from Rivi’s Guilt Free Cookies and Sweets from the Earth, two Toronto-based bakeries. They offer a ton of gluten-free, dairy-free, and low-fat options, and graciously sent us a mountain of loot:

Back to lunch….

Next, we were surprised with Sangria Smoothies:

fresh orange, lemon & lime juice, pineapple, agave, berry gelato, pure organic pomegranate & blueberry juice

Yes please! Next up: The entrees. Normally I order a salad or sandwich when I eat at Thrive, but this time I decided to be a little more adventurous and try the Korean BBQ style tofu with house made kimchi, watercress, toasted sesame seeds and green onion. This is a new ‘small plates’ item on the Thrive menu.

I also had a side dish – a house salad with fresh seasonal mixed greens, mixed seeds and grapefruit citrus vinaigrette.

The dressing on this was unbelievable. It was just the right amount, light, but SO full of flavour.

Also enjoyed by my dining buddies….

The grilled portobello, tempeh & spinach sandwich (probably my favourite thing on the menu!)

Raw vegan pad thai

Of course, it wouldn’t be a proper meet-up without bloggers taking photos of bloggers taking photos….

Source: Morgan @ Life After Bagels

And that wasn’t all. There was still dessert! Sweets From The Earth sent along a dairy-free chocolate cheesecake for us to enjoy. It looked great even in the box, but the Thrive staff sexed it up even more by plating it with some gelato, and they even provided a gluten-free dessert option.

And…. if that wasn’t enough, we were surprised with cups of amazing loose-leaf tea on the way out, which I’m pretty sure was ginger and citrus flavoured. It smelled and tasted gorgeous, and came in this:

Now, ladies and gents, this is not your standard take-away cup. Notice the funny looking lid? It’s got a filter in the part that you drink out of so that you can sip your loose leaf tea without getting the leaves and other little bits in your mouth. How genius is that!?!

Thanks again to the lovely ladies who came for this meet-up, and an ENORMOUS thank you to Jonnie and the Thrive team for a wonderful afternoon!

Anyone want to go for lunch? ;)

Subscribe Button