There’s a restaurant on the west side of Vancouver called The Naam that’s open 24 hours. It’s a vegetarian restaurant that seems left over from the hippie era. When I was in University we’d drive across town to go there in the middle of the night, famished after late study sessions. The staff back then tended to be in a somewhat…altered…state and it could be quite a while before any of the servers noticed you. Once they did, they always got your order right, but it could be up to an hour before the food arrived at your table. Actually, it was a couple of hours more than once. At least there was never any lag between the order coming up and the food arriving at the table.

As long as I could flag someone down to bring me a cup of tea, I didn’t mind. It was that time of life when there was so much to say and hear that sleep seemed like a terrible waste of time. (Funnily, none of us seemed to feel that way about sleep in the mornings.)

The food there is good, in that granola way. In fact, their miso gravy is so good that they bottle it and sell it in stores now. It’s mostly healthy, too – with additions like shredded carrot and beet in their salads and as a garnish for many of their plates. I always enjoyed that, but I’ve recently learned that a friend of mine absolutely did not and as a result, was often frustrated when she went there. She would ask for it to be left off her plate, but the (aforementioned, less-than-fully-alert) staff would always bring her meal with carrot and beet. The hippie obsession with shredded veggies is not a universal taste, it seems.

This salad, though it’s a grated slaw rather than a shredded garnish, reminds me of those days, Even with its slightly sophisticated apple cider-Dijon vinaigrette, it still has the flavour of the sort of virtuously vegetarian fare that a hippie restaurant serves.

I didn’t stray from the recipe, really, though I left out the suggested raisins and toasted the chopped walnuts before I added them. It would make a nice side for a picnic or barbeque, wherever anyone would serve traditional coleslaw. It would make a nice addition to a salad, too. When I make it again, I think I’ll throw in a mixture of the sorts of seeds, nuts, and dried fruits I often add to salads. Another easy, versatile template recipe from Around My French Table to add to my repertoire.

You can find many other blogged descriptions of this week’s FFWD recipe here: Cafe Style Grated Carrot Salad