the detroit zen center

I'd been meaning to visit the Detroit Zen Center for the last 6 months or so, and yesterday I finally made it out there. It is my new favorite spot!! It's a cafe and coop located in the basement of a Hamtramck Buddhist monastery that serves all vegan and mostly raw food. They make everything from scratch and try to utilize the most low-impact, local, fairly-traded, direct buyer methods they can that which supports health, the community, and zen wisdom. They also sell some of their snacks retail around metro Detroit and provide a buying service for products that are not available anywhere else in the city proper. The dining experience is inviting, the staff amazingly friendly and knowledgeable, and they have a heated floor area with zabutons to sit on and wooden benches to dine on. There were some bananas and avocados ripening right next to us on the warmed tatami. The lights were low, and the kitchen is in full view of the dining area.
I think we're going to start carrying some of their products at the Ypsi Food Coop.

flax seed cracker and pumpkin seed starter, a sprouted and fermented wheatberry juice for me and a heavenly mix of banana, coconut, soymilk, agave (and more ingredients I can't remember) called a 'mylkshake' for fred, raw kale salad and spring salad, yam and cauliflower cumin soup, and cucumber yellow squash raw pasta primavera with raw breadsticks for the finale.