The Employer Healthcare & Benefits Congress, the largest gathering of corporate wellness professionals brought me to Orlando Florida this week. Orlando as land of Disney World, tourist attractions, and restaurant chains is not the easiest place to find nouri. Orlando for a wellness conference seems to be a bit of an oxymoron, but I love a challenge! Here is my story, and adventure in finding nouri in Orlando…

Since I was attending a corporate wellness conference, my intention was to use my feet and rely on hotel shuttles as much as possible. Until… I realized that without a car I would be trapped and confined to a very small radius, in which nouri…organic, non-chemically treated, whole foods was almost impossible to find. So I quickly reserved myself a rental car while I was on line at the rental car desk at the airport. Car in hand; next was to ask Siri to take me to the closest WholeFoods, conveniently located only 12 minutes away from my hotel.

Found. Checkmark!

  • GT’s Organic Kombucha
  • Organic Bananas
  • Organic Grapes
  • Organic Hummus
  • Loose White Tea
  • Fiji Water
  • A baguette and raw cheese
  • Raw Organic Alive and Radiant kale chips

I was going to survive! That would get me through the night and breakfast for a few days.

Stocking up for myself was relatively easy. The hard part came in trying to find a nouri restaurant for two business dinners. I spent sometime on Saturday night doing a few searches. I love raw foods, and so that is always my first search. I like to try a raw food restaurant in every city I visit. I am always impressed by the different recipes, and always wind up with an idea to implement back home. One raw food restaurant showed up called Café 118.

To round out my search I typed in organic and non-GMO restaurants and not much comes up. Then farm to table, then healthy, then vegetarian and vegan, then my ethnic cuisine favorites. (Since I am a vegetarian, I did not do a search for grass-fed or pasture-raised beef or chicken. Also I suspected that my dinner mates would not have a problem with a vegetarian restaurant.) I narrowed down my list to three restaurants that not only looked really good, but would also allow me to get out of touristville and explore Orlando.

I also found Primo at the JW Marriot, which serves local, organic ingredients, but wasn’t really in the mood for Italian. Primo also serves grass-fed beef, and I believe pasture-raised chicken. This would have been the more conventional choice and certainly closer.

Going to a place you’ve never been before for a business dinner can be risky. It can be a pleasant surprise or a disaster. And disaster is dependent on who are your dinner mates. In this case both dinner meetings were with fellow nouri seekers, who know all too well the challenge of finding a really healthy meal while traveling.

Nouri in Orlando… Daya Restaurant

Business dinner number 1

My dinner guest was a travel industry professional and a Floridian. I gave her the three options above, to see which she preferred. She said, “oh we have to go to Winter Park, so that you get a different impression of Orlando.” So the decision was made that we would try Café 118 in Winter Park. I checked out their website and their reviews, and I was hooked. I usually call ahead to see if reservations are required, but for some reason didn’t (hence the adventure). We get to 153 East Morse Road, but no Café 118 to be found. Somehow I missed the Yelp posting indicating that it had closed. But we were in luck, a new plant-based restaurant named Daya assumed their location. They source organically as much as they can, so we decided to give it a try. Anyway, it was late, and we were running out of hunting time. It turned out to be a delicious culinary and nouri experience.

These “nouri” bites are a good example of the menu offerings: mushroom ceviche, mushroom pastry, crispy cauliflower.

Nouri in Orlando… Dandelion Communitea Cafe

Business dinner number 2

My dinner guest was an HR professional, yoga instructor, and from Ohio. As it was getting late, and she had just flown in that day, I looked for another option within Orlando city limits. I found Seasons 52, which is a farm-to-table franchise. While the menu looked good, they did not source organic. I gave her the two options—Seasons 52, which was 15 minutes away (and given the previous night’s experience might be safer), or Dandelion Communitea Café (which I suspected was more of a hippie joint, rather than a quiet, conservative restaurant atmosphere)–to see which she preferred. She said, “oh, I like the sound of Dandelion Communitea, let’s go there.” So the decision was made; we would explore another part of Orlando that was 25 minutes away.

We arrived at 618 N. Thortnon Ave to a very cute little green 1920’s house with an edible landscape and raised garden beds, across from a yoga studio. We liked the vibe already! Enter the creaky door onto old time hardwood floors, and first thing we saw was the wall of loose blended teas with chakra and yogi designations. It’s and order first then sit down kind of place. So we spent a fair amount of time digesting the menu to figure out how to choose from the many creative options or build our own salad, wrap or bowl. Also spent a fair amount of time smelling the teas until we finally came to a decision on what to order. OMG… their Best of Orlando Happy Hemp Hummus is truly the best hummus I have had. And also unusually, but delectably served warm. We were in nouri heaven!

Nouri in Orlando…Dandelion Communitea Cafe

While sitting on the patio at this nouri gem, we encountered a lovely lady with her dog Goldie, who runs an environmental nonprofit and used to live in Colorado, close to where I live. Call it serendipity, or spirit path but all three of us felt there was a reason for our “chance” encounter. She also gave us more local information on where to find LOHAS (Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability) options for the next time we are in town. Looking for nouri takes on a path of unexpected discovery.

There are nouri options in the land of Disney World, but just need to take the time to find it… and talk to the locals. Added bonus: the bill for each dinner was well below the average per diem allowed.

See you on the nouri trail…