SO…my husband and I took a little out of town jaunt to Fort Lauderdale, FL for our anniversary.  Why Fort Lauderdale you may ask?  Well, let me tell you.  Fort Lauderdale is home to the completely AMAZING Vegan Restaurant Sublime.  And I say completely amazing in forsight and hindsight.  How could a place like Sublime be NOT good when everything I have read and heard says it’s wonderful.  Well, it IS wonderful.  We arrived later on a Friday afternoon into the city.  We freshened up at our hotel and then headed over to Sublime to hit happy hour.  We arrived at the start of a torrential downpour and horrible thunderstorm.  From the outside, Sublime looked pretty normal, low key, and nice.

When we arrived inside, the gorgeous room and décor immediately impressed me.  The set up is roomy and feels free and airy.  There are waterfalls on the far wall, near the parking lot on glass windows.  They look absolutely gorgeous, and are soothing.  The restaurant inside presents itself as a very high class and sophisticated place.  But there is no pretentiousness in it.  The dress for patrons is casual, so you can go in your jeans and flip flops and feel perfectly welcome; or you can arrive in business casual clothing and still feel like your dress is suited to the restaurant.  I was surprised that at about 5:30 the restaurant was still pretty quiet.  We went and sat down at the bar, and were greeted by Spencer, the wonderful bartender.  I got the ‘Roll Out the Red Carpet’ flight of red wines to try and my husband got a Watermelon Margarita.  I will say that my red wines were ALL amazing, and I felt like the red carpet had been rolled out by the service we received!  My husband absolutely LOVED his Margarita as well.

Next out came the pesto polenta; and oh my word.  There is no way to describe the flavor of the pesto polenta.  I love pesto, I love basil and I’ve never been a big fan of polenta.  But, the flavor of the pesto polenta is absolutely amazing.  The texture isn’t gritty like a polenta, but almost spongy.  SO incredible.  And the best part is that Sublime gives this as a free dish.

We then ordered some appetizers: the Broccomoli dip and the Gardein sliders.  The sliders were absolutely to die for.  I am a huge fan of Gardein but have never had a burger like this since I became vegan.  The flavor and the cheesiness of the sliders, the perfecty sized individual sliders and wonderful flavorful buns were the BEST burer I have had since I became a vegan.  I almost didn’t want to eat anything else, but wanted to order another slider plate.  The Broccomoli dip was great as well.  The texture was almost like hummus, and had a great flavor.  And the flatbread that came with it was also the best we’ve ever had, vegan or otherwise.

I ended up with a glass of the Shiraz (an 09 Australian) and Dave got a Mojito to finish up happy hour.  Then for dinner I ordered the Pesto Pizza on whole wheat crust and Dave ordered the Singapore Street Noodles.  Oscar was our server, and he was very knowledgeable about the menu and recommended our meals to us.  My Pesto Pizza was incredibly delicious.  I had 4 of the 6 pieces and decided to save room for dessert.  Dave finished just a bit more than half of his Singapore Street Noodles.  I loved the rich texture and boldness of the pesto on the pizza.  The street noodles were nice and light and the vegetables were very fresh, even though they’d been lightly fried.

For dessert I had the chocolate nirvana cake and Dave went for the key lime cheesecake.  It was more of a cheesecake and less key-limey, per Dave, but it was still delicious.  I couldn’t get more than a few bites of the cake in, because it was so rich that I could not eat too much at once.  It was delicious though.  So we boxed everything up for either breakfast or a midnight snack and finished our first visit to Sublime.

My summary: Sublime was absolutely the correct name to choose for this restaurant.  It’s food is sublime, as is the atmosphere and service.  Nanci Alexander, the owner, can be found at any given moment speaking to different tables to see how their food is and how their evening is.  For a woman that has been featured by media for years and is in the vegan world a pretty big star, she doesn’t allude to having as much authority as even the restaurant owner.  She is kind, funny and down to earth.  She made each customer feel like they were a friend.  She genuinely cared about our experience when she stopped by and was absolutely delightful, as was our entire experience.  And a random note to finish it on: I LOVE the wash wash wash your hands music in the restroom!!!