james test

June 23, 25 & 26, 2015 After the excitement of Smith & Deli's launch , Cindy and I decamped to the Sunshine Coast for a week, missing the madness of the Deli's first week of proper trading. On our return, I got busy making up for lost time. My first visit on Tuesday morning was intended as a quick stop to grab a sandwich for lunch. On discovering that the sandwiches aren't an option first thing in the morning I decided I'd have to come back later in the day. Still, no point walking out empty-handed. I grabbed a soy flat white and an Egg McMartinez ($7) to tide me over. The coffee (by Wide Open Road) was excellent, but the Egg McMartinez was the real star - a deliciously eggy muffin sandwich with a slice of melty cheese and some crispyish bacon. It's a snack rather than a meal, but an incredibly delicious one. I was back at lunchtime, in the rather long sandwich queue. I'd been hanging for a Godfather (hot chilli salami, pepperonci, mozzarella, roasted p...

June 17, 2015 I spent my formative years living in Caloundra on Queensland's Sunshine Coast. At the time eating out for me usually meant fish and chips at the beach, Pizza Hut or, if we were feeling particularly sophisticated, a trip to the local Thai place. I was thrilled to notice last year that Caloundra's first all-vego place had opened and even happier to find it still in business nearly 12 months later when I finally managed to swing by for a visit.  Greenhouse is more than just vegetarian - it's also fully organic. The menu seems to change semi-regularly, and on our visit there was a good mix of vegan and non-vegan stuff, including made-to-order dishes, pre-made wraps and sandwiches and an array of muffins and sweets. There's plenty of gluten-free options scattered throughout. They're also big on smoothies and juices and they have kombucha on tap. We settled in for a proper lunch with my Mum and all three of us ordered from the a la carte menu. Mum went with ...

June 15, 2015 We're irregular visitors to the B-East, usually stopping in when Jess McGuire is hosting trivia and grabbing a Morrissey burger for dinner . This week they've upped their veg credentials by introducing an all-vegan menu on Monday nights under the banner Mock The Casbah . I managed to nibble my way across most of the menu with the help of some friends. The vegan fried chicken ($11.50) used the same crispy-skinned greasy wheat-meat as their excellent Morrissey burger, ditching the bun and harissa for a drizzle of smoky chipotle aioli and some dill pickles. This would tickle fanciers of the Cornish Arms' basket of wings . The pulled pork burger ($13) was tangy, spicy and messy, served on a chewy rye bun. The snap & crackle cauliflower taco ($6.50) was a milder prospect with its avocado cream, and probably the pick of the table. I dug into a chargrilled corn and quinoa burger ($14), jettisoning half the thick bun on sight. It centred around a thick cake of fl...

June 14, 2015 We are long and loud supporters of vegan restaurant Smith & Daughters . Over recent months, co-owners Mo & Shannon have been bursting with excitement over their new venture Smith & Deli and they threw a freebie our way today, inviting us to its media opening . While their flagship restaurant is a place to sit and share something special, Smith & Deli is seat-free and stacked from floor to six feet with foodstuffs to take away. Around the sides there's food for your home kitchen - housemade pizzas, pies and dips, fresh produce, dry staples and spices, plus many of those obscure ingredients that you might have wanted to hunt down, like coconut syrup and canned hominy. They're also stocking the best of brand-name vegan groceries, like Tofurkey mock meats, Alter Eco and Loving Earth chocolates, So Delicious ice creams and Daiya cheese. Step up to the counter and things get really serious. Here deli favourites like pastrami, pretzels,  croissants and s...

June 8, 2015 We had a somewhat underwhelming experience at Buddha's Day last month, with the steamed custard buns least whelming of all. They were packaged ones, took half an hour to receive, and weren't vegan. Our friend Bec reminisced that custard bao were a pre-vegan favourite of hers, and I got to wondering whether I might be able to make them myself. A few weeks later, we invited Bec and her family over for lunch and I embarked on a bun-steaming bonanza. I pulled some home-made seitan out of the freezer, sauteing it with onion and spices to make a mock-BBQ pork filling . Then I set about making a thick vegan-friendly custard filling, taking inspiration from China Sichuan Food . I made a double batch of yeasted bun dough, fashioning massive BBQ bao and slightly daintier dessert buns, and Michael stir-fried some Chinese broccoli while I supervised the bamboo steamers. We took on the buns with gusto, and I had to remind everyone (myself included) to leave room for the custar...

June 7, 2015 Michael's birthday was barely half elapsed before he got on his plane to Munich , so we agreed that I'd have a celebratory cake ready for him when he returned home. Michael had picked out the rum'n'raisin recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World and I offered to pump it up with a bit of cocoa. Instead of forming a dozen cupcakes, I poured the batter into a single round cake tin and baked it a little longer. It makes for a damp cake with a fluffy crumb and deep flavour - it has the dark caramel sweetness and only a little of the sharp booziness of dark rum. While I'm not especially fond of dried fruits in cake, the rum-soaked raisins dotted through this one are happy bursts of tripled sweetness. A soaked-in glaze and slathering of buttercream layer but don't belabour the rum flavouring; I also added a ring of dark chocolate chips to the top to extend the cocoa theme. We ate this cake with cups of vanilla-scented black tea, and everyone went ba...

May 27 and 29, 2015 Every June for the past eight years, I've jetted off overseas for the biggest perk of my job, an annual international conference. This year the setting was Munich - full of sunshine, giant beer gardens and beautiful old buildings. The traditional Bavarian diet is not particularly sympathetic to vegetarians (and vegans would really struggle). I ate a lot of creamy mushrooms and cheesy potatoes. Luckily, there are a decent number of vego places in the city and I had a few free meals to explore. My main focus was Bodhi, a well-reviewed place that takes the traditional German pub vibe and vegans everything up. My first visit was an early dinner (staving off jetlag as best as possible) and I sat outside in the sunshine with a tall wheat beer watching most of the city biking past.  The menu they gave me was in German, and I puzzled it out as best I could although I'm sure the staff would be happy to translate if you wanted more details (I've just used google t...

January 2016: B'stilla has been closed, replaced by Enquire Within (run by the same people) a restaurant that will reinvent itself once a year.  June 1, 2015 Moroccan restaurant B'stilla recently held a one-off vegan dinner to coincide with an exhibition of Julia Deville artworks. Rosalie was quick to organise a table of keen diners and I happily signed on for a seat. At first glance our table looked cramped and out of the way, but it proved perfectly cosy for sharing a conversation right across the table and we had no trouble attracting the staff's attention throughout the night. The kitchen had prepared a multi-course vegan meal for $45 per person. All we had to do was alert them to extra dietary requirements (which they handled expertly) and pick some drinks! I skipped over the matched drinks and other alcohol, mightily pleased to see a couple of mocktails on offer. My house made rosewater lemonade ($8) had a strong rose perfume that overwhelmed the mint garnish but b...

May 31, 2015 The Moody Noodles invited me and some other friends across to West Footscray to share a meal at Krishna Indian Restaurant. Although this family business has been established for 20 years, it has only recently become 100% vegetarian. They've really gone all out, often skipping the ghee and using ingredients like tofu and soy nuggets to bring a diverse selection of vegan-friendly, as well as traditionally vegetarian, dishes. Vegan, dairy-free and gluten-free options are well marked throughout the menu. The staff know what's what can will happily lend advice on request too. If you call ahead, they can even prepare gluten-free naan! We started out with some complimentary chips and a jammy tamarind sauce with a surprise little slow burn. Onion bhaji ($6.50) and mushroom pakora ($8.95) had a lovely besan batter and a vegan-friendly minty-creamy dipping sauce. It was tough picking from the multidude of mains! The vegetable korma ($10.95, bottom left) and soy nugget masal...

May 31, 2015 Michael's away for his usual mid-winter conference. It's a good time to make recipes that he wouldn't like. This one, for example, is a savoury dish with pineapple in it - a complete dealbreaker for the other half of where's the beef? .  I actually had some organic tinned pineapple in the fridge, having resolutely bought it for my half of a pizza night. (Incidentally, I can definitely recommend the fancy organic tinned pineapple - it's much tangier and toothier than the usual supermarket stuff.) In fact, I had everything I wanted to adapt Heidi Swanson's pineapple rice recipe right at home. And it's definitely an adaptation. I wanted my pineapple chunky, not blended into the dressing, and I fried my garlic instead of leaving it raw. I'm no fan of raw onions either, and elected to replace the green onions and shallots with a sprinkling of fried shallots. All up, my recipe's more a fried rice than rice salad and that's the way I like ...

May 29, 2015 The Brunswick St veg*n enclave has expanded further still with the opening of Fina's Vegetarian Cafe 2 a couple of months ago. It's a sibling to the cute vegetarian Vietnamese cafe Fina's in Richmond with a matching orange mural. Everything we're fond of from Fina's 1 seems to be here  - that is, unless anyone was particularly attached to their dairy products! Fina's 2 appears to be completely vegan, right down to the Mister Nice Guy cakes, soy milk smoothies and soy condensed milk Vietnamese iced coffees. They've also set the gold standard for menu labelling. There's a photo of every dish, and an extensive code indicating pure vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, onion & garlic-free, and MSG-free items, as well as offering 'no mock meat' and 'more mock meat' variations. I started out with a slushy-sweet custard apple smoothie ($5.80) and picked at my friends' chosen entrees. The crispy tofu ($9.80) was silky and hot, wh...