james test

December 18-19, 2015 On the weekend before Christmas, our friends put on a yum cha feast . I was originally planning to bring along some mango coconut splice jellies but with the temperature approaching 40 degrees I decided to put them on ice. For a vegan and gluten-free crowd, I adapted a recipe that my grandmother and Mum both made in years gone by. The original blends canned mangoes and sugar syrup, then layers them with dairy cream. I couldn't help noticing that canned mangoes are stored in sugar syrup , and so just used that in the fruity layer. I replaced the dairy cream with coconut cream, natch. I couldn't find a perfectly level spot in the freezer to store my splice blocks, so the ratio of mango to coconut varied from one end of the container to the other. I didn't mind in the least! They're dense and full of ice crystals, but sweet and soothing in the summer heat. You'd struggle to put a dainty spoon through them, and I've been content to eat them wit...

December 19, 2015 It would be fair to say that we're regulars at Wide Open Road (they know Michael by name and coffee order these days). Our most recent visit was an early Saturday morning forecast to be a scorcher, so Michael flipped his coffee to their cold brew with condensed milk on the side ($5). He turned up the heat with a generous dose of chilli sauce on a plate of corn, black bean and smoked mozzarella tortillas with chipotle lime creme fraiche and fried eggs ($16.50). I took on the current French toast option, a refreshing take on the summer pudding ($16.50), featuring: barely-battered brioche stuffed with juicy berries; pistachios, lemon curd and freeze-dried berries to drag the bread through; and a moussey block of vanilla yoghurt semi-freddo. This dish gracefully hurdles the high bar that Wide Open Road has been maintaining for years. Here's hoping it sticks around all summer long. The current menu holds clearly marked gluten-free options (including Michael's t...

December 12, 2015 Cindy's birthday festival wasn't over after our fancy Brae dinner - we had speedy dumplings at Shanghai Street on Friday night and then I got cracking on a Saturday morning breakfast. I returned to Vegan Brunch , opting for our go-to potato-based side dish, muffin-tray hash browns combined with something new: pesto-tofu scramble with cherry tomatoes. I'm sure you could take the easy option and buy some pesto, but Isa's recipe is super simple and adds just the right amount of oily basil goodness to the scram. Even a tomato-hater like me found the cooked-down cherry tomatoes added nice bursts of colour and flavour. We had a long debate on Facebook recently where most commenters agreed that there was no cafe-cooked scrambled tofu that measured up to what you can make at home and I think, despite how much I enjoyed Green Park's offering , this dish proves them right - nobody's selling scrambled tofu this good, so stay home one Sunday morning an...

December 10, 2015 For my birthday this year Michael organised a surprise overnight trip to Birregurra, primarily so that we could eat at Brae. This high-end restaurant seems to have no trouble luring guests from Melbourne and even further afield thanks to the reputation of head chef Dan Hunter - even with sneaky preparation around 2 months in advance, Michael was only able to secure a weeknight booking. The menu draws from local produce, some of it grown on site, and is a set number of courses. Having mentioned our vegetarianism on booking, the staff had this menu poised for us to peruse, asking that we alert them to any extra allergies or ingredients we wished to avoid. It listed 14 dishes - 6 appetisers, 5 main plates, 2 desserts and 1 petit four - at $160 per person, and included options for matched wines ($120 per person, which Michael ordered) or matched non-alcoholic beverages ($60 per person, my preference). All of the appetisers could be eaten by hand, and it released me to enj...

December 5, 2015 Green Park took over the old St Ali space just off the bike path about a year ago, and we've been a bit slow to check it out properly (although we did swing by for a special dessert degustation late last year ). I scoped the brekkie menu in its early days and didn't see much exciting for vegos, so we've been focussing our attentions elsewhere . I stopped off to grab a drink one afternoon recently and spotted an array of veggie (and vegan!) dishes on the menu, which necessitated a speedy return. We turned up nice and early on a Saturday morning - between the playground, bike path and lovely outdoor tables, Green Park gets rammed on a sunny weekend. Even at 8a.m. things were pretty hectic, with kids roaming about and lots of people loading up on coffee. The menu is well stocked with vego options these days, and we were particularly impressed that they've got sweet and savoury vegan dishes. I tried out the scrambled tofu (with broccolini, kale, onions,...

December 4, 2015 I recently visited Adelaide for work. Inevitably my time was scheduled to be indoors eating catered food, but I set aside an extra half-day at the end to stroll the Adelaide Botanic Garden and lunch at Thea Tea Shop. This cafe has conceptual counterparts in most Australian capital cities , serving mock meat meals and bubble tea to cityworkers at lunchtime. Their paper menu comes with a pencil to tick off and place your order, spanning a couple of dozen tea flavours with optional pearls or jelly, about eight self-contained rice or noodle dishes and a scattering of snacks. The food is very vegan-friendly but lacks obvious gluten-free options; some drinks contain milk or honey. My crispy hainan style rice ($11) featured a crunchy-crumbed gluten cutlet, ball, salad of corn, cabbage and mushrooms, and a battered ball begging to be dipped into the dish of salty-soy sauce. I liked that my dine-in passionfruit tea ($3.90) with jelly ($0.50) was served in a reusable cup; it...

November 28-29, 2015 Our Thanksgiving hosts listed some suggested contributions in advance of the feast, and I predictably pounced on the dessert pie option. I reckoned I'd be able to cater to the vegan and gluten-free invitees; unfortunately they ended up declining for various reasons, but I forged on with a vegan recipe regardless. The recipe comes from Hell Yeah It's Vegan! , which confidently touts it as the best pecan pie. I liked that it used apple puree and arrowroot in the filling, trusted that corn syrup would give a glossy sheen, and was intrigued by the crumbled crackers that presumably add substance to the filling. Crackerless, I blended up some breadcrumbs instead and noticed a few staying stubbornly lumpy in the caramel filling. Speaking of which, gosh this filling was sweet . The bulk of it is caster sugar, corn syrup and apple puree, which start out pale and crystalline, but bake into a very chewy brown binder. This pie was almost a praline. With an ultra-crum...

November 29, 2015 We were lucky enough to be invited to a friend's big Thanksgiving shindig on Sunday. She's an expat American and goes all out each year, with a massive meal and loads of lovely guests. To make catering for twenty-something people possible, Thanksgiving was potluck-style, with everyone chipping in side dishes, booze, sweets etc. Cindy claimed a dessert slot (post coming soon), so I settled for something savoury. Cindy pointed me in the direction of Heidi Swanson's veggie thanksgiving roundup and I picked out this super simple green bean salad. It's stupidly easy to make - five ingredients (including salt and oil!), a bit of chopping and 5-10 minutes of cooking and you're done. The recipe below is what you'd do if you were going to serve it up straight away. Because we were cooking it earlier and taking it to lunch, I didn't put the beans in the frying pan, but blanched them separately for a minute and then cooled them down, before combining...