james test

Moroccan Deli-Cacy We're a little late for 2016 retrospectives, but it's taken us all of January to cover our last (and often best!) eats of last year. And it's been almost two years  since we properly updated our where's the best? page, so we've taken the week to do it right. Let's begin with a moment's silence for past faves now departed: veg Chinese institutions  Enlightened   Cuisine  and  White   Lotus   Vegetarian   Restaurant , plus those amazing mock chicken wings out at Springvale; the Aussie-as why-in-South-Yarra  Sweetwater   Inn ; the feelin'-just-a-bit-fancy  Bayte  and  Otsumami ; for sweet little  Helados   Jauja . RIP Enlightened Cuisine prawn toast,  and that one time Michael ate a second serving for dessert. Thankfully we've been blessed with numerous new haunts. Our local 'hood has welcomed  Good Days  and  Very Good Falafel , and we love the  Tamil Feasts  ...

December 19-23, 2016 We took a long overdue trip to Brisbane this summer, to visit family. Mostly we took it easy - jigsaws, beach walks, reading novels, chatting over cool drinks and cheese plates. I ate avocados and mangoes at every opportunity. Amid all that we visited just a couple of veg*n cafes that have sprouted up recently. ____________ Vegan 'superfood bar' Charlie's Raw Squeeze has nine outlets around town, with more in the works. One is on the Redcliffe peninsula, where I grew up - this area has certainly evolved from those days of Sizzler and KFC. Charlie's Clontarf is staffed by numerous fresh-faced young women, who whip up juices, smoothies, acai bowls and banana-based 'loaded nice creams'. Mum & I stopped in for a browse right from the airport. We took away a taco bowl (~$12, not pictured) to share for lunch - we were impressed by the walnut mince and the bean salad, and glad for the fresh veges on a hot day. We browsed the Vegan Pantry, wher...

December 11, 2016 Almost inevitably, the much-hyped cookbook from local favourites Smith & Daughters was part of Cindy's birthday present this year. It was no surprise - I'd had to tell Cindy to hold off buying it herself so that we didn't double up. To add to the birthday excitement, I threw in an offer to cook up Cindy's choice of dishes for the night. It wound up being quite a feast - hot cheddar and pickled jalapeno dip to start, artichoke and chickpea salad for main, horchata to drink and melon salad with pickled pineapple and jalapeno for dessert. The horchata wasn't a complete success (I think our food processor doesn't quite have the power to get the rice liquidised properly), but everything else was a hit. Cindy loved the pickled pineapple when we tried the fruit salad for brunch last February , and we've already made it again - the blend of sweet, spicy and sour flavours is incredible. The artichoke salad was similarly great, another dish we l...

December 11, 2016 Rue de Creperie sits in that strip of Brunswick St that's full of veg*n eateries. It's not entirely vego but their street board promises vegan options. They really deliver, too - the savoury galette batter is vegan and gluten free, and the sweet crepe batter is always vegan, with a surcharged gluten-free option. Toppings are above and beyond the usual - they've got vegan cheese, icecream, chocolate sauce and caramel on hand, yielding more than a dozen options all up (majority sweet). For all that, our touring friend went for the classic lemon and sugar crepe ($9) - like all the sweet vegan crepes, it comes with a scoop of coconut Zebra Dream icecream. Michael stuck steadfastly to savoury for breakfast, ordering a galette filled with mushrooms, spinach and sufficiently-melty vegan cheese ($12). In contrast to my milder-mannered companions, I went all out with a Thailand special ($13): a parcel stuffed with bananas, liberally spread with soy condensed milk,...

23/03/2017: Unfortunately the St Kilda Snug is now closed ! You can still visit them in Brunswick. December 10, 2016 We had a good time checking out the new vegan options at The Snug in Brunswick and heard rumours that the St Kilda branch was even more impressive. Cindy and another friend scheduled their big joint birthday dinner there so we could check it out - we filled up a couple of the outside tables on a busy Saturday evening. The menu is ridiculous - more than 50 vegan or veganisable dishes with an emphasis on mock meat and fried food (although there are a handful of healthier options if you're that way inclined). Think The Cornish Arms with a bit more traditional Irish pub food. We kicked things off with a round of fried treats for the table. The battered sausages ($10) are more batter than sausage - gloriously oily lumps of fried that are not for the faint hearted. I ate more than my fair share of these, which left me struggling by the time the meals came out later. Thin...

December 9, 2016 In December an old friend returned to Melbourne for a week. She's vegan, and was equally excited to revisit her old faves ( Yong , Casa Del Gelato ) and catch up with the new veg eateries that have popped up in the past 3 years. We booked in a Friday night dinner at Transformer as part of the latter project.  To ensure a good spread across the menu, we took our first shot at the chef-selected Feed Me option ($55 per person on a Friday, without dessert) and requested that everything be vegan. While we picked drinks, we grazed on a small plate of mixed olives, roast peppers, pickled garlic for the brave, and a little chilli. We also scooped up the dip plate with gusto; it was a savoury-creamy arrangement of white bean dip, artichokes and caperberries with an impressively doughy gluten-free flatbread. The bread was pretty great dredged through the olive's marinade too! These appetisers were rapidly followed with salads. The first was a study in astringency - fenne...

December 3, 2016 Until last month all I knew of Avenel was its Hume Freeway roadhouse, a stop on the bus route between Melbourne and Albury. Now this town is home to one of my aunts, and she proudly showed us round one weekend in December. We missed the nearby Xmas Twilight Market by a day, and instead walked along the Goulburn River before dining at Bank Street Wood Fired Pizza & Garden. This pizzeria is hardly a local secret. Not only does it appear in local tourist guides, but it's attracted reviews in the city newspapers and definitely requires a reservation on a Saturday night. They make a good first impression - the side-path entry leads to a view of a lovely back garden, before you can let yourself into the renovated bank building to be warmly welcomed by one of the staff. Although they were evidently busy, they didn't mind running through food and wine details with us and everything was served with a smile. As you'd expect, the menu is dominated by pizza. Vegans...