james test

June 23, 2017 Humble Rays' neighbourhood is a strange mix of industrial buildings, new apartments, offices and construction work hinting at the past, present and future of Carlton. Inside the cafe the mood is much more consistent - it's a glowing, relaxed little getaway with pastel tiles and a gorman-patterned mural. The menu is just as playful and in-the-now: granola is served on panna cotta, hollandaise sauce is flavoured with yuzu, scrambled eggs are stuffed with crab meat, and salmon is served with quinoa. There's a little, but not a lot, of vegetarian savoury food. But there's a full page of sweets! Hong Kong-style egg waffles, pancakes, rice pudding and 'skookies' - individual, skillet-baked cookies. Every one of these dishes is sprinkled with half-a-dozen ridiculous fripperies; fruit, fairy floss, crumbs and sauces and candies. My companion urged me to order the French Toast Forever ($19), and I obeyed because it was her birthday. The toast is fluffy and ...

Cheap Eats 2006, a decade on November 22, 2016 Hotel Lincoln (now called The Lincoln) has had several changes in management in the decade we've known it. This has meant a few makeovers in look and menu, although I think the atmosphere has been pretty consistent. The front bar has the typical Melbourne pub feel, while the dining room out back is much fancier. There have never been more than a couple of vegetarian options available, although we've enjoyed the ones we've had. When we visited as part of a large group recently, we were happy to order their set menu (The Half Lincoln, $45 per person) and let them show us how broad their vegetarian options really were. The appetisers were light and fun - individual crackers piled with pink pickles, and kelp-salted edamame that kept our hands busy as we chatted. One of the meal's high points was the shared entree of roasted cauliflower with a medley of buckwheat, pomegranate seeds, currants and mint. The puffed-up crunch of the...

Cheap Eats 2006, a decade on October 22, 2016 Shakahari is a true stayer of the Melbourne restaurant scene: our decade-spanning Cheap Eats project covers just a fraction of its 44-year  tenure in Carlton. We made our first visit within a month of arriving in Melbourne and starting our food blog, and notched up five blog posts by 2008. After that we relegated our revisits to twitter, facebook and our own memories, but veg bloggers easy as vegan pie , vegan about town and In The Mood For Noodles carried the blogging baton for a few years after that (see end of post for a link round-up). For a long time Shakahari switched its east-meets-west vegetarian menu seasonally, but it seems to have steadied over time. If anything they've improved their vegan and gluten-free selection. Many of our favourites have stuck around, and we were able to revisit them on a Saturday date night in Carlton. The first is the Avocado Magic entree (now $16; then $12 in 2007 ) - a hefty strip each of avocad...

July 9, 2016 We had a pretty decent breakfast at A Fan's Notes last year , but it was a pretty low-key brunch place at the time, so I was surprised when I read on facebook that they'd started doing fancy degustations on the weekends. They take it week about: meaty one week and vegan the next. I hit up the vegan night with a couple of friends to try things out. You get five courses for a very reasonable $40, and they've got a good selection of vegan beer and wine to accompany the food. The staff are casual and friendly, and the atmosphere is still more dive bar than fine-dining, which suits me down to the ground. Onto the food! The first course was a sesame and peanut crusted rice paper roll, with enoki, pickled cucumber, burnt eggplant and miso dressing. This was a fancy twist on a a classic - crunch from the cauliflower and peanut, and a lovely mix of smokiness and umami from the eggplant and miso.  Next up was probably my favourite dish of the night: heirloom carrots, pol...

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,...

November 14, 2015 We've been angling for a visit to A Fan's Notes since our friend Will talked it up as a super vegan-friendly addition to the strip of cafes on Nicholson Street in Carlton North. We were too early for them a week ago , so we took no chances on Saturday and wandered up for a late lunch. It's a cluttered little cafe, immediately winning me over with posters of The Chills and The Clean , along with an impressive bookshelf and general scruffy-hipster vibe. The menu is full of vegetarian and vegan options, with five vegan or veganisable dishes (an enchilada and a quesadilla along with the scrambled tofu, bircher and burrito discussed below) and another five vegetarian dishes across the brunch and lunch menus. Coeliacs are also well catered for, with six dishes to choose from. I was almost lured in by the vegan scrambled tofu, with polenta, asparagus, burnt eggplant, roast peppers and snow peas ($17), but instead went with the vegan option on the black bean bur...

October 7, 2015 Every now and then, we're reminded of the Beaufort and I think fondly of their vegan ribs . We don't live as close by as we used to, but last week they were located squarely on the cycling path between the Melbourne Museum SmartBar event and home, right when we needed dinner. The ribs as we knew them are no longer available, but Ike's Rack Shack (situated inside the pub) remains admirably vegan-friendly.... that is, if the vegan in question is willing to eat alongside the giant slabs of meat ordered by most of their co-diners.  The striking flesh-free alternative is the Vegan BBQ Tray ($25) and it's plenty to share. Clockwise from top-right, it includes a toasted roll and coleslaw, 14 hour hickory smoked daikon (which I mistook for eggplant), a spicy Texicana style smoked barley sausage in BBQ sauce, smoked pulled squash, ranch sauce and southern fried portobello mushrooms. The roll and 'slaw were Bunnings grade and we didn't care for the mushy-...

September 27, 2015 Since we moved from Carlton to Brunswick a couple of years ago, there seems to have been a bit of a foodie renaissance around the Lygon/Elgin corner - there's Heart Attack & Vine (which we've at least managed to visit ), Milk the Cow , Pidapipo , Nora , the fancying up of Percy's into The Roving Marrow   and today's topic, The Vertue of the Coffee Drink (those who favour simpler pleasures will be relieved to know that the trusty Intersection Cafe is holding its own among all these upmarket upstarts). A couple of things to get out of the way. Firstly, the unwieldy (and frankly pretty terrible) name at least has a nice back-story, taken from an ad for London's first coffeehouse way back in 1652. Secondly, the location is as hilariously Melbourne as it could be - an old stable, down an unpromising alleyway lined with dumpsters beside a petrol station. It takes some finding. Once you find the door, the atmosphere changes quickly from grimy and w...

September 9, 2015 Michael's job has shifted locations from Fitzroy to the north-western CBD. As a result, Middle Fish has become middle ground between our workplaces. Originally focused on breakfast and lunch, this Thai cafe now trades for dinner, too, and the menu has expanded substantially since our last visit (erm, that was probably me sneaking in for banana roti with a textbook for cover). Most helpful is a double spread headed "Not Meat". Here Middle Fish spell out that their vegetarian dishes may contain eggs, fish sauce or shrimp paste - it's not quite my definition of lacto-ovo, but there are six dishes clearly marked vegan among them. There are also pages of Thai desserts and street sweets I'd not encountered before, extending their past roti offerings to sago, sticky rice and root vegetables steeped in coconut milks and syrups, some with icecream. But we were here for dinner. Once we'd placed our order, we were presented with a plate of prawn cracker...

February 10, 2015 Five months since opening, Mantra Lounge attracts a keen queue of students and workers for their cheap, filling and veg-friendly weekday lunches. On a Tuesday date with an old friend, I enjoyed their peanutty vegetable curry served with rice, vibrantly dressed green salad and a square of carob-iced cake ($8). I also added a sweet and very green spirulina-charged Bananarama smoothie (+$2). As of last weekend, Mantra are extending their trading hours to weekend lunches and dinners. That should render them more accessible than ever to non-locals seeking a cheap and nourishing meal. ____________ You can read about my first visit to Mantra Lounge here . ____________ Mantra Lounge 167 Grattan St, Carlton 0433 531 345 menu on a previous visit http://www.mantralounge.com.au/ Accessibility: Mantra Lounge has clearly given accessibility some thought - there's a ramp up from the footpath and plenty of space around the counter, where ordering, payment and food pick-up occ...

To my delight as much as hers, Katy returned to Melbourne for the weekend as a surprise birthday gift from her boyfriend! We hastily made plans to meet at Brunetti for morning tea. I made a point of ordering the barley-based orzo that Julia recommended , and was a little stumped when asked what kind of coffee I wanted with it. I went with a cafe latte, and received a subtly nutty and sweet drink with a light coffee kick. Having now reread the wikipedia page on orzo , I'm confused as to whether there was actually coffee in the beverage or whether it's just prepared in the same range of styles (latte, long black, etc). Could that twitchy leg I developed afterwards "from the caffeine" be psychosomatic? To accompany my orzo latte, a mini bomboloni with lemon custard. The perfect little package for an early treat! ____________ Want more Brunetti? We have this and ten other visits archived here .

I didn't expect to blog Markov Place again - not because I don't go there, but because I tend to order the same things each time. But on Saturday night, while celebrating Yung's birthday and making the most of Carlton before she moves away, Michael and I branched out. Placing my faith firmly in the restorative power of cocktails , I kicked off the evening with a vodka, pear and cardamom concoction and was duly rewarded with a cool but comfortingly spicy beverage. Markov is currently offering plates of vegetarian paella to share. Studded with broad beans, baby green beans, grape tomatoes and goats curd, it's a nourishing meal. You need a minimum of two people to order, and you'll be charged $25 per person. Lovely as it was, this seems a little expensive for what's offered: while Michael and I were well fed, three girls further down the table received the same portion to share between them and were charged, yes, $75. If nothing else that ensured room for des...

It's been almost a year since our last visit to the Hotel Lincoln and this time it proved to be a cosy and convenient environment for dinner with Marty and Mike. The bar is popular and the adjoining dining area also fills up, though the tables are generously spaced. A peek down the corridor reveals more tables, these covered with white linen. The menu changes seasonally, though the proportion of vegetarian options remains fairly constant - dahl and naan ($13) appears on the bar menu, while the restaurant offers one meat-free entree and one main. I picked the entree: chestnut and mascarpone ravioli with sherry mushrooms ($15), and additionally ordered a side salad. This was a larger portion than I expected, given Michael's little entree last time , but I relished every mouthful of the rich sauce and potent mushrooms. Though this would have been filling enough on its own, the lightly dressed green salad was a good choice for balance. This is Michael's main, the vegetaria...

On Saturday night we had a spontaneous meet-up with my aunt Carol and family friend Jens for dinner and a movie. We floated Thai , Vietnamese and Ind ian as options, but Jens had a hearty appetite and a preference for Italian so I suggested we try to get a table at Cafe Italia. Set in a laneway away from the spruikers on Lygon St, it still has no trouble attracting diners through its closed doors. In summer the open courtyard is delightful and in winter the same area is snugly closed up, housing just as many people. Cafe Italia's menu is adequate for vegetarians if not inspiring. There's bruschetta or dips to start, plenty of side dishes, four pasta plates and a pizza on offer. Disappointingly the mushroom risotto is made with non-vegetarian stock, but the waitstaff are clued up enough to know that kind of thing. (On a previous visit a waiter offered, without any provocation from me, to find out what kind of stock was in the soup of the day. I was impressed.) We conce...