james test

April 18, 2017 We were saddened late last year when the news broke that Enlightened Cuisine was closing down. We'd been visiting there on and off for a decade , enjoying their mock-meaty Chinese food. Their closure, hot on the heels of White Lotus ' shut-down, left a big hole in Melbourne's veg restaurant scene. Luckily 2017 brought good news: Enlightened has reopened under a new name, Vegie Kitchen. We checked it out for a quick meal before heading off to see the amazing Patti Smith at the Arts Centre. Aside from the new name, almost nothing has changed. The menu appears to be exactly the same, with more than 100 mostly mock-meaty dishes to choose from. We started off with an old favourite, a serve of the delicious prawn toast ($5), which remains a deep, deep fried delight. We followed up with a couple of mock mains: kung po fish ($19.90) and ginger duck ($19.90). These were both great - the fish had a really great chilli kick and the ginger duck was tangy and delicious...

February 21, 2016 Steph hosted a potluck on Sunday night to mark the end of Chinese New Year celebrations, with dishes needing to be vegan and on-theme. Last time we had a CNY potluck I had a memorable dumpling failure , so I was keen to come up with the goods this time around. I still aimed high - deciding to make a first attempt at turnip cakes for the occasion. It's a bit of a rigmarole - you need to grate and cook daikon, fry some fillings and then make a big loaf that you steam for an hour or so. Our situation was made a bit harder by the lack of a proper steamer in our house - the saucepan/colander solution we came up with worked okay in the end, but it increased my anxiety substantially. Our substitutions: mock jerky for sausage and vego belacan for dried shrimp worked fine, and these fried up a treat in Steph's excellent frying pan (they stuck pretty badly when I tried a couple of test ones at home). I didn't trust the texture to hold up if I made traditional recta...

May 16, 2015 On Friday night we were in the city for a gig at the Forum , and keen to try something new for dinner. I pulled up a year-and-a-bit-old bookmarked post from vegawesome! and suggested we give Sichuan House a shot. I had no problem snagging a table for two at 6pm, but they steadily filled up as we ate. I've since discovered that this restaurant is a favourite of many chilli-loving Melbourne bloggers (see link list below). The menu's generally very meaty but we were able to spot several veg options that correspond closely with the Dainty Sichuan menu : cold noodles, potato shreds, garlicky cucumber and the two dishes we ultimately ordered, stir-fried spicy dry tofu and chives ($19.80) and fish fragrant eggplant ($17.80). The dry tofu is firm and smoky, stacked high with lots of wilted greens and a few dried chillis. It was the right counterpart to the slippery battered eggplant, as sweet as it is spicy. A bit of steamed rice on the side ($2 per person) and we were we...

Having done Camy a couple of times , we were due to take Jen and Buttons ' advice and visit Shanghai Noodle House next door. It's somewhat smaller and as a result the service does feel more personable. Lining the walls are coloured pieces of paper listing many of the dishes available, in English and Chinese. Promises of eel and pork liver might put a vego off, but there's actually a dedicated vegetarian section in the pink laminated menu with 36 items to choose from. I find it difficult to place my first order at a restaurant like this - the prices are low and it's difficult to imagine being satisfied with just a $5 plate per person. Besides, there's too many appetising names to choose between! Michael left the decisions up to me and I tried not to dilly-dally. First cab off the rank were the spicy vegetable stir fried rice cakes ($8). I suppose we were expecting three or four fritter-like things consisting mostly of rice - instead we were surprised by this...

Friday found Cindy craving a fix of Chinese-style fake meats, so we met up after work at White Lotus in West Melbourne. White Lotus leads the way following our preliminary explorations of the fake-meat scene in Melbourne, and has the added advantage of being on our side of town. We continued our exploration of their menu: curry 'chicken'($13.50) for me, sweet and sour 'pork' ($13.50) for Cindy and some steamed vegies (pictured above, $12) for the pair of us to pick at. The chicken was great - tender and melty the way good curried chicken should be. The curry was fine, with a good amount of spice and some nice fresh vegies, but I couldn't help imagining how great it would be to find an Indian restaurant that made fake meat curries with pseudo-chicken this good. I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed a good chicken korma. Luckily for me I resisted tasting Cindy's sweet and sour pork until she was eating the leftovers for lunch the next day. Otherwise I could...