james test

March 3, 2017 Late in 2016, the Melbourne veg*n grapevine was buzzing with rumours about a new vegan pizza place in Collingwood. The opening got postponed a few times and the excitement steadily grew. So when they finally threw their doors open, it didn't take long for us to join a gang of Melbourne veg*ns to go and check them out. Part of the delay in their opening was related to the transportation of their fancy pizza oven - they're going for a similar thin-crust wood-fired vibe to the much loved Gigi in Sydney and they've got the setup to match. The menu has something for everyone - classics like margherita, mock-meat extravaganzas like pepperoni and healthier options like the supergreen (spinach and kale pesto with broccoli and zucchini). We ordered eight pizzas between the eight of us, and the staff were kind enough to cut things into (uneven) eighths to make the whole sharing experience easier.  The first four, clockwise from top-left were: the classic sausage (bbq b

Cheap Eats 2006, a decade on August 13, 2016 Part of the reason we decided to do our Cheap Eats 2006 project was to catch up on some glaring omissions in our near-decade of blogging. Cindy covered off Fo Guang Yuan in April, and this weekend we made our first ever visit to Collingwood vego stalwart Friends of the Earth. We haven't actively been avoiding it, but the fact that it's taken us so long to visit is probably at least partly due to a suspicion that FOE would serve up worthy but bland vego food. Luckily, that impression was completely wrong - the cafe has a lot more to offer than just lentil stews: there are doughnuts and other sweets, lunch rolls, pizzas and more, along with a seasonal mixed plate. Everything is vegan by default (although there's dairy milk and butter on hand), and they're good at gluten-free options as well. There's a handy selection of veg-friendly groceries, including organic fruit and veggies. I really wanted to try the baked tofu roll

October 31, 2015 The latest incarnation of the Gasometer has been open a year and a half, offering a steady stream of gigs and gastropub meals ... except that the kitchen's just been rebranded Gas-Light Izakaya! We stopped in early for dinner before swinging around to the band room for Dan Kelly's album launch . The menu doesn't pay much mind to special dietary requirements - there are more than enough dishes to sate vegetarians, but vegans and coeliacs are likely to have a tougher time of it. The fried cauliflower florets ($9) were huge and hard to maneuvre with chopsticks, but had the right balance of crunchiness and tenderness. The accompanying sweet and sour sauce only left us hankering after the spicier version we've made at home. The jalapeno and cheese korokke ($5, foreground) was also expertly fried, though we were ambivalent about the warm mushy filling ( Smith & Daughters has really spoiled us for any other croquette!). We were more taken with the tofu

January 6, 9 & 24; February 12 & 16, 2015 A month or two back news of a place in Collingwood doing a great vegan banh mi swept Facebook. I stopped by Trang Bakery Cafe to check it out, expecting a tofu roll or something only to be confronted by this menu. This changed everything - I couldn't do Trang justice with just a single visit, I had to commit to the full experience. So I went back 5 times and fully sampled the menu (sidenote: on my last visit they'd added a vegan prawn option to the list, but my journey was complete). A Trang banh mi follows a pretty simple formula: some sort of roasted eggplant relish as the base, a pile of fresh vegetables and herbs, generous chunks of your choice of mock meat, fresh chilli, peanuts, and fried shallots plus a couple of mysterious sauces. They're $5 each, made on the spot and they're stuffed to the gills with goodness. The centrepiece below is the mock duck banh mi. It's surrounded by (clockwise from top-left): mock

Trippy Taco has long been one of Michael's favourite places to buy lunch near his work place. But he took his sweet time letting me know that they're open for an early dinner! Thankfully we had plenty of time to stop by on Friday between work and ACMI's Jim Henson rarities . The layout is still just as Michael described it 19 months ago, though I think the menu has expanded. They're now fully licensed and cook several kinds each of quesadillas, tacos, taquitos, burritos, nachos, as well as breakfast variations thereof. Everything (except possibly the fries, but I think they're working on that) is vegetarian, and the menu is scattered with tips for vegans - letting you know where to request soy milk, soy cheese, tofu instead of eggs, dairy-free chocolate spread instead of nutella. And though they won't keep you waiting too long for food, you can pass that time with snakes and ladders! There's nothing like a quick victory to pique the appetite, even i

Winter had pretty much put a stop to our adventures to the countless markets that Melbourne hosts, but with the first hints of spring warming our bodies (and spirits), we decided to resume our explorations. We didn't really stray too far from home - off to Abbotsford for the monthly Slow Food Market, held in the Abbotsford Convent right next door to the Collingwood Children's Farm . The market is spread out across the grounds of the convent (most of which is a school I think), with a few fruit and vegie stalls, some butchers, cheese-makers and a lot of other bits and pieces like dips and jams. I'd saved room for a second breakfast, so the first stop was The Convent Bakery - offering a range of bread and pastry products and a few sandwiches and panino. I decided to dive into one of the raspberry danishes, which was sweet, tangy and chewy in all the right places, while Cindy ducked outside to grab one of the fancy-pants cupcakes from one of the stalls. The cupcake was a r

The Horn in Collingwood is a stange hybrid of African cafe and jazz bar. It's cosy, with a couple of linked rooms and is atmospherically decorated with a combination of African and jazz-related paraphernalia. Cindy discovered it via 1001 Dinners, 1001 Nights and decided it was worth a visit. I wandered in around 7 to meet Cindy and a group of friends for dinner and the friendly and relaxed staff set me up at the back corner table with one of the organic Ethiopian beers that they offer. I could have quite happily sat there and relaxed all evening, but eventually everybody else arrived and we could get down to the business of eating. The menu contains a fairly extensive range of Ethiopian snacks and meals, with a reasonable number of vego options. It was hard to go past the vegie and dahl combination, which Cindy and I shared, - a chance to try five of the dishes on offer without eating until bursting point. Our waitress explained the traditional Ethiopian style of eating wher

Welcome to an exciting* new regular** where's the beef special - Gertrude Street Grub. Cindy and I usually sort out enough leftovers from our meals to provide ourselves with weekday lunches. Having house guests in the last few weeks however, has resulted in much fewer leftovers and many more trips out to buy lunch. I've discovered some pretty great places and have decided to put together a weekly*** series of posts reviewing lunch places around Gertrude Street (where my office is) and the southern ends of Smith and Brunswick Streets. The lucky first place (and, in truth, the inspiration for this entire series) is Trippytaco. From what I understand, Trippytaco started out as a caterers who ran food stalls at Meredith and other Victorian festivals (although surprisingly I don't remember them being at the Hispanic Festival ). They've recently set up a shop on Smith Street in Collingwood where their vegetarian Mexican food is on sale all year 'round. The menu is s

In the past few months, Cindy and I have been slowly visiting Melbourne's many food markets . Saturday dawned sunny and warm and a quick check of our Cheap Eats Guide informed us that we'd luckily hit the right Saturday for the farmers' market at the Collingwood Children's Farm. A glance at the website for the on-site cafe was enough to convince me that we should head off straight away and have breakfast once we were there. The first thing we noticed when we finally made it to the Children's Farm after the long walk up Johnston Street was the greenery: trees, grass and little farm plots everywhere. Melbourne seems to specialise in these inner-city havens - at both CERES and the Children's Farm it's remarkably easy to forget that you're basically in the middle of a city of almost 4 million people. The first order of business was breakfast. Cindy had snacked before our departure, and settled for a lemon poppy seed muffin, whereas I'd starved mys