james test

February 28, 2017 Dosa Plaza is an unassuming eatery holding up the corner of an apartment complex in Preston, where High St and Plenty Rd fork off. We'd paid only passing attention to it, until a couple of friends invited us to try it out with them after work. Opening and discussing the menu was an excursion in itself - it's all vegetarian and stretches to over two hundred  items. Vegan, gluten-free and onion-garlic-free dishes are clearly marked, and there's even a 3-page summary sheet of vegan foods available on request. This was a journey that started briefly with pasta before focusing on Mumbai chaat, the Punjabi foods found at most Indian restaurants across Australia, and then south Indian delicacies - idlies, vadas, dosas and uttappas. Chinese fusion dosas, Mexican  fusion dosas, Indo-Chinese dishes, desserts and drinks. Phew! We tried our best to sample across the board. A dozen mini-idlies ($8, pictured above left) were an auspicious start, freshly steamed and a li...

Cindy has been agitating for a trip to Preston for a few weeks now on the back of this review of La Panella vegan bakery over at this is vegan melbourne . We decided to make the trip worthwhile with a trip to the Preston Markets - a grungier, smaller version of QVM - it's got meat and deli sections, a little organic stall and a range of clothing and other household bits and pieces to go along with the regular fruit and vegie stalls. We loaded up with vegies for a Sunday night soup (watch this space for the recipe/review) and, with the smell of doughnuts driving Cindy crazy with hunger, headed off to find La Panella. It's a little walk away along High Street and, unfortunately, doesn't have seats or tables. It really just seems like the kind of suburban bakery that I remember from my childhood - although in this case you can be reasonably confident that there's no anus in your pie. The crowd around the counter was quite pushy and it took some observant work from th...