Sunday, September 13, 2009

Pre potluck ride

So a group of decided on sat the day before a potluck to do a group ride to st kilda, but it was super windy so instead just rode to the vic market and back. We wanted to go to somewhere for lunch and Mr T remembered seeing in market lane a place selling vegan and gluten free crepes called Le Triskel Creperie. We decided to give it a go.

They did have vegan crepes, which is great but they were pretty disappointing. Cindy had a non vegan crepe and said that the actual crepe itself was a lot drier than their her non vegan one, I suspect that they use buckwheat flour instead of regular flour. For savoury options, they only had one that could be made vegan which was tomato, mushroom and spinach, not so great though for tomato hating Craig. It was just dry and not overly tasty. They offered a fair few sweet ones that could be adapted though so I had a banana, almond and maple syrup one. Despite the maple syrup it was also a bit dry and disappointing but did look quite cute :


I appreciate the effort they made in making vegan ones, but not sure if the cafe realised that vegan doesn't have to mean dry and boring crepes.

We then went to casa del gelato which I adore, I seriously can't say enough good things about that place. I can see myself spending lots of time there this summer. They have awesome creamy soy flavours like hazelnut, pistachio, coffee, chocolate, natural (which is vanilla-ish) and bachi. Also all of the fruit flavours (except for banana) are vegan, it's so great to have non fruit flavours to choose from. I had bachi, hazelnut and passionfruit in a cone, and Mr T had pear, natural and pistachio:

For the potluck today, I decided to leave it to one of the many other bloggers who attended to post about and take pics. I made the chorizo sausages from vegan brunch but made a few changes, I decided to use refried beans instead of mashed pinto beans, added a tiny bit of liquid smoke because I run out of smoked paprika and used sage powder even though the recipe asked for dry rubbed sage because I couldn't find dry rubbed sage. I think that refried beans substitution may have contributed to the softness, but they were pretty tasty. I look forward to trying the other ones.

Mr T made kiwi sorbet which was yummy but we reallied half way through that we are a missing a piece of our ice cream maker so it wasn't as smooth as it should be.

Casa del Gelato
163 Lygon St Carlton
Daily 12:00pm-12am
Tel: (03) 9347-0220

10 comments:

Susan said...

It's good that there are more places offering vegan options, but they need to realise that vegan doesn't mean bland, dry or boring. Still, at least the awareness out there is growing. Hopefully they'll improve their repertoire soon!

steph said...

But will the many other vegan bloggers be as prompt at you as posting?

x said...

It's a shame the crepes weren't better, hopefully they'll improve on what they've started.

vegan.in.brighton said...

Shame about your lame crepes, hopefully they'll make them better one day, the gelato looks way better!

Cindy said...

Thanks for linking to the kiwi sorbet recipe - we got a couple kiwi fruits in our fruit & veg box this week and I'm keen to try it!

Theresa said...

The gelato place sounds great! And your chorizo looks really delicious.

Vaala ◪ said...

Shame about the crepes but all that gelato sounds awesome!

lisa said...

Baby I love your sausage!

Anonymous said...

both were amazing!

Amy said...

That all looks tasty. I don't know why people come up with their own recipes when there are perfectly serviceable ones in vegan cookbooks - there's an awesome crepe recipe in VWAV!!!