Holiday and Satay Bar

We are leaving for our holiday today, things have been pretty hectic and I have been hogging the computer for my thesis, so poor Toby hasn't had a chance to blog at all lately.

We probably won't be blogging much for the next couple of weeks while we are away, although we might be able to on our first stop to Hong Kong since we will be staying with Toby's family and have internet access, but I can't promise anything because I expect to be stuffing myself silly with vegan yum cha and shopping til I drop. Then we are off to London and Berlin where I don't expect much internet time at all.

But I have some news:

Toby and I are going to start a new combined blog when we get back and I finally have a decent camera, which makes a pretty good change from my camera phone.

Anyway on to the food, when I worked in the city I used to frequent Satay Bar and Toby is now a regular eater there. It's a small cafe, which tends to be quite busy at lunch time on weekdays but makes a awesome take away lunch option for city workers. We recently confirmed in writing that all of the veg options are vegan. You can choose from tofu skewers, spicy tofu skewers or vegetables skewers. For $8.40 you can get two skewers, satay sauce and two sides (rice/salad/krupak). The satay sauce is certainly the best tasting satay I've ever had. And the krupuk have the texture of vegi chips or prawn crackers but with a more natural flavour.

Toby being a big eater always get the larger pack with 3 skewers:




Satay Bar
Corner of Flinders Lane & Custom House Lane
Melbourne.
Phone 9629 1466
MON - FRI 10am - 7pm
www

Me, The Tobinator And The Boys' Night Out

I went to Critical Mass last night while Kristy, Steph, Pip, S-J and the gang were enjoying the yummy Vegetarian Vietnamese food in St Albans. I was there at 17:30 and there were no cyclists in sight. I thought it was cancelled but "the mass" finally showed up around six. The bikes were cool and the people were friendly. It kind of put me off when a cyclist was drinking a beer while riding though.


We finally started riding around 18:30. A lady asked me if my name is Toby. I said yes. The "The Tobinator" sticker on my bike must have given it away.

I was enjoying the ride but 2 minutes in I've got a call. Button The Bird Slayer was outside the house and I had to go home to take her back inside. Okay, goodbye Critical Mass, I will see you in December.

So I ended up having dinner with Craig at East Brunswick Club. The menu has changed. Vegan Parma is $12 everyday (but smaller) and they now serve Funky Pies with a side of Salad. They also have Mountain Goat Steam Ale on tap.

Craig and I both ordered the amazing Vegan Philly Cheese Steak and a pint of Steam Ale. The Cheese Steak was awesome as usual. The new beer Steam Ale is kinda like the Indian Pale Ale they used to make but yummier.

Talking about about EBC. CURSE ov DIALECT is having their album launch there at 20th Nov and Why?, the only non-hiphop act under Anticon label, will be there for their Meredith side show. I am giving Why? a miss because we will be overseas. Be quick, my friends. Tickets will be sold out in no time.

Coffee: My Drug of Choice

As most of you might know, I love my coffee. A cup of proper coffee is office workers' best friend. The scent, the taste and the caffeine gives you a good kick in the morning and helps you to carry on with the 8 hours of mind numbing/draining work.

Having a Soy Long Mac(chiato) at Brother Baba Budan(BBB) before work is like my ritual. I have never had a bad coffee there.

Soy Long Mac @ Seven Seeds , mother store of Brother Baba Budan

My recent favourite is the little deli/cafe Superfino (275 Flinders Lane, Melbourne). The non-hipster Barista makes a good Soy Long Mac and Soy Latte with Coffee Supreme Organic Fairtrade Blend with bonsoy. They are also pretty close to my work and don't have long queues like BBB.

When you are in the city, you can also get good coffee at Jungle Juice, Switchboard (they also sell vegan Anzac cookies) and Pushka. I have also heard raving reviews of Collins Quarter and Dancing Goats.

This is a food blog so let's talk about food. Away from the city, you can enjoy a vegan moussaka (replace Feta with Hummus) or baked beans with a nice cup of coffee at Ray (332 Victoria St Brunswick). One of their waitresses is vegan and she went through all the vegan options with Kristy and I.

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Soy Long Mac from Ray

Bomb Cafe (229 Johnston St Abbotsford) make one of the best vegan breakfasts in Melbourne and their coffee is not bad either.

Soy Long Mac from Bomb Cafe

In other news: I'm doing my first Critical Mass tomorrow night! See you at 5:30pm outside the State Library at the corner of Swanston St and LaTrobe St.

Cedar bakery

A couple of weeks ago, Erin and I went to Cedar bakery, it is a Lebanese bakery and small grocery store that is pretty similar to A1 bakery on Sydney rd, Brunswick. All of the bakery options are super cheap at approximately $2-3.50 each. It's situated on the Thornbury side of bell st, just after high street branches off to plenty rd.

I decided to get a spinach pie, excuse the blurriness :

and a plain oregano pizza with za'atar topping:

And Erin got a oregano pizza with salad. It was massive and filled with a lot more than the usual ones at A1 and Tabets (also on Sydney rd). It had lots of spinach, mushrooms, olives, onion and tomato:

Not only was the salad fillings healthier, but the oregano pizza and spinach pie pastry seems to be much healthier, it wasn't oily at all and was more bread like.

I really enjoyed the lemony spinach pie, and the plain oregano pizza would have been enjoyable to most people, but it had rosemary on it which I hate, next time I will opt for the large, healthy salad oregano pizza which might dull the rosemary flavour a bit.

Cedar Bakery

33-37 High St, Preston VIC 3072

(03) 9484 4999 ‎
Open 7 days- 8am-7pm.

Monsieur truffle, I have expensive taste

Monsieur Truffle is just around the corner from my work which is very dangerous because if I feel that I really need chocolate it is just a little bit too close and at $10 a bar it is the most expensive chocolate I have ever purchased.

Unfortunately I am slowly becoming addicted to there chocolate. I have been slowly trying their different flavoured chocolate bars, caramelised almond, hazelnut etc. The caramel specks is probably my favourite, with crisp caramel bits, maybe it is because I haven't seen another dark chocolate caramel bar that is vegan:


I tried to get an inside shot but struggled because apparently button likes the chocolate too
My only problem is I still eat it like it is regular chocolate, consuming a bar in 1-2 days. Yes I need an intervention!

They also sell dark chocolate almond clusters, a whole range of exotic dark chocolate bars and rich dark chocolate flakes to make an incredible rich hot chocolate. Most of their dark chocolate options appear to be vegan!

Monsieur Truffle Chocolate
90 Smith St
Collingwood
9416 3101
Open: Mon-Fri 8am-5pm;
Sat 9am-5pm; Sun 10am-5pm

It's almost the end of Aus/NZ Vegan Mofo (Month of food) and I'm pretty proud of my increase in number of posts but it will probably mean that I will need to decrease my posts in October and spend a little more time on my neglected thesis. I've really enjoyed the experience though, I think it helped me to get out of my food slump.

Lord of the Fries- Northland

We where over an hour late for the potluck because the stumpy cake was so time consuming and we slept in, so we missed out on most of the savoury options but overloaded ourselves in sugar and thought that lots of salt and deep fried savoury would fix the problem. We started chatting with Cindy and Michael about the new lord of the fries store at Northland or 'Norflands' as the locals say and decided to give it a go.

I was relieved to see that it was actually a small cafe with seats unlike the city store, and the interior was actually quite nice, with a mix of tall tables and low tables and a bright red wall. In addition to the usual range they also had a 'chicken ' burger and 'hotdogs' on the menu although the 'chicken' burgers were sold out on the day. I was tempted to get a 'hotdog' but was worried that it might be the sanitarium ones, in hidnsight I should I have just asked.

The place was sadly empty but it was around 3.30pm. Mr T and I decided to share the chips with gravy and 'cheese', 'chicken' nuggets, and a mega burger which I think is a version of the big mark burger. It was all tasty, hot and the serving of cheezly was very generous on the fries. It's a pity I no longer work around the corner.

I really hope the place does well, it would be great to have another veg option in Preston.

Lord of the Fries-Northland
2-50 Murray Rd
East Preston
near the cinema entry

Tart N Round

I took Mr T to Tart N Round last night. It's now open Friday and Sat nights and has grown quite a bit since I first blogged about it.

I had a delicious, thick strawberry milkshake, which was really filling


and a burrito, with bean/rice chili which just had the right amount of kick to it, lettuce and creamy guacamole.


Mr T had the lasagna which I blogged about last time.



But I think where this place really stands out is it's amazing variety of vegan and gluten free desserts. I was super full but shared a scoop of double chocolate ice cream. It rocked my world, seriously! Soft unlike most soy ice cream almost like soft serve, creamy with lovely dark chocolate flakes in it. If I could marry an ice cream it would be this:


We didn't have room left in our bellies but I couldn't resist getting a piece of black forest cake for take away. It was beautiful to look out (before it went in a take away container) and had really nice cherry and chocolate and "cream" layers. I know where I am getting my birthday cake next year!

The guys who run this cafe are really nice and friendly and also gave us a tiny bit of their choc mint mudcake to try, it was super rich and gave me a really nice sugar buzz.

I don't think there is another place in Melbourne that can compete with this place in terms of vegan desserts. and everything is gluten free too so people like Lena can enjoy everything. They have so many other desserts too including vegan fudge, choc peppermint crisp and lots more.

I was a little sad that this new vegan cafe was virtually empty, the cafe has a nice feel but I guess not many people know about it yet. So go and show it some vegan gluten free love and enjoy the amazing desserts!

Tart N Round
839 High St
Thornbury
Tue- Thu 9-5
Fri- Sat: 9- late
Sun 9-5
www

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

Best scrambled tofu!

I've blogged about bomb cafe before, it's this tiny cute cafe that sells two vegan breakfast options. This time we both had scrambled tofu because it rocks. It has caramelised onion in it and is slightly sweet, peppery and cheap too at either $7.50 or $9.50. Mr T had mushrooms and fried potatoes on the side of his. The sour dough bread is chewy, hard to cut and delicious.

Mr T and I both agree that is the best scrambled tofu we have ever had. Don't get me wrong, I love the scrambled tofu at soul food too, but this is slightly tastier and cheaper too.

I don't know how this place doesn't get blogged about more.

Bomb Cafe
229 Johnston St
Abbotsford
9486 0699


Oh and I haven't been putting the aussie mofo symbol in all my posts so here is it again :-)

Ezard

For Mr T's birthday I took him to Ezard for dinner, we had the pre theatre tasting menu. It was AMAZING and well worth it's super high prize. My fav dining experience ever, although apart from press club, I haven't had many fine dining experiences.

We went with my brother and his girlfriend who are omni's and had separate menus but also really enjoyed it.

It was a little hard to take pictures, because we didn't want to use the flash and didn't want to be obvious about it, so some are quite bad. Also my descriptions are not the greatest because I didn't bring a notepad and the descriptions were all quite lengthy with descriptions like: "oyster mushrooms with mirin/soy/plum wine sauce infused with x y and z and topped with x y and z". But hopefully you get the point.

We had bread with olive oil, ground szechuan peppers, a mixture of sugar/lime and chilli, and a non vegan seaweed/fish one. It made me decide that I have to get my hands on some szechuan peppers.


We then had rhubarb, beetroot, grapefruit with salsa verde. I normally hate grapefruit but this was not sour at all.


We then had silken tofu in a red miso broth with some sort of melt in your mouth seaweed and sesame seeds. I've had lots of miso before, but this was hands down the best miso ever.


Then we had a warm artichoke salad with fennel. Why is it that I only like fresh fennel in fancy restaurants?


Then followed by oyster mushrooms in a plum wine/mirin/soy sauce that was sweet and savoury and so addictive which I mopped up like a crazy person with my bread.



Dessert was the only thing I was slightly disappointed with because I thought sorbet was just too easy, but it was delicious. We had mandarin/orange sorbet and raspberry sorbet with fancy dried fruit on top.



About half way through I started to worry that I might actually be hungry afterwards, but the meals got progressively bigger and by the end I was full, Mr T on the other hand wanted a stop at casa del gelato on the way home, but he's got a massive appetite. I really can't name a favourite dish, but Mr T said the oyster mushrooms in plum wine sauce was his favourite.

I really could get used to this type of fine dining, it's a pity my budget won't allow it.

We recently rode to ceres for breakfast. Ceres is positioned right next to the gorgeous merri creek bike track.
Ceres stands for center for education and research on environmental strategies. It is pronounced "series". There is a cafe there, small nursery, market on sat, community garden and much more. It really does feel a lot like a hippy place, but I love it.

Anyway this is for Aussie/NZ vegan mofo (month of food) so I better get to the food. We shared an almond muffin:


Pumpkin, tofu and miso rolland vegan breakfast which contained toast, mushrooms, spinach, smoked tofu, baked beans, and beetroot and chili relish. The smoked tofu was definitely my fav part, but I really enjoyed the beetroot relish too.


It was all delicious, and I especially enjoyed the vegan breakfast but at $17 it's pretty expensive for breakfast and really not that big for it's price.

Ceres cafe
Corner roberts and stewarts st
East brunswick
9387 2609
www

Tandoori Times

We went to Tandoori Times recently with my family and found it to be quite vegan friendly. I explained to the waiter that we are vegetarian and don't eat dairy and eggs and he explained that they don't use egg at all and then explained which dishes contained dairy and which ones could be made vegan. They really did pay attention, telling us if a condiment that was put on the table contained dairy and explaining that the kitchen accidentally put butter on our bread so he asked them to make us a new bread. The interior was quite nice too and the food was very tasty and affordable.


We had, onions bhaji, which was crisp and not too oily:

Tandoori mushrooms which are normally made with butter but were made dairy free for us. I'm not a big mushroom fan but Mr T loved these.

Punjabi daal which had just the right amount of ginger and coriander was and pumkin lakhanawi which was a bit spicy but had a nice tamarind flavour.

Tandoori Times
45 anderson st
Yarraville
9689 0666
www

Speedy food talk

• East Brunswick club philly cheese steak (pic above) was not what I imagined but is amazing.
• The vegan turkish deli pide at the tenth muse (brunswick st opp vegie bar) is massive and tasty, worth it just for the amazing pesto.
• I'm not normally a big fan of soul mama but the truffle malteser slice(I think that's what is is called) is rich and well just perfect in every way.
  

Tart 'n' Round cheese

On my second visit to Tart n Round I noticed that they sell their own cheese I decided to buy a container but was quite skeptical looking at the jelly-ish texture.



But I put some on toast and grilled it and it was yummy. The texture was quite similar to how I remembered tasty cheese grilled on toast, the 'cheese' was kind of crisp on the outside and soft in the inside. Flavour wise, it is quite mild but you can definitely taste the cheesiness mixed with herbs.


And I asked about the choc tops, they are coming!!! At the moment they have a few tubs of their own home made ice cream and lots more savoury dishes like pizza and soup.

Enlightened cusine banquet or lots and lots of mock meat

Normally when we go to Enlightened Cusine, we go with a big group of friends and share lots of different dishes but then you only get a couple of bites of each dish. Mr T and I recently went to celebrate my new job or rather secondment. We chose one of the more expensive options on the banquet menu which I think was $32 each, but was worth it for this special occasion.

We had shark fin soup which I suprisngly liked and spring rolls


fried rice, sorry for the pic quality but It was kind of embarrassing taking food pics because my fellow diners kept looking at me when I did


Crispy sweet and sour pork, and mixed vegetables with tofu in a light stock/soy sauce

ma po tofu and spicy kung pow prawns

After all that mock and deep fried food it was nice to end with lychees and soy ice cream.



There was so much food, and it was so good to try a few dishes we had never had before and to have more than a few bites of everything. I liked all of it except for the prawns but I can't get into mock fish. I was slightly dissapointed with the ma po tofu, but I spend a year eating Ma Po Tofu in Hong Kong so I might be a bit picky with it. I always thought that shakahari would be the best first date option for vegans but am now thinking a banquet might be a better option, although maybe you don't want that food baby look you get from eating too much on a first date.

Enlightened Cusine
113 Queensbridge St, Southbank
9686 9188
www

Breaking news: Melbourne's newest veg cafe opened today!

I was super excited to find out that Tart n Round that make the amazing chocolate balls that are available at Fatto a Mano and many other places was opening a cafe. I was even more excited when I learnt that it was going to be in Thornbury and super close to my work. They opened today and so I popped in on my tiny lunch break. Everything they sell is egg free, dairy free, and wheat free and vegetarian of course. I didn't get a good look at the menu, but they had a few things in their fridge like veg burgers/patties, and lasagna. I also noticed that they had their amazing cherry bliss and peanut caramel balls, with some other chocolate balls and a few different varieties of giant cookies. One thing I did see on their menu was brownie sundaes that I will definitely try next time. I also heard rumours that they will see vegan choc tops but didn't see any. I needed something quick though so got a piece of lasgane. It was quite unique in that it had mashed potatoes on top but it worked. It had a range of vegies and mushrooms in and it and was yummy.

I also got myself a choc orange cookie.

It was huge like the size of my palm and I have long hands, see:

I can't wait to go back on sat with Mr T and try more. It's great to finally see a veg cafe around Northcote/Thornbury.


Tart N Round
839 High St
Thornbury
Tue- Sat 10-6
www