Archive for March, 2006I’m enjoying the extra functionality of Wordpress but have to admit it’s not as easy as blogger for a IT bumpkin like me. I have The Editor at Grods Corp to thank for the change. He has become my new blog mentor. I’m not sure he realises that yet. I think he is just one of those incredibly smart /patient / helpful people who assumes that you will stop emailing him for advice eventually. Little does he know… The main thing is coming to terms with css and php because you can’t get away with knowing just a few basic html tags like you could in blogger. This is probably self-evident to anyone who has seen the sidebar with its wacky spacing and variable colours. Also, my non-veggie links are called ‘wicked links’ not because I’m harking back to the halycon days of the late 80s but because I can’t figure out how to stop the link categories from listing alphabetically. Despite a few teething problems I’m enjoying the move to Wordpress. I love the pages and categories functions. It sounds so simple but it is great to be able to put some permanent info on the site, and organise the posts so readers can easily find what they want. Also love the great range of plug-ins for wordpress and the fantastic tech support. This was something really lacking in blogger - while initially it is more accessible for people who aren’t au fait with website design, if something didn’t work there wasn’t much support or info about how to fix it. The only time I contacted blogger with a query about one of their help pages (on multiblogging) I was assailed with automatic emails encouraging me not to ask for help. When I persisted I got an email from a human in ‘blogger support’ who told me that they didn’t actually provide any support. This seemed an odd response given the section’s name - perhaps it should be changed if blogger wants to avoid attracting luddities like me. This was particularly frustrating because I had a really simple question which I’m sure would have been quicker to just answer, rather than set up a deathstar like defense system to stop me from reaching someone who could solve the problem. Anyway, am with wordpress now. Things are looking up.
V Rating: V-ware Furusato is a vegetarian conundrum. You ask for a vegetarian udon, you’re told you’ve got vegetarian udon and yet something about the dish just doesn’t feel right. Say, the white seafood cake garnish? I went to Furusato with some friends for the special lunch menu (certain dishes for about $8). While undeniably good value, nothing on the menu was ostensibly vegetarian. Also, the waitress didn’t understand the word vegetarian. This caused me some anxiety which wasn’t allayed by the arrival of the fish cake. Despite this very V-ware lunch experience,a check of the Furusato menu suggests that it does cater for vegetarians. There are two veggie entrees, and a few vegetarian mains (tempura, teriyaki and sushi). Combined with the pleasant outdoor courtyard and authentic Japanese food, I initially decided to give Furusato the benefit of doubt and allocate them a VV rating (just). However, I recently went back to Furusato and tried to order the vegetarian teriyaki for the lunch special. There are four teriyaki dishes on the main menu (three meat and one veggie). While you can get the three main meat dishes for the much cheaper lunch special, you can only get the vegetarian as a main. Even when you explain that you are vegetarian and don’t eat meat. So, for price disrimination against vegetarians, Furusato gets a V-ware. I started Veggie Friendly a couple of months ago on Blogger. Now that I’ve found my blogging feet I decided it was time to move to a more professional home with my own domain name Veggie Friendly using WordPress. The main advantage of WordPress over blogger is that it’s easier to customise and to organise information about the reviews. I’m still getting used to the new format so expect the site to change a bit more over the coming weeks as I discover what all the new buttons on wordpress mean and play around with the site template.
V Rating: VV Li Zai is a self-described ‘Asian tapas’ restaurant. This is either an excuse to serve smaller dishes for the same price as a regular meal, or a great way for groups of people to try lots of different items on the menu. I’m undecided. While the menu is weighted towards meat and seafood, there are some vegetarian and vegan options. At first glance these appear to be helpfully marked on the menu by a vegetarian symbol. Unfortunately, Li Zai’s definition of vegetarian includes seafood – our seaweed and tofu salad came garnished with roe and two so-called vegetarian dishes on the menu include prawn crackers and oyster sauce. This almost earned Li Zai a V-ware rating. As our vegetarian san choi bow and Asian vegetarian BBQ appeared to be meat and seafood free I’ve given them the benefit of the doubt; however, I’d recommend checking with the waiting staff before ordering the vegetarian dishes just to make sure you are not in for a nasty surprise. Doubts about the contents of our meal aside, the food was OK if not particularly flavourful. The Asian BBQ is actually two veggie kebabs. The cold tofu and seaweed salad was refreshing, but lacking in flavour. The vegetarian san choi bow was a fun dish to share, although the filling was perhaps a little over-spiced. The real appeal of Li Zai’s is its funky apartment style layout. There’s a smaller room with a single large table, ideally suited for groups wanting a dinner party away from home and a larger room with a series of intimate tables. Li Zai’s best feature is a great outdoor deck with a stunning view of Bondi Beach. The deck is ringed with fairylights and a comfortable couch seating. This is a great spot for a romantic dinner, sunset cocktails or even a party (provided that it’s not blowing a gale as it was the night we visited). Li Zai is a fun option for a summery Bondi dinner - just v-ware the liberal bestowing of a vegetarian friendly label!
V Rating: VV Don’t make the mistake of taking a bottle of wine to Mecca Bah, the Moroccan and middle eastern restaurant that has added a new Canberra outlet to its Melbourne and Brisbane branches – it is fully licensed but not BYO. After overcoming that minor embarrassment, I join my friends in the large, covered outdoor area which is on the deck of Manuka Terrace. The outdoor seating area is expansive and has a nice vibe. It is a warm enough evening, and the accordion-style glass windows are open, so it all feels pleasingly summery. After the incident with the wine bottle, we examine the wine menu and discover that the house white and red are $24 each – surely a bit steep for a house wine? One of my friends informs me that the waitress had said she would come and “explain” the menu to us once we had all arrived. I am inherently suspicious of any place that has a menu that needs to be “explained”. I am also inherently suspicious of any place that refuses to take bookings. What is with that? The waitress kindly informs us that the first page of the menu was mezze – “that’s kind of like tapas”, she says, in case we didn’t know. (Perhaps I am just being facetious, but if someone doesn’t know the meaning of mezze, are they likely to be aware of what tapas is?) The waitress encourages us to order several and share them. The vegetarian options on the mezze menu sound tasty: fattoush (a salad of Lebanese bread in wine), vegetarian chick pea and lentil soup, beetroot and yoghurt salad, Tunisian carrot salad, tabouleh, sweet potato felafels, olives, and bread with dips. My friend chooses the vegetarian soup ($8.50), and the rest of us decide to share the Turkish bread with dips ($11) and the carrot salad ($7.50). For mains ($16-$17), the vegetarian options are a roast vegetable tagine (“that’s like a stew served on cous cous”, explains the waitress again), and two types of Turkish pizza (“these are on a thin bread shaped like a boat and with the edges curled up”) – zucchini with cheeses, mint and lemon, and roast pumpkin, chilli, pomegranate jam and feta. On the waitress’s advice I order the zucchini pizza. When the Turkish bread and dips arrives, it involves sizable dollops of labna, hommous and baba ghanoush, and three rather large pieces of Turkish bread. The soup comes in a very large bowl and is a generous serve. The carrot salad likewise comes in a very large bowl, but it could not be called a generous serve. In fact, the serving is hardly even the size of a side dish for one person, let alone an amount to share. It looks even more minuscule given the massive plate it comes on. $7.50 for this? The three of us who are sharing it each allocate ourselves four small pieces of carrot from the twelve on the plate. They are delectable, and so it is even more disappointing that the serve was so small. So we order ourselves another plate of bread ($4) to go with the dips, which are very flavoursome, and stuff ourselves with this. Alas, by the time the mains come I think we have all eaten too much bread. My zucchini pizza is pleasing enough, and the lemon juice provides a nice zest to the taste of the zucchini, but I am unable to finish it. My friend who chose the vegetarian tagine says it is good, and spicy. Mecca Bah has an interesting array of other vegetarian selections on the mezze menu, but if these were all of the same small portion as the carrot salad, then I frankly don’t think they’re worth it. The vegetarian selection in mains is OK – three dishes – but not great. I’m giving this place a VV. The food was tasty, but unduly expensive. Add to that the pricey wine and no BYO, and it made for an expensive night. Vegetarians would get more choice and better value elsewhere. AC |
Bad Behavior has blocked 2163 access attempts in the last 7 days.