Archive for May, 2006
V Rating: VVV Most Melburnians are a little bit wary of the famous Lygon Street Italian restaurant strip, what with its tourist crush, generally underwhelming food and relentless spruikers. But thankfully Trotters is way up the other end of the street, out of the sight of tourists and really only known to locals. It is also ideally situated a few doors up from the Nova cinema, perfect for that pre-film dinner and glass of wine. I’ve been to Trotters once before and didn’t even look at the menu. On the specials board was polenta with roast vegetables and napoli sauce. Sold! No, sir, I will not need the menu. And an excellent meal it was. So last night, before seeing Where The Truth Lies (great flick, by the way), we dropped into Trotters and I was keen to see just what kind of V-Rating this place deserved. I was pleasantly surprised. The regular menu contains four veggie options: pumpkin and pea risotto, spinach & ricotta ravioli in an arrabbiata sauce, polenta with eggplant, napoli and roquette, and a lentil burger on turkish with hommous. In addition, the specials board always contains a veggie option — five decent vegetarian meals to choose from ain’t bad. With the prices for these meals ranging from between $12 to $14 it’s good value too. I chose last night’s special — linguine with broccoli, tomato and garlic ($12.80) — and didn’t regret it. Al dente pasta tossed with a generous offering of broc and tomato in olive oil and just the right amount of garlic. You know, you want that great garlic taste but you’ve also got to go out and face the public after the meal. My wife went for the polenta and was also impressed. The servings aren’t huge but they are sufficient, the wine is quite good for $5 glasses, and the restaurant’s small, warm, dim and welcoming wooden interior definitely makes the meal more pleasant. If you’ve got interstate visitors who are begging to go to Lygon Street, take them to Trotters. If you live in Melbourne then here is a legitimate reason to dine on Lygon Street south of Cemetery Road. Reviewed 20 May 2006, SDEB
V Rating: VVV After our food extravaganza at Ravesi’s, Andy and I were keen on a quiet Saturday night. So, we decided to try the new Red Room DVD store in Bondi Junction. Being in the mood for a night of sloth, we planned to get a quick dinner at Thai Brown Rice on the way home. There was a touch of anxiety to the night because we only had our parking spot for 50 minutes. Figuring out Red Room’s new-fangled system (there are no endless rows of DVD cases - you just choose a movie on an electronic screen, press a button, and an anonymous looking CD case is dispensed with your movie), and then actually deciding on what DVD to hire, took a good 20 minutes.
Thai Brown Rice provides a decent vegetarian choice. There are three vegetarian entrees, and each of the main sauces can be served with vegetables and tofu. The menu shows a hint of health consciousness – the tofu is organic, and you can order a laksa light which comes without coconut milk. Thai Brown Rice’s forte is ‘speed’ food with a healthy twist, not haute cuisine. The food tastes fine, but is unmemorable. The tofu came smothered in peanut satay sauce and was a little too rich for our tastes. The Phad Thai and chilli basil with vegetables and tofu made a good meal, but were undistinguished. I was prepared for a spicy meal, but thought both dishes were mild. The best part of the night was that we were home in enough time to watch both the incredible Howl’s Moving Castle followed by the Iron Chef tofu (pronounced TOOOOOOOOOOOO-fw) battle. Ahh yes, the perfect evening.
V Rating: V-ware Ravesi’s highlights one of the conundrums of the V rating system. It only has one vegetarian entree and main, and the entree is not vegan. Therefore, I’ve given it a V-ware. However, each of these dishes is exquisite and worth trying (at least) once. I’d even go so far as to say that Ravesi’s has the best food in Bondi - their vegetarian option was better than Icebergs or Sean’s Panorama. The vegetarian entree is black genoa figs with pistachio crusted goats curd and olive. This is sublime. The figs are fresh and lightly heated to release their sweetness. The tartness and creamy texture of the goats cheese enhances the flavour of the figs, and is in turn set off by the pistachio crust and light use of olive. I wasn’t overly excited by the description of the single vegetarian main, saffron tagliatelle with sugar snaps, cherry truss tomatoes, eggplant, oregano, olive and rocket pesto. I expected that the pesto might make the dish oily, and that the vegetables were uninspiring. I was wrong. The pesto added a light hint of flavour to the tagliatelle, without being overpowering or oily. The vegetables were all deliciously cooked. The eggplant was cut into rough chunks with the skin left off. The flesh was very soft without being overly oily, and the crackling skin added structure and a smoky flavour. The cherry truss tomatoes have a lovely rich flavour, and the sugar snaps add freshness. Suffice to say, there were no leftovers. Ravesi’s is pricey so you may prefer to take advantage of the early bird special which gives you a main and dessert for $20, or $25 if you also have a glass of wine. However, that means you don’t get the figs. In addition to the delicious food, Ravesi’s has a prime location on Campbell Parade. The building dates back to 1914, before Bondi was the ultra popular destination it is today. While the downstairs bar is often packed with beautiful people, the upstairs restaurant has a minimalist design and gorgeous wooden veranda that overlooks the water and Hall Street. Go there for the food and view. Pray they add another vegetarian main to lift them out of the V-ware doghouse.
V Rating: VV A couple of months ago trusty Canberra restaurant reviewer Grundnorm stayed with me in Sydney. As Andy and I didn’t have a car at that stage, the Sydney restaurants I’d reviewed had mostly been within a one kilometre radius of my home and my office. To counteract my embarrassingly small geographical circle, Grundnorm suggested that we use his car to go to a new part of Sydney - somewhere different, far off, exciting, noice, unusual… like the Italian Forum in Leichhardt. The Italian Forum is a huge apartment complex surrounding a piazza with restaurants and shops. On a Saturday night the restaurants fill with bon vivants whose laughter, voices and clinking plates and glasses make for a loud and joyful atmosphere. We headed for Cafe La Vigna because they had six veggie and three vegan choices for mains, which is more than the average Italian Frum restaurant. We shared a fried haloumi entree (that’s five slices of haloumi on a plate). I chose the penne Siciliana as a main (olive, eggplant and capsicum in a Napolitana sauce). It was OK, although the eggplant was not as softly cooked as I like it. We also had a run of the mill garden salad. One of the most fascinating parts of the evening was watching the waiting staff deliver huge trays of food to other diners. The trays were laden with either meats or seafood and reminded me of a medieval banquet. Reviewed 11/3/06. KP
V-Rating: VVV On Wednesday night I headed to Chinatown for dinner with some old friends. We were running through the list of places to eat when a clued-in friend suggested we try Chinese Noodle House. This turned out to be a tiny restaurant tucked away on Quay Street just down from Paddy’s Markets - the kind of place you have to stumble across, or hear about by word of mouth. When you arrive Chinese Noodle House will probably be full, and there will probably be a line of people waiting to go in. That’s OK, because you’re handed the menu while you wait and can order from outside.
Vegetarian options included egg and tomato stir fry, Ma Po Tofu (Sichuan tofu), and braised eggplant. In addition to the eleven vegetarian options, you can also order vegetarian noodle dishes, a house specialty because the noodles are hand made, steamed dumplings, and rice pancakes (essentially over-sized rice paper rolls). I have it on good authority that these all rock. A few minutes after we ordered we were ushered into the restaurant. We arrived at the table at the same time as our food. This has to rate as the fastest meal I’ve ever been served in a restaurant, and certainly puts the MacDonald’s lot to shame.
One of the best parts of the meal was that our three large dishes and tea came to $24. For great veggie options, tasty food and bargain basement prices, I’d rate Chinese Noodle House a very easy VVV.
V-Rating: Super V Shopping centres are like suburban purgatory. After half an hour I’m lost, cranky and over-stimulated. I start wandering fruitlessly, scared of encounters with fluorescent lights and overly attentive sales assistants. Then I get lost again, mostly when I’m desperate to leave. Amongst the nine circles of shopping mall hell, the food court has to rate near the bottom. Fried food smells, squished leftovers on the table, and screaming kids make me crazy. That’s why I couldn’t believe my luck when I discovered Yummba in the Westfield Bondi Junction food court. Yummba is not your typical food court offering. First off, it’s a vegetarian. Second, the food tastes great. Third, all the food, including a range of dips, is made fresh daily.
If you’re not up for a roll you can try the mezze or dip plates. Dare you to try the large size. I’ve had two tries with help and haven’t finished one yet. Last night I was all ready to try out the snow pea salad recipe. I’d bought the ingredients and planned to have it with steamed veggie dumplings. Unfortunately, the bamboo steamers I was using caught fire while I was in the next room watching television. Who knew that leaving flammable items unattended on a stove could be dangerous? By the time I smelt something funny the flames were big. I had a moment of thinking that I was going to burn down our apartment. And probably somebody else’s apartment. And we didn’t have insurance. I mustered my latent firefighter skills and threw a cotton teatowel on the burning mass. At least this dampened the flames enough to let me grab the saucepan handle, which fortunately had not heated up because the flames had grown upwards rather than outwards. I carefully maneuvered the now burning tea towel-steamer-saucepan to our sink and let the cold water run over it. This helped, along with cupfuls of water, and eventually the flames died. The whole experience only lasted a few minutes, but by the end I was shaking. It didn’t help that the house had filled with smoke - amazing how quickly it forms and spreads. Needless to say that my carefully rolled dumplings were ruined. Not wanting to push my luck I decided to stick with a cold sandwich for dinner. I might try again tonight. |
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