Archive for October, 2006
V Rating: VVVVV Entering the Moroccan Soup Bar [MSB] often requires two attempts- hungry eaters beware! The first attempt almost always involves opening the door to be met by a waitress shaking her head- you want a table? No worries, come back in an hour (if you’re lucky)*. But when you enter the second time, with the confident swagger of a diner who has a table waiting for you and your posse, it becomes clear very quickly that a table at MSB is well worth the wait. As one of a cast of ‘Melbourne Institutions’ MSB is one of those places I’ve always meant to go to since I returned to the Victorian capital. Two and a half years later, here I am with my best friend, another good friend and my best friend’s new girlfriend who I was meeting for the first time. It was a night of ‘firsts’ and all were excellent. MSB produces Moroccan-inspired vegetarian food- and it’s not always (in fact, I’m informed, not often) soup. The style and presentation of the food reflects the décor- warm and comforting with minimal fuss. The atmosphere is vibrant and noisy- it feels like your sitting at someone’s kitchen table, eating off the everyday mismatched crockery rather than the ‘good china’. The decoration is eclectic- on one side the wall is filled with shelves that hold various Moroccan-style vases, jugs and crockery. The room is brightly painted in deep shades of brown, red, aqua-green- they reverberate the warmth generated in this busy restaurant. A small glass of mint tea arrives as soon as you’re seated. It is warm and refreshing- with more bite to it than I expected. Then owner Hana Assafiri arrives. She is a slight yet commanding presence in this small restaurant- she definitely runs the show. She offers us the choice of the spoken menu (there is no written menu to peruse) or the $16.50 banquet that includes entrée, mains, coffee and sweets. Food allergies and intolerances are catered for- Assafiri checks with us if these are an issue. The banquet is recommended as the most economical option and we opt for it. We’ve also arrived unexpectedly during Assafiri’s crusade to ensure people are educating themselves and thinking about issues bigger than the immediate desire to satiate our appetites. Of four of us, two have seen An Inconvenient Truth. They are to dine for free she informs us. It’s a policy that may run her out of business- one night last week she had a restaurant full of people who had all seen it. Within two minutes the entrée arrives. A plate of flat, warm pide arrives, carved in big triangles for us to enjoy with the platter of dips and other goodies that are placed in the centre of the table. The platter includes house-made hummus, marinated carrots, olives and a cauliflower dip. It’s a generous serve and once you’ve begun it’s difficult to stop. Self-control is essential here. Around fifteen minutes later the mains arrive- all at once they are placed in the middle of the table. The banquet. Tonight’s banquet includes lentil dhal with saffron rice and a vegetable stew with spicy vegetable rice. The stew has a rich tomato-base with large chunks of carrot and zucchini through it and a little bit of heat and spice to warm us up. There is also a chick pea bake which two of my companions familiar with MSB meet with delight. It is a dish made with just-cooked chick peas (another reminder why preparing chickpeas from scratch is so much better than those from the can), slivered almonds and spices with tahini and yoghurt to bind it together. To add to the texture of the dish there are crunchy pieces of baked and crumbled oven-baked flat bread (pide) through it. Delicious. The food is generous and presented in a way that celebrates a way of eating that is about sharing good food and eating together. Much later after we have eaten more than we needed, sweets arrive. They consist of a small plate of delights (including a slice with a crushed pistachio-centre) served with a traditional cardamom coffee. They are ‘sweet’ in the subtle way of Middle Eastern treats. A perfect way to conclude a hearty meal. The MSB is an experience for any occasion (although be warned that it isn’t licensed) - the banquet can cater from two to a room full of people and the menu changes frequently. If you’re looking for somewhere informal, relaxed and intimate- MSB will hit the spot. *Luckily three doors down is a very cosy bar, Deco, where you can pass the time in a deep lounge chair, a comfortable couch or around one of the small tables that are placed through the main bar. Drinks from the bar include a range of imported and local beers and a small selection of Australian wines by the glass.
V Rating: VVV Verve enjoys a prime corner position in Canberra’s Manuka precinct. It is one of those trendy and sophisticated eateries where the prices are given to only one decimal place (eg. a long black is “3.5″, a Tiro is “4.0″). The atmosphere is very open and airy, and especially pleasant on a warm spring day when the accordion-style windows are open. Vegetarian options for entree include a winter Tuscan vegetable soup ($9.90 - I mean “9.9″), dips and bread (9.9), a warm vegetable salad or poached pear salad (14.9). The menu indicates that you can also request a vegetarian option of the antipasto plate for two (19.9), or the caesar salad (13.9). At lunch, there is also a vegetarian foccacia option (11.9). My choice was the warm vegetable salad. A selection of roast vegetables (sweet potato, baby eggplant and beetroot) was served on a bed of baby spinach leaves with a light but flavoursome dressing. It was delightful, and could easily be served as a main. My friend chose the Tuscan soup (in spite of the warm weather), which he described as “hearty”. For mains, the options are gnocchi in a creamy sauce involving muchrooms, semi-dried tomatoes, basil, ricotta and chilli (16.9), a stir-fry of hokkien noodles, cashew nuts and Asian greens (15.9). At dinner there is also an option of vegetable parcels (vegies wrapped in Kataiki pastry served on a sweet potato dhal) (21.9). On one of my visits, there was also a penne prima vera available as a special (16.9). I chose the gnocchi, as did one of my dining companions. It turned out to be home-made, which is just as well, given the price of the dish, and the size of the serving. My serve was quite small, especially compared to my companion’s. (I resisted the urge to suggest that, in the interests of fairness, he should donate to me four or so of his gnocchi dumplings…) The sauce was satisfying, if a bit lacking in depth - I couldn’t detect any chilli. Verve gets a VVV. It has a good selection of vegetarian entrees. The selection for mains is more limited (especially at lunch), but the entree salads are main-meal-sized. It also has a number of vegetarian side options (chat potatoes with rosemary, steamed vegetables, side salads) for between $6 and $11. Prices can be on the expensive side for what you get, in my view, but then you’re also paying for the location, and for a chance to watch the beautiful people strut past the window. - AC
V Rating: VVV Late last Saturday afternoon I was seized by the idea that Andy and I had to do something with our night. Although Andy was looking forward to a quiet night in, he quickly got into the spirit of things and suggested that we throw on our best clothes and go out to a lovely restaurant. We pinned our hopes on the Malaya, and luckily they offered to squeeze us in for a quick meal if we could be there in 15 minutes (we knew they meant 30. We eat quick).
The Malaya has been around since the 1960s. It’s on King Street Wharf a few blocks along from Darling Harbour and the Slip Inn where Mary famously met her prince. While there were no Danes in sight last Saturday evening, we were not wanting for princesses as taxi after taxi dumped carloads of Randwick racegoers outside the Cargo bar. We side-stepped them to enter the sanctuary of the Malaya, where staff quickly ushered us to a table by the window, where we could gaze out on the pretty lights of Darling Harbour. The Malaya is a big restaurant catering to the tourist and business trades. The Malaya serves nonya food. Originating in Malacca, it’s a mixture of Malaysian, Indonesian and Chinese cuisine. I love the fact that it’s a quality restaurant that offers a decent range of vegetarian food, unlike so many other Modern Australian fancy pants places. We’d checked out the banquet menu on the website at home. It seemed great value at $38 per person. Unfortunately you need three people to order it, and we were just two. We made do with the vegetarian san choi bow for entree, and the Sichaun eggplant and sayor masak lemak curry for main.
The vegetarian san choi bow came with soft tofu in a thick, savoury gravy that contrasted nicely with the fresh lettuce. The highlight of the meal for Andy was the Sichuan eggplant, one of the Malaya’s signature dishes. Again, respect to the Malaya for making a vegetarian dish a signature item. The eggplant came in thick chunks, but was soft and well-cooked throughout. The sauce gave the eggplant a sweet, caramelised coating that filtered through the flesh. By 8.00pm, when we finished our dinner, the Malaya was full of party goers, families and couples enjoying a romantic night out. We skipped away from the madding crowd, full of good food and good
V Rating: VVV North Bondi Italian Food had been tempting me for weeks. First Reb piqued my curiosity when she tipped me off that it was a good place for vegetarian food. Then I wandered past a couple of times on evening strolls and was struck by the restaurant’s romantic view of Bondi Beach, all waves lapping gently on the shoreline reflecting lights along the coast. So, when some close girlfriends and I wanted to celebrate one of our number’s impending wedding, North Bondi beckoned.
North Bondi offers a traditional Italian food and wine experience in a modern, romantic setting. The menu is divided into sections, such as cheese, vegetables, salads, pastas, seafood and meat.
There are two pasta mains for vegetarians to choose from, plus a number of vegetable and salad dishes. I had the orecchiette, cherry tomatoes, ricotta and basil. It was a little creamier and richer than I had expected, but the tomatoes offset the ricotta with their strong, pert taste. The authentic Italian touches and mature, European decor combined to make for a relaxed, special evening. And so a couple of happy hours, and two bottles of Italian white later, we left North Bondi.
V Rating: VVV Mojos is just around the corner from where I live. Despite this, I’ve avoided going there out of a combined fear of Spanish food and of catching beautiful people germs. However, a couple of weeks ago my ex-housemate and his girlfriend suggested we go there for dinner on our way to a party. Talk about a revelation!
I’m starting to think that my fear of Spanish food is unfounded. There were 13 vegetarian tapas dishes on Mojos menu, plus three salads. Every dish that I tried was magnificent. We ordered five dishes and a salad between the four people. This prompted a withering lecture from the waitress (’I'm not sure if you guys have eaten here before, but people normally order 2-3 dishes each). Fortunately we didn’t take her advice, as the dishes we had were plenty satisfying.
My favourite dish was fresh, grilled artichoke drizzled in lemon and olive oil which had strong flavours and great texture. However, the cous cous balls, garlic potatoes, Spanish salad, fried eggplant and cheese were also high quality, fresh-flavoured dishes.
The one thing about Mojos is that is that it was chocka-block full and plenty noisy on Saturday. So make a booking or go hungry! Hi patient folks. Thanks so much for sticking with me while I went AWOL. Let’s just say I was doing something less fun than food blogging. Many many thanks to J, the whose great posts from Melbourne have kept Veggie Friendly afloat over the last couple of weeks. Will try to catch up on all the great places I’ve been eating at. |
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