Archive for February, 2008
V-Rating: VVV My biggest gripe about moving to Sydney was the lack of good Indian restaurants. But then I’d been spoiled by four years of living in Canberra. Ask a Canberran where to get Indian and 9 out of ten times they’ll suggest Rama’s, an Indian Fijian restaurant located in the sleepy local shops in the southern suburb of Pearce. For first time visitors the setting may seem incongruous, but don’t be fooled by first appearances: Rama’s is one of Canberra’s most beloved, and high quality, restaurants.
I had the good oil from a couple of locals and was prepped to order the vegetarian samosas and the potato and peas pan-fried roti wrap. Yum! The samosas had a crunchy, “I’ve been made in this here kitchen” taste, while the roti wrap was a creamy korma curry encased in a sandwich - why this is not a staple of more lunch menus beats me.
Like many Indian restaurants, Rama’s had a separate vegetarian section on the menu. We ordered the vegetarian dahl and and the palak paneer (again on some local recommendations).
The dahl was mild, but strongly flavoured with lemon and coriander, giving it a crisp, fresh taste.
The palak paneer was unlike any other I’ve tasted - maybe this was the Fijian influence. The sauce was creamy with flecks of shredded spinach mixed in, rather than regle de jeu pokerpoker en ligne argent virtueldes règles du jeu du pokertelecharger jeu poker gratuitespoker en argent virtuelmalette jeu de pokertexas holdem pocket pcpoker en ligne gratuitesonline poker roomjeu poker gratuites francaisworld tour pokerle poker onlinepoker online francevideo poker onlinejeux poker tourcasino poker en lignetelecharger poker 3djeux de poker gratuitementtélécharger gratuitement jeu de poker en lignepoker en ligne gratuitspoker 3d gratuitesstrip poker en lignepoker gratuites cadeaupoker tour regletournoi poker gratuitesparty pokerregles poker hold hemplay seven card studcasino poker texas holdemjeu poker texas holdem gratuitesjeu de poker online gratuitespoker le jeuune régle du jeu du pokersexy pokerjouer wam pokertournoi de pokertexas holdem 2007jouer au poker onlinepoker les regles du jeulogiciel de poker en lignepoker gratuites a telechargeroù jouer au poker en lignepoker texas holdemjouer poker texasjeu de poker gratuitesomaha poker règlesjeu tour de pokertelecharger poker gratuiteslogiciel de poker gratuitesles règles de jeu poker the spinach being the base of the dish. It felt indulgent, but tasted delicious. I gave two thumbs up to the paneer, which was thick and generously cut. Rama’s has more than just great food going for it. The service is warm and professional, you can BYO beer or wine, and the decor is modern and inviting. It’s hard to believe that a modest suburban shopping centre can offer such foodie goodness, but Rama’s is a Canberra institution that sets a high bar for Indian restaurants in other Australian capital cities. One of Canberra’s most noticeable design features is its disaggregation. The city fans out across former sheep paddocks, with thinly spread suburbs interspersed with patches of bushland, hills and a lake. As a consequence there is none of the main street buzz you find in most Australian cities because there are no main shopping streets. Instead, each suburb harbours a small block of shops, usually fitted out with one or two restaurants, a grocery store, newsagent and the occasional bar. While this may make it easier for people in each suburb to drive or walk to a set of local shops, it stops Canberra from achieving a sense of critical mass and means restaurants are rarely clustered together. It’s for this reason (among many others) that I love the annual food fair associated with Canberra’s Multicultural Festival. For one joyous day in February, the pavement of Gareema Place (Canberra’s main outdoor shopping mall) is crowded with stages, people and food stalls - 190 this year! The food comes from all over the world - there’s Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese, Indian, Sri Lankan, Tamil (placed next to a Sri Lankan stall, interestingly), Tongan, Chilean, Sudanese, Ethiopian, Russian, Spanish, Samoan and Polish, among many others. It’s one of the best food festivals I’ve been to, because unlike Sydney where festivals tend to split along ethnic lines, Canberra is small enough to need to get everyone together in the same place to make it work.
My friends and I began with the Vietnamese vegetarian stall. I chose the rice paper rolls, aware of the long day ahead of me and the need to pace myself.
However, I hankered after Andy’s Hoysin tofu curry and the perfectly rounded mung bean balls.
Next it was time for snack-sized food. My friend A. went for vegetarian spinach dumplings with chilli sauce from the Central Asian stall.
I lined up at the El Salvadorean stall, wishing that I had pupusas (corn meal pancakes filled with cheese and beans) but alas most of the crowd had the same idea.
Deciding that we hadn’t had our fill of dumplings, we headed to the Gyoza stall. The line there was long, but we went straight to the front as the only people looking for the vegetarian version. Unfortunately, the vegetarian version had meat in them. When we took them back the stall claimed it was tofu (!) then told us they don’t recommend that people with allergies or special dietary needs eat the gyozas. Would have been nice if they had mentioned this policy at the time of purchase, rather than leaving us with a plate of food we couldn’t eat.
But not to worry, because there was plenty more choice on offer at the food fair. We moved past a series of sausage based stalls until we hit one from Pakistan (specifically, Lahore). I tried a home-style curry, which was spicy and packed with vegetables and we shared samosas and some gorgeous, soft potato balls served with mint chutney.
For good measure we tried the food as well - a light vegetable curry and two lentil curries served on the foamy inerja bread. One of the interesting things about the food festival is the way the stalls have changed. When I first went eight years ago the stall were mostly Asian and European, but now there are quite a lot of African stalls reflecting the changing mix of Canberra’s community.
Vegetarians were well-served at the fair. There was a second vegetarian stall with Indian and Sri Lankan food which I’m reliably informed was very good, but by that point my mains stomach was full and it was time for dessert.
The Dutch pancakes are perennial favourites at the Food Fair, but one look at this line was enough to make us turn on our heel and go elsewhere.
One of the nicest things about the food fair is that most of the stalls are run by community groups or private citizens rather than restaurants, so you get a lovely home-cooked vibe to the food and service. This was absolutely in evidence at the Polish seniors association bakery stall - it was hard to choose but I didn’t regret my delicious slice of moist apricot cake.
I had a great day out at the food festival and loved the fact that I could try so many different types of food. It was encouraging to see that most stalls offered at least one vegetarian option, which combined with the two dedicated (and delicious) vegetarian stalls meant vegos were well-catered for. If I have any criticism it is that the festival has outgrown Gareema Place. There was a large crowd and too often people welled up at bottlenecks when the path between the stalls narrowed. With close to 200 stalls, the festival could also have benefited from maps for festival goers to make it easier to plan your day and arrange to meet friends. But these comments are minor gripes. If anything, my main complaint is that the food festival only happens once each year. I was flicking through the Sunday Age last weekend when I came across this article on the amount of food waste that Victorians send to landfill. The story claims that on average each household in Victoria throws out 25o kg of food matter each year, and that over 1 million tonnes of food waste is sent to landfill creating 1.6 million tonnes of greenhouse gases. The article attributes the large scale waste to affluence and a belief amongst householders that it’s better to have a full fridge and throw out unused, rotting food than go hungry. These claims got me thinking. Since moving from a tiny apartment with no garden to a full-blown house, we’ve invested in a worm farm and a compost bin. Separating out our food scraps and watching it pile up so quickly each week has made me very conscious of the amount of food materials that go unused. While I like to think that we use most of what we buy, if we weren’t composting the food or feeding it to our busy worms, food scraps would probably make up the biggest proportion of our household waste. On top of the issue of people buying more food than they need, I think another factor in the large amount of food waste is that people have lost the knack, time or desire to use up excess food. Composting and worm farms might not be for everyone, but there are some great recipes that allow you to make some use of leftovers. A good example of this is vegetable stock. Aside from using up older vegetables, you can you make a great base for soups and risottos that suits your tastes and you also get to control the amount of salt and oil that goes into it. So, inspired by the article, this is my weekend herb blogging entry for the week: vegetable stock flavoured with bay leaves.
Vegetable stock Ingredients 2 carrots or half a sweet potato Method Chop up all the vegetable ingredients into the same-sized pieces. The smaller the pieces the faster the water will absorb their flavours. You don’t need to peel the vegetables but you do need to wash them. Put the vegetables in a large, heavy-based saucepan with a lid (preferably a stockpot but a big saucepan will do). Throw in the bay leaves and rosemary leaves and mix them in so that they are spread throughout the stock pot. Add 2-3 teaspoons of salt. Cover the vegetables in water so the waterline is a few cm higher than the top vegetables. Bring to the boil, then simmer on a low heat for two hours with the lid on. Taste occasionally to test the flavour, adjusting the salt and pepper if necessary with half an hour to go. Remove the saucepan from the heat and strain the base from the vegetables. The stock will keep for a few days in the fridge, but if you make a decent quantity it’s best to freeze it in small containers where it will last for three months. Notes on the recipe
Bay leaves
If you want to find out more, check out wikipedia and about.com. This week’s weekend herb blogging is hosted by Ulrike at Kuchenlaten.
V-Rating: VVVVV Whenever you return to an old stomping ground, there’s always some nervous anticipation as you find out which of your favourite places have survived your absence. Last time I lived in Canberra there were three vegetarian restaurants I went to regularly: Bernadette’s, Au Lac and Kingsland Vegetarian. Now just two remain. Funnily enough, the two that have survived are only metres from each other in Dickson, aka Canberra’s Chinatown. Kingsland Vegetarian is the elder of the two, a vegetarian old-timer that’s watched rivals come and go. Set in a quiet corner of the Dickson shops, the small shop front is modest although it has received a bright paint job and a touch of flair since my last visit.
Kingsland is not an “impress the pants off your date” type of restaurant, but it does have a lot of nice touches. For example, the menu offers a potted history of vegetarianism in China (tofu was invented during the Han Dynasty circa 206 BC to 220 AD, in case you were wondering) which is a little anti-social if you are in a couple, but still interesting nonetheless. You also realise immediately that this is a family restaurant, with all of the comfortable atmosphere that implies. Although Kingsland is best known for its fake meat dishes, we were in the mood for vegetables on the night we went.
Normally I’m not a noodle nest fan, but this version won me over because it used fried potatoes for the nest rather than crispy noodles. It made the nest slightly sweeter than usual, reminding me of delicate French Fries (but without the guilt because it’s not like I actually ordered hot chips).
I don’t think I’ve ever seen salt and pepper tofu on a menu and passed it up. It’s one of my all time favourite foods, and I like using it as a yardstick of a restaurant’s quality. The Kinglsland version definitely gets points for originality. It comes with freshly sliced chilli on top, and a savoury dipping sauce. I was disappointed to see that they make it in the hard outer coating style, rather than the gently fried and softly coated version ala Longrain and the dearly departed Purple Lotus, but that’s just a personal preference. Certainly, I couldn’t fault the flavour or the spiciness. I enjoyed the meal without having my socks knocked off - but that’s kind of how I’ve always thought of Kingsland. It doesn’t try to present gourmet meals, instead coming up with creative vegan food and an ever-changing line-up of faux meat specialities that never puts style ahead of comfort. While it’s not a first date restaurant, it is the kind of place you could happily eat at for the rest of your life. This is a special weekend herb blogging entry from me because it’s the first time I’ve featured a herb that I’ve grown myself. The herb in question is sage. I was given a pot of herbs for Christmas, and while I use most of them regularly in cooking, sage was a stranger to me.
I don’t know why I don’t cook with sage, but it might have something to do with the fact that it’s mostly used in Western European cooking to flavour meat. To get some ideas, I flicked through my cookbooks and saw that in vegetarian recipes sage is usually paired with a sweet vegetable like pumpkin or sweet potato. I decided to serve it in a risotto because I was cooking for a friend who can’t eat protein, but there was one small hitch: Andy and I were in the middle of No Cheese January, a self-inflicted spell away from cheese, so Parmesan was a no no. I’d normally add Parmesan to give risotto a hit of saltiness, but to preserve our cheese-free vows I threw in some capers instead.
Roasted pumpkin and sage risotto with capers Ingredients Serves 4. Method Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Put the chopped pumpkin in a roasting tray, drizzle lightly with olive oil and sprinkle finely with salt. Cook for approximately 40 mins, or until the pumpkin has softened and cooked. Add olive oil to a flat, heavy based frying pan. Add red onion and cook on a medium heat until translucent. Add the rice, and cook for a few minutes until it also turns translucent and starts to crackle. First, add the 100ml of wine and stir through. Once that is absorbed, begin to add the stock, one ladle at a time, allowing each amount to be absorbed before you add the next. Stir regularly. When you are halfway through add the capers and pumpkin. Make sure you distribute the capers evenly through the risotto. When all the stock is absorbed, cook the risotto for about five minutes more, adding the fresh sage and salt and pepper to taste, then serve. Notes on the recipe
The lowdown on sage
This week weekend herb blogging heads to Germany, where it’s being hosted by Claudia from Fool for Food. Stop by her blog to check out the full wrap-up. |
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