Archive for the ‘Veggie Friendly Restaurant Reviews’ CategoryV-Rating: VVVVV Peace Harmony is a blink and you’ll miss it Thai vegan restaurant on King Street in the city. While the tofu and cruelty free festival posters may seem more at home on King Street in Newtown, that doesn’t seem to get this cheerful little cafe-style place down.
I went there recently as a solo, early diner. I was the only person in the restaurant but the cosy size and friendly staff made me feel right at home.
One of the unique touches at Peace Harmony is that the six entree options come as a single serve. For $1.10 you can choose between tasty favourites like a soy chicken satay stick, curry puff, spring roll or vegetarian drum stick. This is an excellent option for the lone diner, and also convenient if you’re in a group and simply want one item (and even different items) per person, rather than the usual plate of entrees that are awkwardly indivisible by the number of people at the table.
The main meals include the usual Thai stir-frys with a lemongrass, cashew nut, chilli basil, peanut or tamarind sauce, six each of curries and noodle dishes, and a laksa. My cashew nut stir fry was fresh and filling, which was just what I felt like on weeknight but a little bland for a night out with friends. While a lot of the stir-fry dishes have the same base but different sauces, the spicy Thai salads and intriguing chef specials (nugget and plum sauce, Harmony soy fish, or Peace sausage) ensure that a group can order a number of meals and be assured of some variety. I think Peace Harmony also find a nice balance between offering dishes with faux meat without letting them dominate the menu (which in my experience can be off-putting for people unused to their chicken soy-style). I’ve only been to Peace Harmony for dinner, but I’m sure it comes into its own at lunchtime when the cheap, fresh and fast food makes the perfect meal for hungry office workers. Sorry for being so slack with the posting. This year I’ve started working from home, and for the last month I’ve spent most of my days sitting around in my house typing away at my computer, which makes the idea of spending my free time sitting around in my house typing away on my computer slightly less appealing. Anyhow, it’s a shame that I have been less than zealous about Veggie Friendly because since I moved to Canberra I’ve been trying out some great new places which I will Growing up I loved most vegetarian foods, except salads. So far as I could tell, a salad was a bowl filled with iceberg lettuce - surely the most bland, watery ingredient on the planet. The lettuce du jour of 1980s Australia was also a salad hog, leaving little room for other ingredients, and forcing the few that did exist to the hidden depths of the salad bowl.
Thankfully, the comparatively urbane 1990s soon rolled around, bringing with them the exotic new lettuce substitutes like rocket and baby spinach. Suddenly salad greens became edible, dressings could be more adventurous, and there was room for a whole host of other tasty ingredients. Hurrah! These days, there are more and more lettuce and herb varieties available, meaning there’s just no excuse to revert to the bad old days of iceberg lettuce salads. One of my favourite new salad ingredients is shiso, or perilla. It has a rich, nutty taste and slightly rough texture, and is a great addition to salads and sandwiches.
Shiso noodle salad Ingredients For the dressing Method If you’re using store bought marinated tofu, chop it into small cubes. Otherwise, follow this recipe and then chop the tofu into small cubes once it’s cooked. Add the dressing ingredients and mix together. Throw all the salad ingredients into the bowl, making sure to tease out the noodles so they don’t cling together. Add the dressing and toss well. Serve. Notes on the recipe All about shiso This week’s weekend herb blogging is hosted by its founder, Kalyn from Kalyn’s Kitchen. Make sure to visit her site so you can see the full recap.
V-Rating: VVVVV Not so long ago I was bemoaning the lack of good brunch venues in Canberra. Sure, cafes abound. But try finding a place that uses fresh, quality ingredients, has an interesting and tasty menu, and doesn’t have a price range in the double figures. After listening to my diatribe, a good friend recommended that I try Satis - a reasonably new cafe in the Watson shops.
One visit later I breathed a sigh of relief - Satis has all (or at least most of) the things I look for in a brunch spot: good coffee, a great, cheap menu, friendly staff, and a slightly alternative vibe. The fact it’s vegetarian is the icing on the cake. Satis clearly defines itself as a brunch spot - it doesn’t open before 8.30am and is closed by mid afternoon. The menu isn’t extensive or finicky, but everything on it is delicious and well-presented. The decor is friendly but funky - paintings and stencil art by local artists on the wall mixed with chunky, dark wood fittings. The breakfast menu has sweet and savoury options including banana bread with berries and baked ricotta, free range eggs on toast, and home made granola. Most of the standard items on the menu are not vegan but can easily be adapted - for example, Satis has one choice of vegan bread and can substitute scrambled tofu for eggs. The food is great value - of the nine choices, only one costs over $10.
One of my favourite choices is the big brekkie. It comes with an egg or scrambled tofu, toast, zucchini, tomatoes, mushrooms and spinach (basically, all the veggies I love in the morning). Yesterday ours came with mashed potato and feta as well. Yum!
Tempted as I was by the big brekkie, in the interests of this review I tried the wild rice porridge with compote and coconut milk.
I’ve never tried wild rice in porridge before, but it worked well. Andy said it reminded him of an Indonesian breakfast porridge of green beans and black rice porridge. I liked the slight crunchiness and savoury taste of the rice, and the coconut milk base was a nice, light accompaniement. The berry compote was the highlight of the dish - rich, a little sour and a little sweet and topped with toasted coconut. Satis also has a small menu of light meals and lunch foods, a very tasty looking selection of baked goods, and a good range of fair trade coffees and teas. The only real problem with Satis is its success. The cafe is squeezed into a narrow space better suited to a greasy fry takeaway joint. The tables jostle for space out the front and along the interior before spilliing out into a small, sunny courtyard. On my last visit at around 10am there were frequent lines to get in, although the wait was only 5 - 10 minutes. While the staff are very friendly and the service is quick when the cafe is not too busy, the service was slower and more haphazard on my last trip. We waited about twenty minutes for our coffees to come, and in the meantime watched bemused while people who arrived after us were served coffee and breakfast before any of our order arrived. Still, I’m always happy to see a vegetarian place thriving, and the occasional wait for service is a small price to pay for finally having a good brunch spot in Canberra. Umm, sorry about the delay in proceedings over the last few weeks. I started a new job this year and it’s been occupying a lot of my time, not to mention leaving me without the Internet for days at a time while I travel. But enough with the excuses. I’ll be shortly hopping back on the blogging bandwagon with some new reviews from Canberra. In the meantime, thank you to all the people who’ve emailed me to ask why the restaurant listings in the left hand navigation bar don’t work (i.e. search by restaurant type, suburb etc.) It’s all fixed now. Thanks for you patience. Cheers Kate
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. |
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