Archive for the ‘Veggie Friendly Restaurant Reviews’ Category
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.
V-Rating: VVV Before I go any further, I have to confess a special attachment to Tudo. You see, it’s the site of my first date with my now-husband Andy on a wintry Canberra evening in June 2002. It was a great choice for such a nervous occasion - low-key, cosy and ten metres away from local pub, All Bar Nun, ensuring just the right amount of Dutch courage. There’s still plenty to like about this small suburban restaurant. For one, it’s a resisted the trend to ‘funkify’ its interior, sticking to the unassuming combo of sparkling white walls, blue carpet and an outdoor toilet that’s accessed via the carpark. More importantly, unlike so many Canberra restaurants, its prices have stayed low, making it possible for to have a filling dinner and bottle of BYO wine for under $15 per person (trust me Sydneysiders, that’s good value by inner-suburban Canberra standards).
Tudo is not the kind of restaurant where vegetarians have to scratch around to find something to eat. My friend swears that Tudo’s Vegetarian spring rolls are some of the best she’s come across, and certainly they are plenty crispy on the outside and yet stuffed full of still fresh veggies on the inside.
There are five vegetarian mains, so you won’t go hungry. I went with a group that included four vegetarians, so we ended up trying four of them, including the red cooked tofu above.
My favourite was the curry vegetables with tofu. It cames in a coconut milk sauce, and had a lovely richness without being too hot.
The rice noodles with vegetables and bean curd was quite bland, but made a good accompaniement to the stronger curry and satay dishes.
The satay vegetables was my second favourite dish - the sauce was nice and peanuty, and not too rich when consumed in moderate quantities. The only catch with Tudo’s vegetarian menu is that the tofu and vegetable base is the same in all of the vegetable dishes. If you order a few of their dishes, you can’t help feeling that you are getting the same meal just dressed in a different sauce. Still, with a decent vegetarian selection and great prices Tudo is going to stay on my favourites list.
V-Rating: VV When I think of stalwarts of the Canberra restaurant scene, Chairman and Yip is one of the first that comes to mind. In many ways the restaurant typifies Canberra. Understated, smart, and subtly suggestive of politics and diplomacy, it’s a comfortable fit in the national capital. Chairman and Yip is not the kind of restaurant you visit every day. With most entrees above the $10 mark, and no mains below $25 it’d definitely a work function or special occasion place. Like many expensive restaurants, the ala carte menu is a little thin on the ground for vegetarians, although there they make a respectable attempt with two vegetarian entrees and mains.
My favourite dish at Chairman and Yip has to be the entree of char-grilled mushrooms with coriander and chilli pesto. I remembered it from a visit of five years ago, and five years on it still doesn’t disappoint. The mushrooms are large, juicy and smoky from the grill, while the pesto is soft and bright green. The flavours and texture feel more European than Chinese to me, although the coriander and chilli keeps the dish in tune with the rest of the food. The vegetarian bean curd pastry rolls were delicious and comparatively filling, making them good value as the only sub $10 entree on the menu. Thin sheets of tofu are wrapped around a soft vegetable filling then deep fried, giving the vegetables a crunchy and delicate casing.
The two vegetarian mains are eggplant and tofu in yellow sauce, and stir-fried pumpkin and cucumber with caramelised chilli. The words ‘eggplant’ and ‘tofu’ together on a menu induce a Pavlovian response from me where I have to order the dish, and this was my favourite of the two vegetarian choices. The yellow sauce is pleasantly savoury, and the eggplant is lusciously soft. The tofu comes as small, hard squares with a deep-fried outer crust. It does contrast with the eggplant’s texture, but it’s too dry for my taste.
The standard version of the pumpkin and cucumber dish comes with a fish sauce so make sure you ask the kitchen to leave this out if you’re a strict vegetarian. I was intrigued by the combination of cucumber and pumpkin, but the dish was very sweet due to the caramelised sauce, making it a less is more choice for me and not something I would order if there was a third vegetarian dish on offer. For a party of three, we ordered one of each of the vegetarian dishes. If you go in a bigger group try the excellent value dinner banquet ($37.50 per head) or the exquisite vegetarian degustation ($75 or $105 including 5 small glasses of matched wine). Ignore the standard menu listed on the website for the banquet - if you tell the restaurant the number of vegetarians in your party they’ll make sure to bring out the right number of vegetarian dishes. As an added bonus, they will usually make dishes that aren’t on the ala carte menu like salt and pepper tofu. My favourite Chairman and Yip experiences were the two evenings I tried the degustation menu. The restaurant will happily cater for special dietary needs, and on one occasion we had a party of four with two of us having a vegetarian version and two others also eating seafood dishes. The degustation is great value with or without the wine, and a lovely way to celebrate a special occasion over a long and relaxed meal. I had an inkling that life wouldn’t return to normal when Andy and I came back to Australia. Now I can confess that after four very happy years in Sydney, Andy and I are moving to Australia’s capital, Canberra, this week. Despite already missing Bondi Beach and Bodhi’s, I’m looking forward to Canberra’s strong sense of community, living in a house with a veggie patch, and being a mere 20 minutes from work on the bus. This does mean that my restaurant reviews will be much more Canberra focussed than previously - but the good news is Canberra has a great restaurant scene and foodie culture. Not to mention, I’m always open to guest reviews and would love to find someone who wants to keep a keen vegetarian eye on Sydney restauranteurs. So thanks to all my readers who’ve followed me halfway around the world in the last five months - I hope you join me for the home stretch to the Canberra. In early December I noticed that two new search terms had skyrocketed up the Veggie Friendly most popular search string list - “Vegetarian Christmas” and “Vegetarian Christmas lunch”. A good blogger would have quickly put up a post with vegetarian Christmas ideas… I didn’t quite get around to it, but in preparation for next year here is a summary of the food my family and friends ate this Christmas. If anyone else wants to share their vegetarian Christmas menu, email me veggiefriendly[at]gmail[dot]com with your photos and /or ideas. The Centrepiece Most traditional and modern Christmas lunches include a wealth of vegetarian and vegan side dishes which make a great lunch or dinner option. However, I’m often stumped by a vegetarian centrepiece to equal the turkey, lamb roast or BBQ’d whole fish that the rest of my family might be eating.
I was fascinated when my friend Harry told me he was attempting a Boxing Day tofurkey. A tofurkey is a vegan version of turkey, where tofu is used for the flesh and filled with herb stuffing in the centre. I have enough trouble keeping my tofu in shape at the best of times, so I was really impressed to see how rounded and, well, turkey-like this tofurkey looked.
The lovely brown colour on the outside comes from a miso baste, but Harry suggests it’s probably better to marinate the tofu for a few hours so the flavour soaks all the way through. For stuffing, he recommends shredded bread mixed with rosemary, sage and thyme rather than a store bought packet. The recipes he used are here and here.
The day before, Harry’s family had a modern take on a vegetarian Christmas with a baby spinach frittata for a centrepiece, supplemented by a tofu and corn salad and fresh bread with an avocado spread.
My family were having a small lunch with just our immediate family on Christmas Day, and a bigger, extended family lunch on Boxing Day. We decided to repeat the spectacularly successful stuffed pumpkin recipe from last year on Boxing Day, which was more than enough to feed everyone and added theatre during the carving. Unfortunately, I made a rash executive decision to buy a Bushranger pumpkin at the Farmers Market (it had symmetry, and dignity, and was about $5 for a whole pumpkin). However, the Jap pumpkin we used last year was much better - the skin held while it was cooking and had a nicer taste, plus it looked prettier when it came out of the oven.
For our smaller Christmas Day lunch we borrowed a recipe for chickpea flatcake from Rose Elliot’s Veggie Chic. This was a really simple, quick and healthy recipe - mashed chickpeas flavoured with onion, cumin, garlic and salt and pepper that is baked in a pie dish in the oven. The original recipe calls for honey roasted vegetables to be draped on top, but we just used plain old roast veggies and the sauce from our cauliflower cheese dish. I thought this was a good option to add a non-vegetable main to a meal. Vegetarian Side Dishes and Salads Over the years, our Christmas Day spread has started to move away from heavier, traditional foods like roast meat and vegetables towards lighter, healthier options that are much better suited to hot Australian conditions. I was impressed that our good friends Gill and Aaron bucked stodgy traditions this year to enjoy a delicious mix of salads for Christmas lunch.
The tabbouleh and chickpeas are a great, healthy choice, and are vegan-friendly. I was really taken with the mango and capsicum salad - it looks gorgeous and would be a beautiful addition to any Christmas table.
For Christmas Day, my family had a mix of vegetable side dishes, including my Dad’s great green beans lightly sauteed with toasted almonds.
I really like my Mum’s recipe for braised red cabbage cooked with vinegar, apple and sultanas. The brightness of the cabbage is a great table decoration, while the flavours have bite and are a good contrast to milder dishes like roast vegetables.
Another classic recipe of my Mum’s is cauliflower cheese. This year we tried an Indian version from Madhur Jaffrey’s autobiography, Climbing the Mango Trees. Unlike a classic cauliflower cheese dish, the cauliflower is first sauteed with cumin seeds, pureed tomatoes, tumeric, green chillies and cayenne pepper before being baked with a light cream and cheese sauce. I liked the spiciness of this dish, but the consensus around the table was that the original was better.
I have a well-documented weakness for potatoes, and these beautiful baby potatoes were perfect for roasting. The recipe was very simple - just peel, halve, toss the potatoes in a plastic bag with salt, olive oil and rosemary, and cook for about 30 - 40 minutes.
Because we were having roast potatoes on Christmas Day, I wanted a different dish for Boxing Day that would still be filling. I made a very simple potato bake - slices of potato interspersed with a dried onion and herb mix, and a 2/3 mix of milk and cream. It was also delicious.
For Christmas Day I decided to roast a lot of beetroot, sweet potato and pumpkin. The idea was that these veggies are all brightly coloured and healthy, and sweet potato has a lower GI than standard potatoes so it might not leave us as sleepy in the post-lunch lull.
The other advantage was that all three vegetables are great in roast vegetable salad with a honey mustard dressing, which we made for a dinner with friends that night from the leftovers and ate again for lunch the next day.
By Boxing Day we were sated, so we wanted some lighter options for our big family lunch. Andy made a great mixed salad with blanched asparagus, cherry tomatoes, rocket, avocado and green beans.
A couple of weeks ago I tried a grilled peach salad in a restaurant and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. For Boxing Day, I combined grilled peaches with grilled figs from a tree in the backyard, then mixed them with baby spinach leaves and goats cheese with a lime and mint dressing. This was a popular salad, although in hindsight the cheese was unnecessary because of the strong, sweet flavours from the fruit. If you leave out the cheese it is a great vegan recipe. Much as I want be a good Christmas eater, and cut down on fat, salt and sugar, it just wouldn’t be Christmas in my family without pudding. For Christmas Day my Mum made her ever popular steamed fruit pudding, which she picked up from a friend when they had to make 120 Christmas puddings in a single sitting. Highly recommended with brandy custard and / or cream.
Because Boxing Day was our Christmas lunch with Andy’s side of the family, we wanted to serve another pudding to keep up the sense of occasion. However, we wanted a lighter option given everyone had eaten a big lunch the day before. Andy came up with the perfect compromise: individual bread and butter puddings. These were delicious, easy and quick to make, and lighter than the traditional Christmas pudding.
All in all I had a great holiday with family and friends. Season’s greetings to all my Veggie Friendly readers - thanks for keeping in touch and I hope that your 2008 is filled with delicious vegetarian fare. One of my favourite readers and bloggers
India is rightfully famous for its tea (or chai). It’s served in every restaurant, home, and railway station - the tea-seller call of “chaaiiii, chaaiii” is one of my archetypal memories of catching trains in India. The standard version is a milky sweet tea, but my favourite was masala (spiced) chai, which is laced with sweet-smelling spices like green cardamon, clove, nutmeg, mace and dry ginger. If drinking tea is a national pastime in India, growing tea is a national industry. Tea is cultivated in India’s cooler hill regions, such as Assam in the North East and Tamil Nadu in the South East.
We spent a few days in a tea-growing area called Udhagamandala (or Ooty) in the Nilgiri Hills in Tamil Nadu. There we visited the Tea Factory, a small scale tea processing plant which offers tours and maintains a small but highly interesting museum. Among other things, we discovered:
By contrast to tea, Indian beer is a total disappointment, particularly if you’re used to the lovely light local beers that are par for the course throughout the rest of South East Asia. The leading Indian beer brand is Kingfisher, but some bars also stock another local brand called Haywards 5000 and locally brewed versions of Fosters. Most restaurants and small bars only offer beer by the bottle. This is annoying because bottled beer made in India has glycerol added to it. A couple of tastings was enough to confirm our initial suspicions that any chemical used as an active ingredient in soap or as an anti-freeze in car radiators has no business in beer. Not only does the glycerol cause huge bubbles to form in the beer, it gives you a headache the next morning out of all proportion to the amount of beer you consumed the previous night. It also seemed to make the beer taste funny, but this may have been psychosomatic on my part. After a few disappointing forays into Indian beer, I decided that if it wasn’t available by the tap I’d stick to tea. |
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