Archive for the ‘V-ware’ Category
V Rating: V-ware Sugaroom is one of Pyrmont’s top restaurants and is located at the harbour end of Harris Street. Although Sugaroom is a fine dining restaurant, it is surrounded by undeveloped lots and occasional water traffic. This creates the slightly surreal situation where you munch on your $30 main while overlooking the last remnants of Sydney’s working harbour. Like Ravesi’s, Sugaroom gets a V-ware rating because despite serving good quality vegetarian food, there is only one vegetarian entrée and main.
It makes a great winter choice. The pie gave off the warm, homely smell of a country bakery. The pastry crust was soft without being too oily. The filling was creamy and delicious. The zucchini flower on the side was stuffed and came on a bed of lettuce with the rich, cherry-sized truss tomatoes. A tartare mayonnaise sauce came with it, and went well with the salad by adding a savoury bite. We also ordered some hearty, home-made wedges and a salad, which were more than we could manage. Overall, the meal was a metaphor for Pyrmont’s metamorphosis from a working class industrial area to an expensive yuppie hub. While my mushroom pie and chips had become expensive pithivier and wedges, in the end it was still a delicious, filling, and unpretentious meal.
V Rating: V-ware I was recently treated to a lovely lunch at Aqua Dining, located on top of the North Sydney pool and within spitting distance of some of Sydney’s best-known harbourside landmarks. Despite the fact that the Aqua adjoins a swimming pool, the spectacular harbour views ensured Aqua would be a modern Australian, fine dining restaurant rather than your average chips and icy-poles sports venue cafe. The upshot is that you can eat gourmet food while idly watching swimmers toiling through their laps below. If watching exercise curbs your appetite, the other windows overlook Luna Park and the Harbour. We sat at the end table which offered a very close-up view of Luna Park’s eerily surreal giant face. The eyelashes are amazing - coyly curled yet unbending in the strong harbour wind. Aqua gets a pat on the back for having a separate vegetarian section to the menu, and for ensuring a vegan option for entree and main. However, with only only one vegetarian main, and two vegetarian entrees, I’ve given them a V-ware. I tried the tomato, haloumi and asparagus salad for entrée, which was lovely. The pieces were served as a stack in a reflective metal plate artistically smeared with pesto. The grilled haloumi was salty and seared, but without being over oily. The asparagus was crisp and lemon dressed and with the fresh slices of tomato it made a good complement to the haloumi. For an entrée the serve was large – in fact it was bigger than my main. The other vegetarian entrée was stuffed bonsai-sized zucchini flowers - if you’re not vegan go with the haloumi salad. The vegetarian main was stuffed eggplant rolls with a side of spicy beetroot. The eggplant rolls were delicate, while the beetroot mash was deceptively spicy and had me gulping my water with unladylike haste. While I wouldn’t recommend Aqua for special vegetarian occasions, at least they make sure that vegetarians and vegans can still eat there with a minimum of fuss.
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: V-ware Musashi is hard to find, and hard to forget. The restaurant is open plan with a modern, striking design. Huge cylindrical lampshades hang from the ceiling and light up long communal tables, and more intimate lounge style dining. The open kitchen is bordered by an eating bar from which you can watch the chefs prepare intricate sushi rolls and deftly grill seafood and meat.
Musashi is always full, and unless you eat early you can’t book a table. Helpfully, there is a row of chairs outside the restaurant for the inevitable wait. Musashi is the full package - the great food-and-bucketloads-of-atmosphere-restaurant that is fun for visitors. Andy and I use to eat there on such a regular basis that we had a Musashi frequent diner card. Unfortunately, in the last couple of years our visits have petered out as the vegetarian dishes have slowly disappeared from the menu.
We went to Musashi last week with a group of friends. The atmosphere and food were still great, and our friends rhapsodised about their seafood and meat dishes. However, it was the first time I’d been there and felt that there weren’t enough vegetarian options to both sate my appetite and share with other people. There is still a lot to love about Musashi - but don’t go there expecting a vegetarian feast.
V-Rating: V-ware Back in the day when I was a (nearly) Balmain local, pubs in Balmain were generally a little dirtier, grungier and less reliant on stainless steel as a design feature. Basically, they had atmosphere. However, The Monkey Bar was always a shinier, more polished location in which to eat and drink — and not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes it’s nice to go somewhere with floors that don’t stick to your shoes. Recently I was visiting a friend in Balmain and he suggested we pop into The Monkey Bar for a spot of Sunday lunch from the bar menu. Unfortunately, I was less than impressed with the vegetarian options. My companions quickly selected what turned out to be very nice steaks and chicken burgers while I was left floundering. My choices seemed to be limited to bruschetta, chips or wedges. Luckily, there was an additional specials menu at the bar that offered a single veggie breakfast option: a leek and mushroom omelette, which was lovely. Confusingly, the bar menu offered on The Monkey Bar’s website contains a number of pub-standard veggie meals that were nowhere to be seen the day I was there. So, great for a drink, great for a steak, but not so great for vegetarians who desire more than deep fried potato. Reviewed 2 April 2006. SDEB.
V Rating: V-ware Furusato is a vegetarian conundrum. You ask for a vegetarian udon, you’re told you’ve got vegetarian udon and yet something about the dish just doesn’t feel right. Say, the white seafood cake garnish? I went to Furusato with some friends for the special lunch menu (certain dishes for about $8). While undeniably good value, nothing on the menu was ostensibly vegetarian. Also, the waitress didn’t understand the word vegetarian. This caused me some anxiety which wasn’t allayed by the arrival of the fish cake. Despite this very V-ware lunch experience,a check of the Furusato menu suggests that it does cater for vegetarians. There are two veggie entrees, and a few vegetarian mains (tempura, teriyaki and sushi). Combined with the pleasant outdoor courtyard and authentic Japanese food, I initially decided to give Furusato the benefit of doubt and allocate them a VV rating (just). However, I recently went back to Furusato and tried to order the vegetarian teriyaki for the lunch special. There are four teriyaki dishes on the main menu (three meat and one veggie). While you can get the three main meat dishes for the much cheaper lunch special, you can only get the vegetarian as a main. Even when you explain that you are vegetarian and don’t eat meat. So, for price disrimination against vegetarians, Furusato gets a V-ware.
V Rating: V-Ware I’ve learnt not to expect vegetarian miracles when eating at French restaurants. In between the snails, beef, lamb, trout, pheasant, deer and cock there is rarely anything for vegetarians to be cheery about. So it was with the Little Snail. The set $25 three course lunch menu offered some choice. There were three choices of vegetarian entrees and no choice of vegetarian mains. I ordered a crepe with mushroom sauce for the entree. For my main, I ordered the entree pasta – as a main. The penne came with a tomato sauce which I am happy to say was edible, if unmemorable. The only other vegetarian entree that was available was a salad of cold pickled vegetables. Next time I go, if I don’t want to eat the same meal, I’ll have to try that. Alternatively, I guess I could reverse the order of the menu and have entree pasta with a crepe main. You get the picture. The good news was that none of the desserts appeared to contain any meat. I had a crème brulee, which was pretty good. Not a great spot for vegetarians though: V-ware. - Garry R. |
.thumbnail.jpg "Mushroom pithivier (pie)")
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