burgertory

Look, every day as a species we move further back along the wheel, and having a restaurant named Burgatory where the meals are named after archangels and deadly sins is no exception to that movement. But, having cycled (and driven) past a bunch of these places when they were closed, and having had a pretty hectic work day in the hospital mines, I decided a weird new burger was the correct mid-week dinner choice. 

And it was! Featured here is the 'envy', without onion and with a side of chips. The chips were excellent, highly rate. The burger was good but not $24 worth of good. The bun was not at all kale-y (good in my book of burgers) but it was a good texture. 

This was a perfectly serviceable fancy burger. On the fancy burger scale it probably rates somewhere above Grill'd but below the Cornish. 

[singapore] nomVnom [clarke quay]

I took my sister to nomVnom, and she declared it better than Lord of the Fries. I know. I KNOW.

Here's the deal. nomVnom is an all-vegan burger joint in the basement at The Central at Clarke Quay. They have a huge roster of 21 burgers and 20 plus sides, and 2 pastas. They make basically everything in house, including these beautiful soft steamed buns of just amazing deliciousness.

My favourite burger is WITHOUT A DOUBT the Temptation Satay, which is a marinated tempeh patty, housemade satay sauce, lettuce and cucumber. I eat this burger at least once a fortnight, and I honestly don't know what I'm going to do when I return to Melbourne next week. Attempt to replicate the burger, for sure. Beg Wai Lek (the owner) to take pity on me and tell me the sauce recipe, probably.

Others of my favourites are the Dhall Fusion (a crunchy soy-based patty, a thick dhall curry sauce, and sweet corn, to which I like to add cucumber pieces like a monster) and the Nom Nom (soy patty, tartar sauce, tomato, lettuce). The sides are mostly deep fried and delicious, including battered and deep fried mushies and battered and deep fried banana pieces.

They do a cold matcha and a hot matcha, as well as an amazing passionfruit and lemon tea (see: other things I'll be recreating at home) and an amazing cold cinnamon cocoa drink.

Look, I love Lord of the Fries, and I'm definitely going to be eating a parma burger within about 48 hours of touchdown in Melbourne, and I'm defo devo that I missed the HSP that ran for two months exactly when I was out of the country. But nomVnom is so good that one of my meat-eating Perth friends ate there twice during three days, and I can't fault that decision.

nomVnom
The Central
6 Eu Tong Sen Street
#B1-44
Singapore

Get there on the MRT (Clarke Quay MRT Station exits directly into the basement) or a zillion buses (there are 3 buses that take me directly from my house to The Central).

nomVnom accepts a variety of credit cards, including my Visa. Ordering happens at a high counter. The tables are crowded together but well lit, and seating is a combination of stools, chairs and couches.

bare burger [various locations, nyc]

My first and last nights in NYC saw me dining on food from Bare Burger. After being collected from La Guardia and depositing my belongings, I walked with my hosts to Bare Burger in Astoria, where the staff were friendly and delightful, offering advice, opinions and the ingredients list as required.

We started with two serves of fries: one sweet potato (or "yam", which is often not actually yam), and one of not sweet potato. This is served with a whole lot of sauces, which our waiter kindly replaced with some other options, more vegan, for me.

Bare Burger has a whole lot of options, but both times I've eaten there now I delighted in the Barest of Burgers, which is where you get to pick everything! I went with the wholemeal bun and filled it with this amazing black bean patty, smoke house sauce, avocado, tomato, spinach and mushrooms.

I'm not ashamed to say that tonight, my last night in NYC, we stayed in to do some work and ordered delivery from Bare Burger and I ordered something very, very similar. It was a good nom choice, as they also do gluten-free and were totally lovely. (Also there is vegan cake on the dessert menu)


Bare Burger
33-21 31st Avenue (also has other locations)
Astoria

japan i: mos burger

One of the things I had in the back of my mind going to Japan was how difficult finding food was going to be, so I had a few back up options to hand. Thanks to just about everyone, I was aware of the food opportunity that Mos Burger was going to be offering me, so it was with great excitement that I viewed the giant M out the window of my bus on the way to the snow. Unfortunately, it was some distance from my snow town, and so it was not until some time later that I managed to find my way to a Mos Burger (coincidentally, the same Mos Burger that Cindy and Michael visited in Roppongi).



The kinpira rice burger is tiny, but sufficiently filling (particularly when paired with a little bag of chips). Less of a burger, and more of a large dollop of fried noodles, carrots and nori pressed between two rice patties, this burger is unexpected but delicious. It reheats well, which is unsurprising, given its composition, and is not too expensive.

Mos Burger was good for a quick meal, especially for the unsure vegan, and is easy to spot with its distinctive M featured on google maps, if you zoom in close enough. Also travelling companion Amanda picked up a blanket with a hamburger on it for her housemate, which was exciting.

urban burger, richmond

a post that is not about noodles! (it is but a brief respite only, dear readers; there are noodles approaching upon the horizon)



I've now been to The Corner Hotel to see gigs twice; most recently, to see The Whitlams. How I ♥ The Whitlams. And do you know what they opened the show with? I make hamburgers! HOW CONVENIENT. ETA: CRUELLY, Danni has pointed out that they in fact opened with 'I will not go quietly,' thus undermining THE ENTIRE PREMISE OF MY PARAGRAPH. Whatever, I love that song. ("That's a salad roll, I said, and we started going out.")

Convenient because, before the show, there was some Urban Burgering. They've got a vegan burger; they've also got a couple of vego burgers that are easy to veganise, and still pretty tasty (unlike certain vego pubs I could mention).

And the chips were nice! Also it was pretty quiet for a Friday night, so the service was fast.

Would nom again!

Urban Burger
174 Swan Street
Richmond

giraffe, cambridge (uk)

D was recently in Cambridge, and although there was a complete failure of photo-taking, there was one or two.



Giraffe is a chain of cafes throughout the UK, and a popular eating place for D's Cambridge colleagues (as demonstrated by the number of juice giraffes on their desks).

The menu is immediately vegetarian-friendly, but is not immediately vegan-friendly (and the waitress didn't know what vegan was). But they were happy to remove things from the felafal burger until it was vegan (and delicious). Will had a vegetarian breakfast which comes with veggie sausages. The juices are really tasty and come with a giraffe looking over the glass. The prices were expensive by Australian standards (£10-11) but maybe not by UK standards? Not sure.




Giraffe
christs lane
(behind H&M and next to bus station)
cambridge
CB1 1NP

the moon, northbridge

I have been suffering some serious moon-burger longing this last week, so we went to Moon for lunch yesterday. It's been ages since I was at the Moon during the day, it's a lot easier to see and to get a seat, and it's certainly a lot less loud...



I went for the moon veggie burger (with no pesto). It was deliciousness, and the chips were great. The mushroom inside was especially tasty.



D ordered a weekend special, a grilled eggplant wrap (without the feta and pesto). D declared it delicious, though without the pesto it was a tiny bit dry.

We both ordered a mango fruit smoothie with soy milk and (sadly) ice instead of sorbet, and it was pretty good!

Oh the Moon, I love you and your late night pretension.

The Moon Cafe
2/323 William St
cnr Newcastle St
Northbridge

the juicy beetroot, fremantle

We ignored Melbourne Cup day last Tuesday by adventuring down to Fremantle to visit the Juicy Beetroot for lunch. Happy Cow tells me that Juicy Beetroot is ‘vegetarian-friendly, not 100% vegetarian’ but I’ve never seen anything available there that isn’t vegetarian. They do gluten-free cakes and allegedly vegan cakes, though I’ve never seen any of the latter.

D and I shared a tofu burger and a large bowl of mixed curries. The large really is very large, and the burger was massive. I enjoyed both the beetroot-ness of the burger and the fact that it was a giant chunk of tofu, something of which I am not usually a big fan. The curries included an aloo muttar-y thing, a dahl and some mixed veggies. They were very tasty curries. We also had a couple of mixed juices, I had an orange and ginger, as I often do, and D had the house juice without the celery, which was pretty tasty. All up it cost us about $30ish dollars, which was cool for a big, tasty, vegan meal.



The Juicy Beetroot
Tum Tum Tree Lane
132 High Street
Fremantle

soul tree cafe, glen forrest

D and I decided to take a couple of days off work this week, mostly so we can avoid the extravaganza and hoopla that is the first Tuesday in November (ie, Melbourne Cup Day). This morning we went for a jaunt up the hill through my old stomping grounds, past Bilgomen Pool and down Hardey Road to the Soul Tree Cafe. Soul Tree is an organic store and cafe, with lots of great vegan and vegetarian things on the menu. They do an all day breakfast that I'd like to try out one day, with tofu, tempeh, and seasonal vegies. But today we went up there specifically to try out the burgers.



I ordered a chickpea burger, and D ordered the vegan burger with a salad. The burgers were great, though I wish the menu had mentioned that the chickpea burger came with beetroot, so I could have asked for it without. The vegan burger is really juicy and tasty. The salad was a bit odd, it had a flavour that I found quite displeasing, so I didn't steal too much of D's salad.

D says the tropical juice (freshly squeezed) was perfect, containing pineapple, coconut and orange. I ordered a chocolate smoothie, which was a bit watery - I thought there would be icecream in it, though D argues icecream is not a given in smoothies, an argument I protest, surely milkshakes are no icecream and smoothies are icecream or yoghurt...



Took a piece of chocolate and beetroot cake home for later nomming. The cake was not too rich, and it was tasty. They also do gluten-free cakes.

All up came to $45, a little pricy for a Monday lunch (the small juice was $4.00!) but about expected for an organic eatery. Overall it was a good lunch! My Perth friends can expect an invitation to a day trip up the hill for lunch, followed by Junction Icecream, in the near (though warmer) future.


Soul Tree Cafe
Shop 6/3-5 Railway Parade
Glen Forrest

perth loves earth, perth esplanade

The Perth Loves Earth Festival was held at the Perth Esplanade on Saturday. It was a day filled with intermittant rain, so the turnout was a bit low. There weren't a huge amount of stalls, just the ones you'd expect: PAWS, ARA, PACAT, Sea Sheppard. The food stalls were all shop-based, the Krishnas, Soul Tree and One World Cuisine. The highlight was a random little stall that was selling home-made vegan cakes and bikkies. The carrot cake was fantastic, we even took a couple of pieces home.





We've been meaning to trek up to Soul Tree for a while now, but have yet to wander up there. They were selling burgers, and they were incredibly tasty. We're thinking of making a day trip up the hill one day soon, perhaps going for a wander through John Forrest National Park (which is quite close by).




I wasn't sure going in what the festival was going to be like. It was interesting to have a poke around, and I firmly believe in the ideal behind it, that vegetarianism is essential to environmental sustainability, but I didn't learn anything new. The festival itself was mostly just attended by hippies, and spoken word poetry is not the way to reach out to people who aren't already living the lifestyle.

There's a sustainability fair being held this coming Sunday in Floreat, and I'm pretty confident it will go too far the other way, though - it will be all about PV and alternate energies rather than changing your life. I'll still go, in the hopes that I'll be pleasantly surprised, but I don't expect to get any delicious vegan cakes, for starters.

source foods, highgate

We were viewing an apartment in Highgate this afternoon, and took the opportunity to drop in to Source Foods for lunch. I've heard a fair bit about Source Foods, it being a cafe that tries to fit into the organic/sustainable kind of idea, and also being owned by the same person who owns the Sandcastle Organic (which, sadly, no longer does vegan meals). Anyway, we were both quite excited to finally have the opportunity to try Source Foods out.



The interior is tiny, and it was full when we headed past on the way to the viewing, but by the time we had returned forty-five minutes later, it was almost empty and we got a table inside by the window. We could have watched the cars go by but I will be honest, we were more interested in the paper and discussing the properties we've got to view during the upcoming week.



Though there was a bit of a wait after we ordered, about half an hour, it was worth it. I ordered the "vegan heaven" breakfast, the tempeh was smoky and the hummus on the toast was fantastic. D's burger was allegedly excellent. The menu also features some tasty sounding gluten-free options, including nachoes, and they do a cashew rice noodle that I hope can be veganised. I look forward to finding out.

Source Foods
289 Beaufort St
Highgate

the moon, northbridge

The Moon has such a varied reputation in Perth. It's well-known as the late night munchie restaurant, and it's a bit smoky, and a bit skanky, whenever you pass on by.

At six, for an early evening meal, though, it's delightful. Last week a large group of us ventured in and sprawled out in the back room, taking up about half of that space. It was quite stifling, which was a bit uncomfortable, but the light was lovely and it was such a pleasant space to spend an hour of my evening.

The Moon's Vege Burger is a gigantic piece of work, piled high with vegetables and a delicious patty, spread across with pesto. The entire burger is vegan (or at least was last time I asked, and I assume it continues the same), and it's always too much for me to eat on my own.

The moon also does a tasty soy smoothie (not pictured).

There are not many other vegan things on the Moon's menu, but the burger, at the least, is worth it.




The Moon
2/323 William St
Northbridge