[singapore] Gokul [little india]

Gokul is probably my favourite Indian vegetarian restaurant in Singapore. It's got a very handy two locations (one in the Fortune Centre and one in Little India), an excellent menu, and is fast service and I love it.

It's really hard for me to go to Gokul and not order the chicken rice, mostly because it's always been one of my favourite dishes and it's so hard for me to get a good one in Australia. Gokul's chicken rice comes with fried chicken AND pandan chicken (aaah), a lovely ginger soup, ginger rice, some veggies, and some chili. It's so good. Look at that picture. Imagine angels singing as you eat it. Ahhhh.

The menu has a variety of bread sets, curry dishes, and local foods like char kway teow and chicken rice. They also have an excellently spicy murtabak and a good dosa, and they don't mind when one of your group brings in a frozen vegan cheezecake to eat for dessert.

The menu at the Fortune Centre location isn't as extensive as the Little India location, but I go to it more often due to its convenient location, so you can tell that I don't mind.

Gokul Vegetarian Restaurant
19 Upper Dickson Road
and
Fortune Centre
190 Middle Road
#01-07
Singapore

Get there on the MRT, mostly. There's a step to enter the Little India location, and ordering happens at the table; at Fortune Centre, ordering happens at a high counter. Cards are accepted. There's an awkward toilet in the Little India Building; Fortune Centre has a toilet down a twisty hallway.

[fitzroy] mukka indian restaurant

I can't even be reasonable in this review, for tonight I did the thing Australia so often fails to give me:

Dosa a short walk from house. Look at that beautiful thing. Crispy all the way, a heavy and spiced masala aloo, and a dal sambar that was so good I kept eating after all the dosa was gone - which I never do!

And the mark of a good dosa is how sad I am when I'm finished it and there's no more, though I'm full to bursting and shouldn't eat anything else. (I was sad indeed)

Housemates Bella and Alex were first time dosa eaters, and were both very happy with their dosa. Bella had the masala dosa also (listed on the menu as the 'classic'); Alex had the eggplant and pea dosa, which I briefly sampled and had a very mild smokey flavour.

Our eyes were massive, so I insisted on ordering the vegetable biryani and a dish of momo for sharing also. The biryani was excellent, interestingly minty but very moreish. The momo were also excellent and I will eat them again for sure.

I also had a mango and pistachio cooler, which is basically a lassi but with almond milk. I chose to have mine with added coconut rum. It was good but it wasted precious tummy space. Maybe on a beautiful summer evening.

Vegan, vegetarian and gluten free are all clearly labeled on the menu. The staff are really friendly, and as Mukka just opened, they're having a discount until 12 November. I plan to eat there this Sunday lunch time, not cos there's a special but because dosa for lunch is one of the greatest reasons to exist on this planet.

I just made my mum jealous on the phone by describing to her in loving detail the distance between my house and this dosa. (Always remember that the way to make a Malaysian mother annoyed is to tell her you're having better food than her)

My only complaint is that I wish the biryani was a little spicier. D:

Mukka Indian Restaurant
365 Brunswick Street
Fitzroy

Totally failing at remembering if there's a step to get in. Low tables, mixture of stools and chairs with back. Inside is well lit, ordering happens at the table. Payment over a high counter. Toilet is down a dark narrow path. Takes cards and cash.

Get there on the 96 or the 12 tram. Please don't bring a car into Fitzroy if you can help it, it's so annoying.

facebook

a day of singapore makan

Thanks to the joys of Jetstar (don't do it), I spent a Monday in Singapore, and used this opportunity to hang out with the super awesome Ger and Em. We spent the day eating, and they distracted me from my Plane Delay Panic.

We distracted ourselves at Muji, before brunching on chee cheong fun (no picture) at the Jade Garden.



From there we headed on over to Real Food Cafe, which looks like a seriously delicious vegetarian cafe and I'm sorry we didn't get to eat there. I'm not sorry that we got to try the Brownice icecream, though, which was tasty and melted all over my hands. Since there was three of us, we picked three flavours: peppermint chocolate, peanut butter caramel, and the plain chocolate. It was all good. It's ice cream made from brown rice!



Next up was Hainan chicken rice at Pine Tree Cafe in the Fortune Centre. The Fortune Centre is so amazing, I can't believe I've spent so much time in Singapore and never been there. It's a shopping complex almost entirely filled with vegetarian restaurants and shops! So good.

This chicken rice was awesome. I know I spoke highly of the chicken rice I ate at Madame K's only a week later, but this was perfect. Nice little soup, sauce drizzled over the top, Singaporean and just the way I like it.



We followed this up with a visit to the Mustafa Centre (open 24 hours) and then a dosai at the Syed Alwi branch of Ananda Bhavan. This was my first dosai in about six months and I was very happy to be putting this in my mouth. Ananda Bhavan is a fast service place, a little self-service.

There was supposed to be a burger visit, too, but in my paranoia to get on my plan we gave it a miss and went early to the airport.

Go to Singapore! It's pretty great. As are Em and Ger.

Real Food Cafe
6 Eu Tong Sen Street,
#B1-52/53, The Central
Singapore 059817

Pine Tree Cafe
#02-09/13
Fortune Centre
190 Middle Road
Singapore

Ananda Bhavan
Syed Alwi Road
opposite Mustafa Centre
Singapore

miscellaneous perth foods

Sometimes I go to Perth and eat things:



Tell me where you go for your favourite dosais! My favourite is at Mela Indian Sweets, in Northbridge. I always get the masala dosai, the potato in the masala starts to mush together and it's filled with fresh chillis, and caramalised onion, and cashews. Cashews! They are a delicious addition. The dosai at Mela is always served with a rasam and tiny little side dishes of coconut and tomato. $15 well spent every time!



My favourite flavour combination at the Junction Icecreamery is always ALWAYS passionfruit and chocolate. There are a few other soya flavours but they are the best!



Ended up at the Swan Valley Cafe again with my parents and my sister, this time for lunch. The lunch menu is not as exciting as the dinner menu (though there are some pizzas on the take away menu which I might try for next time), and I opted for the burger with a tomato chutney. This is a perfectly serviceably burger, but it does noticeably require the chutney, as it is not exploding with flavour. My sister had a tart (not vegan) with salad, and the quinoa salad was terrible, it clearly hadn't been washed enough times. Still happy to go back, especially as it's the closest vegetarian restaurant to my parents' house, but it was a little disappointing.

I still didn't make it to the new Indian vego restaurant in Midland! (I tried, but it was closed)

Mela Indian Sweets and Eats
428 William St
Northbridge

The Junction Ice Creamery
Corner of Great Eastern Highway and Morrison Road
Midland

Swan Valley Cafe
990 Great Northern Highway
Millendon

previous visit

japan vi: ajanta, kyoto

Located on the same street as Mikoan, we found Ajanta when we were hungry and couldn't find anywhere else to go. Ajanta is a tiny Indian restaurant with both English and Japanese menus, and lots of Bollywood movies being played on their tiny television screen.



We went in to Ajanta on a whim, and I was glad that we did. Ajanta had an entire giant vegetarian section, and the waiter was excellent about telling me what had cream or yoghurt or ghee, and what I could and couldn't eat. They also were very accommodating of Josie's nut allergy, and the fact that I kept asking one million questions.



We started with a carrot and tomato soup, poured out for us from a teapot and served in dainty tea cups. This soup was on the house, and it was delicious! It was a great way to start the meal.

We ordered an assortment of dishes to share, as well as the world's most giant pieces of naan. The smallest of these naans was the cheese naan (not vegan), which was the size of a small pizza. The largest of these was the plain naan (for me), which was about the size of my MacBook. With all these naans, the table became very crowded.



We ordered a vegetable biryani which was coloured a brilliant red, and which made an excellent breakfast the next morning; a cauliflower and potato curry; an aloo palak, which we ordered because we desperately wanted some spinach; and a mixed vegetable curry with a bit of bite.

The service at Ajanta was delightful, and though it proved to be one of the more expensive meals of our trip, it was no less fabulous for it.

Ajanta
515-4 Teramachi-Takatsuji
Shimogyo-ku
Kyoto

(京都府京都市下京区寺町通高辻下ル京極町515-4)

gujarati, hawthorn

My preference, when I'm at work, is to bring something from home, leftovers from the night before or something. But sometimes that's not possible, and at those times it's handy that there are some possibilities around. I've tried Penang Coffee House (not good enough for a repeat), and High Tech Burrito (totally delicious). But my favourite might well be Gujju's Cafe and Chaat House, which is nearly the closest restaurant to my office.

For $5 I can grab two curries from the bain marie and some rice, and this is sufficient for a filling lunch. On the day of this photo there were four totally vegan options; I went for a yellow dahl and a cauliflower and potato curry.

Cheap and easy and delicious!

There is also Gujarati Rasoi around the corner from Gujju's; it is also vegetarian and apparently cheap and delicious, and I plan to give it a go soon!


Gujju's Cafe & Chaat House
424 Burwood Road
Hawthorn East

[book review] the indian vegan kitchen

I picked up the Indian Vegan Kitchen (by Madhu Gadia) at the beginning of April, on recommendation of my friend Christine. She had very complimentary things to say about it, and it had clearly made an impression on her so when I saw it in Dymocks I thought I'd bring it home and give it a go.

In the intervening six weeks I've made six recipes from this book, which I think has given me a pretty good basis from which to stand as I say: this is a really good book. There's lots of variety in the recipes, both flavour and heat-wise, and there's variety in their difficulty, too: some are very difficult, some are easy, and some are middling in their difficulty. There's also a nice collection of different types of food: entrees + finger food sort of things; main meals; desserts + drinks; and an attempt at barbecue foods, which I appreciated (and hope to try). And a whole lot of breads. A lot of the recipes in the book are fast to make, but some do require sitting time (such as soaking).

The recipes, to my taste, were a little bit hit or miss but mostly hit.



We started with the curried potatoes (pg 100) (gf) and the creamy mushroom curry (pg 103) (gf), the latter of which was cooked by Danni. I found the curried potatoes a bit too dry for my tastes, though the flavour was quite nice. The creamy mushroom curry was really delicious, not as creamy as I had expected but a nice mushroom flavour without being overwhelmingly mushroom-y. I definitely plan to make the mushroom curry again (or have Danni make it).



Next up was the rajmah (pg 120) (gf) and the cabbage mixed vegetables (pg108, gf). The cabbage mixed vegetables were a bit same same - you really need to like cabbage to get into this dish, and it was very understated. It's not really my thing, though it was good to have the contrast to the rajmah, which was full flavoured and quite tasty. I will make the rajmah again, but I've made plenty of mixed vegetable dishes and the cabbage was nothing exceptional.



I love a good noodles, as I've mentioned many times, so I thought I'd give the chickpea noodles (pg 149) (gf) a go. These were not my thing at all - the flavour was understated to the point of being bland, which is not great for rice noodles, and the chickpeas overwhelmed what flavour there was. It was like eating two separate dishes, because you couldn't pick up noodles and chickpeas at once. I added extra cayenne pepper, but all it did was allow me to see through time. Not trying this one again.



The final dish we've so far tried is the pea and tofu curry (pg 176) (gf). This is Christine's favourite dish. The flavour of this one is really good, but I need to work out something to do with the tofu - maybe marinate it first, because it takes a while to soak in the flavours. However the flavour was really good, so I will try this one again. Featured in the back of this photo is my aloo muttar.

So that's the Indian Vegan Kitchen so far! I recommend it, it's going well.

vegetarian nirvana cafe, richmond

I've heard a lot about the amazing vegan foods available in the approximate Richmond region, however living on the other side of the City, we don't often get over that way. We made a recent visit to Plush Pizza, which was totally worth the trip, and last Friday Jo directed us down to Vegetarian Nirvana for dinner.



Jo insisted on ordering the mushroom masala. I wanted the palak aloo, because it is my favourite, and Danni settled on the dahl makhani, because it always, always has cream and ghee in it. We also ordered a whole lot garlic roti.

The food was really really tasty. We thought perhaps we'd over-ordered, but we were compelled by deliciousness to eat it all up, and we rolled on out, uncomfortably full.

The only downside was that we had arrived late in the evening (after 2000), and the food took about half an hour to arrive, which is usually not a terrible thing except I was so hungry I went from 'hungry' to 'grumpy,' which was unfortunate for Jo and Danni, who hopefully still like me anyway (we suspect the wait was due to cooking one of our curries from scratch).

It was totally worth it thought. I cannot wait to try their allegedly Malaysian-style roti canai.

Vegetarian Nirvana Cafe
486 Bridge Road
Richmond

GF available

things that didn't quite work

Here are some recent things I've cooked that haven't quite been as delicious as I might have hoped.



SJ has this really awesome tempeh bolognaise recipe, which I have made several times as the sauce for plain pasta. We thought we'd see how this went as a pasta bake, since it allegedly goes amazingly as a lasagna sauce. I topped this with grated cheezly and some nutritional yeast/savoury yeast flakes, and it didn't go that well. The sauce was either too thin to hold to the pasta, or too thick with tempeh to hold to the pasta. The very top of it, encrusted with cheezly and nutritional yeast, was quite tasty though.



The texture of this dish was perfect, and given it was brown rice I was quite pleased. However biriyani it was not. I followed this recipe ish, approximately anyway, and doubled the spices and added extra (garamasala, for example, featured heavily), and it was still kind of bland. Could have done with more spice. I might try this one again.



Lastly a curried vegetable pasty. Not sure where I got the recipe for this one, but again it was a bit bland, could have done with some more spices. Puff pastry covers many sins, but not all of them.

indian potluck with melbourne veg*ns

On Thursday D and I were excited to venture off on our own to meet up with some awesome Melbourne vegans and vegetarian bloggers! We congregated at the house of Michael and Cindy, and slowly a bunch of delightful vegos trickled in, bringing some delicious food for a vegan potluck, Indian-themed! There was some really great food, samosas and stuffed capsicum and a lot of spiced potato dishes, which was pretty great. There were also some sweet desserts.



The samosas, which were more like puffs but were super tasty, were fantastic. The capsicum was stuffed with something orange, I think perhaps pumpkin. There was also some onion bhaji, and some delicious yoghurt things. The naan was storebought but really tasty! And there was something that might have been a chana masala. Sadly I cannot remember who brought what. Philippa though has managed to remember more details here.

Desserts were awesome, there was a kheera by Philippa, and some biscuits made by Cindy, and a carrot halwa that I think was made by Kristy. See I remember the important things!

Cindy and Michael's apartment was awesome, thanks for letting us check out your photo wall and wander through your place! The conversation was great too, though we kept getting stuck talking about bikes!

It was such a great evening, and it was very exciting to meet so many cool veg*ns!

Single Penguin Food – Days Five to Seven

On Thursday I had to brave the hordes going late night shopping, as I tried to find new clothes for Chinese New Year. My parents have been known to be some of those hordes, so I met up with them and my sister for dinner at Chatters restaurant, just outside Morley Galleria. It was standard pan-Asian food, leaning slightly towards Thai but still with that Malaysian-Chinese bent that is so common in Perth’s Asian restaurants.





We ordered a char kuay teow, slightly oily and not quite enough vegies for my preference, but still pretty tasty. The waitress assured us that the sauce for the satay vegetables was shrimp and fish oil free, so we ordered that. There was a wide array of delicious vegetables involved, baby corn and bok choy and bamboo and carrot and lots of my favourite things, and that was pretty tasty. We also ordered a claypot vegetables (a little cornstarchy but overall okay) and some spring rolls. The spring rolls were not my thing, very OTT with the pepper filling, but my sister seemed to quite like them.



On Friday I tried this mushroom masala recipe, and added some gailan in soy sauce as a side. I was so intrigued, it sounded like a great combination, but ultimately the flavour was too rich for me, and I had to cover it with my gailan in order to disguise the strong flavour. I’m not sure what created this, perhaps the addition of tahini. At least my roti was very delicious, as always.



On Saturday I ventured Very North to A Curry Affair, an Indian restaurant in Malaga. All the vegetarian curries they had on for the evening were vegan, so we tried the dhal, a potato curry and, at their insistence, the vegetable sambal. The dhal was okay, the potato was pretty good and sambal was awesome. Price was okay, but it was in Malaga.

samosas

Wandering one day through Kongs (our local Chinese grocery) in Northbridge, I found the auntie behind the counter was packing these tiny vege samosas into little bags. I've seen them for sale at Lotus also, so someone local is clearly making them. They're filled with potatoes and peas and just a mild amount of spiciness, and cost about $3.50 for a pack of ten.

They sat in the freezer for a while, and yesterday afternoon, looking for a Boxing Day snack as we watched the cricket, I shallow fried them in a little vegetable oil (having first defrosted them for a bit). They were bite-sized deliciousness!

aloo masala pies

Aloo Masala is often the filling in a dosa. Using it as the filling for a puff pastry pie was tasty, though nothing like eating dosa. But now that I'm happy with my aloo masala, the next step is of course to attempt making my own dosa.



Aloo Masala Pies

ingredients
4 potatoes, peeled and diced
1 onion, diced
2 green chillis, deseeded and sliced width-ways
1 clove garlic, minced
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon tumeric
some coriander
2 tablespoons desiccated coconut
1 tablespoon red chilli flakes
1 tomato, diced
2 tablespoons mustard seeds
1 large sheet of puff pastry

method
Boil the potato until half cooked, then drain. Fry the green chilli, onion and garlic, until the onion is golden and soft. Add cumin, tumeric, coriander, mustard seeds and chilli flakes, then tomato. Allow to simmer for a few minutes, then add potato, and mix through until covered. Leave to simmer until potato is cooked through and all liquid has rendered down, stirring occasionally. Stir in the coconut.

Spoon mixture into four ramekins, and cover with one quarter of the puff pastry. Brush with buttery thing, and bake at 190C for 15 – 20 minutes.

yellow dahl

Wandered to Mirrabooka for a Diwali Mela on Sunday, came away smelling like masala dosa which is one of those things I’ve never been brave enough to try cooking on my own. My favourite masala dosa this year was the ones I ate at Wawasan Mutiara, crispy and served with with a dahl almost like a rasam.



Everyone has a different dahl recipe. My mum likes to add lots of chunky things, big chunks of potato and carrot. Some serve dahl cold, and some serve dahl hot. I’ve had dahl that’s thick and creamy, and dahl that’s, as I said, like rasam. Even my own recipe evolves, subtly changing flavours and texture as I learn new things. But this one is currently my favourite.

yellow dahl

ingredients
3 tomatoes, finely diced
1 potato, diced
2 or 3 cups stock
1 can coconut milk
1 ½ cups dry lentils

for pounding
1 shallot, sliced
2 green chillis, chopped and deseeded
1 clove garlic, minced
2cm ginger, chopped
1 tablespoon ground coriander
1 tablespoon ground cumin
2 teaspoons tumeric

method
Overnight, or for about six hours, soak the lentils. I like to use a combination of brown, red and yellow lentils, though in this specific instance I used about half yellow, half red. After soaking, pick out the yuck lentils, rinse and drain.

Pound together the shallot, chilli, garlic, ginger, coriander, cumin and tumeric, until a smushy, smoothish paste is formed. On high heat, dry fry the paste for a minute or two, until fragrant. Add the tomatoes and the lentils, allow to fry for a minute or two, then add the stock. Reduce to low, and simmer with the lid on for ten minutes, then add the potato. Continue to simmer on low, lid on, stirring occasionally and adding stock or water as needed. After about an hour, add the coconut milk and simmer with the lid off for another ten minutes.

Serve over rice or delicious roti.

restoran wawasan mutiara, penang

After we established that we needed to stay an extra week in Georgetown, investigations began to find places to eat breakfast. The hotel breakfast is cool and all, but at 42RM is quite expensive. My parents stumbled across Restoran Wawasan Mutiara, an Indian restaurant opposite the Komtar carpark and beside Bazar Komtar. We ended up visiting it so many times that my parents gave a tip to our waiter on our last visit, so pleased were they.



I tried the vegetable biryani, which I got with dahl, cabbage and beans. They were just slightly spicy, with a really great flavour. The dosai masala was fantastic, I had one filled with onion and cabbage, and was scolded for not using my sugar appropriately (or at all).

One morning we finally made it there for breakfast, where I had roti pisang and dahl, and our waiter was shocked that I wasn't eating dosai, given it is often a breakfast food and I had ordered it several times previously for dinner. The roti pisang was amazing, and once I got used to the sensation of one bite banana, another bite spicy dahl, it was fantastic. I am eager to attempt roti pisang at home.



The dahl was usually room temperature, which was a bit disappointing, because dahl should be hot lah!

As always it was easy to order vegan, though that wasn't clear from the menu, I just ordered whatever I felt like and hoped for the best, which is often what I do when I'm in Malaysia.

The watermelon juice, incidentally, was pretty tasty. We'd order four glasses of it, and after taking our order the waiter would wander past the table to the kitchen, a whole watermelon in his hand.



Wawasan Mutiara
Lebuh Tek Soon
Georgetown

namaste indian restaurant

My family loves talking about food, and I am no exception to this. We love talking about restaurants we’ve visited since last we spoke, food we’ve bought and food we’ve made and it’s such an important part of our lives.



My parents like to talk about this Indian restaurant, it’s tiny and rarely very busy. The chef is an accountant by day, and a chef by night. His three children wander about the restaurant working as waitstaff. My mum says to him, you would get more business if you advertised at all! but he protests. He likes it this way, it’s a hobby. He catered for my father’s birthday this year, and when my parents didn’t visit for three weeks the chef started to fret, assumed that we must have been disappointed.



Last night we visited and drastically over ordered. We ordered a mixed vegetable curry, a palak aloo and a chana masala (I thought of you, SJ). My parents also ordered some meaty dishes, hence the over ordering. We had some breads, too: the roti was a bit whatever, but my sister liked the naan and the chana came with bhatura, which our waiter described as naan bread that’s been covered in oil and fried instead of baked tandoor. It was so tasty, really great, it was kind of like a donut and so oily and crisp. After I got home I googled for a bit, and I’m now concerned that it might have had yoghurt (some recipes do, some recipes don’t), so my recommendation for the bhatura is cautious due to that, but I’ll ask next time and we’ll see. I didn’t think to ask this time because he described it as naan batter.



The palak aloo was also pretty fantastic, combining two of my favourite things (potatoes and spinach) into one creamy, tasty dish.

The service is very laidback (the chef's son argued with me about both what time we'd booked and how many we'd booked for in a very 'whatever' sort of way), but it is very fast, and they're super helpful and friendly.

Namaste Indian Restaurant
1/305 Great Eastern Hwy
Midland

little chutney's, subiaco (part two)

I’ve blogged about visiting Little Chutney’s before, but breakfasts are quite different from dinners in Perth, and it was with delight that I discovered that Little Chutney’s breakfast menu features a masala dosa.

Sunday morning breakfast with The Breakfast Club is usually a leisurely affair, meeting at 0900 by which point I’m famished and any service seems to take a lifetime. So when I say the service is sometimes tardy, perhaps I’m being harsh, but having been there for dinner a few times, I suspect it’s not just my desperation that finds the speed of service sub-optimal.

However if I am to be truthful, for Little Chutney’s to meet my verdict of excellent breakfast, all they need to do is provide me with the masala dosa, the dosa crisp and the potatoes flavoursome, with the onions starting to caramelize and the rasam tart and spicy. And breakfast dosa at Little Chutney’s is all of these things, an excellent way to start the day.

The breakfast menu indicates gluten-free dishes, which is nice, and features fusion dishes (not vegan) for your friends who don’t understand that curry is one of the best breakfasts you can have (these friends are wrong).

The cost for morning beverages is about average, and the dosa is $12.50 which is fairly reasonable for a filling breakfast.

The dosa does also come with a little dish filled with a creamy thing, I always forget to order the dosa without it, but as far as I know that is not vegan.

Little Chutney's
67 Rokeby Rd
Subiaco

easy biryani

I love this biryani, it's so simple and tasty and I walked down the road with a pot of it to serve to my friends, and it was perfect for a cold evening.

biryani

ingredients:
1 clove garlic (minced)
1 (or only 1/2) brown onion (sliced)
2 tsp garamasala (see note)
1 diced tomato
1 potato (diced small)
1 carrot (diced small)
1/2 cup water
capsicum (diced)

1 1/2 cups rice
cardamom
1/2 tsp chilli flakes or powder
1/4 tsp tumeric

method:

Fry the garlic and the onion until the onion is golden and soft, about five minutes. Add garamasala. Stir in tomatoes, potato, carrot and water, bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer covered for about ten minutes. Add capsicum and any other vegetables as appropriate. Zucchini and broccoli are also very good in this.

Cook rice and spices separately, in usual fashion.

Combine the two together. I like to layer half the rice, then the vegetables, then the rest of the rice, but it's also nice to mix it all up.

I like to serve this with a rasam or a curry with a tomato-base.

NOTE: Often store bought garamasala is not gluten-free. To that end, I usually make my own garamasala, although I do also always have a jar of store-bought stuff on hand, for when I'm feeling lazy and not feeding coeliacs. Garamasala how-to will follow eventually.

annalakshmi on the swan, perth

Annalakshmi has been operating in Perth for several years, and can also be found in several countries - we visited the one by Chinatown when we were in Singapore recently.

Annalakshmi is a vegetarian Indian restaurant that operates on the 'pay what you feel' system. The food is prepared and served by volunteers, and they're always really good about letting us know what has ghee and what doesn't - and most of the time very few things have been cooked in ghee. The meals are all from a buffet, a few different rices, some delicious potatoes and a whole lot of curries of various spiciness. The food is always tasty, and I often go back for seconds. I always feel that I should return more often, because the setting is beautiful and, as I said, the food is great, and I recommend it heartily to all. L + M came with us, L having never before been, and they enjoyed it also.

Annalakshmi On The Swan
Jetty 4
Barrack Sq
Perth
(up the stairs, just behind the Belltower)

aloo muttar

Since returning from Singapore I've been going through an Indian curry sort of phase, which is handy as the weather has cooled rapidly and we're moving in to the end of Autumn.

Aloo Muttar



ingredients

1 shallot (chopped finely)
teaspoon of coriander seeds
half teaspoon of cumin
3 potatoes (peeled and diced)
cup or so of peas
1 star anise
half teaspoon red chilli powder
half teaspoon of garam masala (this recipe is only gluten-free if you make your own garam masala. if you use store-bought, you will find it often contains wheat)
one and a half (or so) cups of stock


method

Fry shallot, coriander and cumin in a tiny amount of oil. Add potatoes, cover in mixture, and add star anise. Fry for a bit, add stock (enough to half cover potatoes), leave to simmer on low, covered, for ten minutes. After ten minutes, add peas, chilli powder and garam masala, add more stock or water if necessary.

If you're using frozen peas, defrost by soaking in warm water for a couple of minutes first, then drain before adding to the pot.

After five to ten minutes, remove from heat and leave to soak up stock.

This dish takes about half an hour (or longer, if you're not so good at chopping).