middle-eastern noms

I am not very good at making hommus or felafal. I am yet to successfully do so - usually I just get Gen (at FoE) to make it for me. But it turns out what I really should be doing is getting Jo to make it for me!



Even though it has been really cold, we somehow decided on one particularly chilly evening that we'd have what is effectively summer food. Jo made some hommus and some felafal and a mushroom and capsicum salad, and Danni spent an age chopping parsley for a taboulli. Which, in interesting news, I should note that I don't usually like taboulli, it usually makes me feel sick, but this one I had no problems with! So that was exciting (and delicious).



It's funny how rarely we engage in Middle-Eastern noms, given where we live (...an area very heavily populated by Middle-Eastern restaurants and grocers...50m from my front door I can buy hummous in a can. HOMMUS IN A CAN). Eating this meal, and Danni's recent visit to Tiba's, reminded me how delicious and easy this food can be. And also I bet it is really great picnic food.



Mmmm hommus. Maybe this post will get updated with a recipe. Or maybe not. Maybe you will all just have to ask Jo over to make this hommus for you.

bedouin kitchen, st kilda

A number of our Melbourne Peeps love the Bedouin Kitchen, and had a spectacularly delicious meal there ages before we arrived in Melbourne. So when A invited us out to dinner on Sunday night, we were very interested in what there was to offer.

The menu is not super extensive for vegans, but there are some obvious options such as dips, olives and tabbouleh. I went for the Kushery ($18.50), which was layered rice, macaroni and lentils in a spicy tomato sauce. This dish does usually contain yoghurt, but can be made without.



It was a really mild dish, not overly flavoursome, but the combination of simple flavours and the rice with lentils and pasta made this a delightful and filling dish. I would love to try something like this at home, it seems quite straightforward.

Danni wasn't feeling super, or very hungry, so opted for the Arabic bread with dips ($14.50), minus the tzatziki. This was perfectly servicable, with spices on the bread (which I always love!), but there isn't a huge amount you can say about bread and dips.

Perusing the menu, and the dishes that came out, I suspect the food would have been a lot more exciting if we ate cheese (there was a lot of baked cheese involved in everyone else's dishes). However the food we got was still quite good.



They were attentive and helpful, and very accomodating of dietary requirements. However our table ordered three serves of mashed potato (it is allegedly the best potato in the world, but it is not suitable for vegans so I wasn't invested in it). This order, though made at the same times as the rest of our ordering, failed to make it to the kitchen, and towards the end of the meal, when we asked where it was, we were told the kitchen had run out. The annoyance is less that they had run out (it happens), and more that they hadn't told us.

It was at this point that we left, because Danni wasn't feeling well, but later twitter updates indicate that maybe there was also a problem with dessert not arriving.

Food was good, points for helping us find the vegan food, but mixed feelings about the rest of the experience.



Bedouin Kitchen
103 Grey St,
St. Kilda

GF available