[wa] swan valley cafe, millendon

I went to Perth recently, and stayed with my parents and my sister out in the Swan Valley. The day I arrived, really casually, as if it might not be that interesting to me, my mother mentioned that there was a vegetarian restaurant just down the highway from their house. I love the Swan Valley, especially how I get to stuff my face with grapes and watermelon picked that day, and its proximity to the Junction Icecreamery, and the six (six!) op shops in Midland, but when it comes to vegetarian food it is not that great, so I was very interested in a vegetarian restaurant close by.

They only do dinner once a week at the moment, though they do lunch and breakfast a few other days, so my mum made a booking for Friday dinner and off we went.

As I was perusing the menu, there were many things that I wasn't sure would be vegan, things that sounded cheesey, like the lasagna and the pot pie. But every time I asked, the answer was that it was vegan tonight. Upon closer questioning, it was revealed that, because when my mum had booked, she'd said 'and my daughter is vegan,' all the stuff they'd usually make with dairy cheese they'd made with a combination of vegan cheese and nutritional yeast, so just about everything on the menu was vegan especially for me. Which was a little bit exciting.



We leaped straight into the dips. The dips were amazing! The dips are made on the premises; there was a spinach dip, a capsicum dip, and a hummous, as well as some dukkah (which, side note, I think I had more dukkah in this quick Perth trip than I have in the whole twelve months previous). If you look closely at the platter, you'll see a few different types of crackers on there, some of which aren't vegan. I was really happy with the service and attentiveness that we received at Swan Valley Cafe, but for vegans I do think a bit of self-aware caution might stand. They're new to dealing with vegans, so there are a few 'wait, how is this not vegan?' issues that need to be ironed out. But when I pointed it out they were really good about it.



I went for the lasagna. Of course I did. This was delicious, filled with sun-dried tomatoes and roasted capsicum and an assortment of other vegetables, covered in a nutritional yeast and vegan cheeze sauce (I think this was creamy sheese). It was served with a garden salad with the dressing on the side (yessss) and a little salad with sesame oil dressing, featuring cabbage and carrots.

Other mains eaten (the photos were a bit blurry town) included the pot pie which smelled amazing, and which my sister was super delighted to have ordered; a Mediterranean vegetables and cous cous dish, which my mum ate all up; and a light but tasty yellow curry for my father.



For dessert, Julie went for the summer apple pie served with cashew cream. In truth this was less pie and more raw cake, but it was delicious, with lots of nuts and dried fruits and a really great fresh apple flavour. I went for the chocolate mousse, which was massive and had a hint of strawberry floating through it. It was delicious, but I wasn't able to finish it.

The grounds of Swan Valley Cafe are really delightful, and I bet it makes a lovely brunch venue. Out the back is a little plant nursery, selling a combination of natives and exotics, and offering a great view across to the river. The service was good, but as we were the only people there the fact that the sound system was insufficient was quite noticeable, I felt awkward making noise. I'd like the chef to be a little more cautious checking the non-veganness of store-bought products, but I have no complaints with food that they made on the premises, and I will almost certainly visit next time I'm in the area, if they're still around. It is in the Swan Valley, after all, and although there are many well-known restaurants out there, I wonder how much through traffic they'll get. I love Perth, but my recent trip has just reminded me how much people expect meat when they sit down at their meal.

Swan Valley Cafe
990 Great Northern Highway
Millendon, 6056

Some GF available
Open Thursday through Monday

cny banquet at veggie kitchen, northcote

Hey it's CNY! 恭禧发财！


ang pau filled with chocolate coated sultanas
The first of my CNY events was going to Veggie Kitchen: Intention of Love with Cindy and Michael, K and Toby, The Veganator, and Bec who has no blog. K took the initiative and organised this CNY dinner, and I'm glad she did because a) CNY events are the greatest events, and b) it was delicious.

During CNY Veggie Kitchen is offering a special CNY banquet for $28 a head. We made the executive decision (before every one had arrived, even!) to go for the banquet, and Toby and I made the decision to also order a side of siu mai, because it's delicious and it was on the menu and how could we resist?


The banquet included two types of drinks. We were constantly being plied with some Taiwanese blossoming tea, or as I like to call it, monster tea. I love watching it unfurl. It takes quite a while to infuse though, so don't be in a hurry to drink it! We also received these tiny glasses of apple sprout soy milk, which I have to say was the most delicious soy milk I've ever drunk ever. It was amazing. I would drink more of this if I could. It had this very soft sweetness underneath the usual soy milk flavour, really subtle but really delicious.


Next up was some lettuce delight (looking suspiciously san choy baoish), followed by the yee sang. The lettuce delight was super crisp and really delicious; the lettuce was filled with a mixture of nuts and mock meat floss and the textures were great. The yee sang was okay, it included apple, the flavour of which I found really over powering, and I didn't really enjoy the mock ham. It was also served with carrot, capsicum, cucumber, mushrooms and what Toby thought was konjac. There was no crunchy, which I missed, and I didn't really like the sauce. Sad!


I didn't take any great pictures of the next course, which was deep fried deliciousness, spring rolls and tofu. The tofu was much coarser and thicker than I expected, kind of like a hard sponge which was surprising but worked really well. The siu mai was freshly steamed and delicious in the way of siu mai.

The pearl balls contained tofu and mushrooms for filling. I've really come to like pearl balls, though I'd never eaten them before last year. Last CNY, Johanna brought pearl balls to my CNY party, and they were new to all of us, and yet here they were at our CNY banquet! I'm deducing that they're a Taiwanese CNY variation.


Almost to the end, we had this amazing vegetable huo guo thing. It might have been a five elements sort of dish. This was filled with an assortment of vegetables that had taken on an incredibly delicious flavour and had softened so completely. The soup included pumpkin, broccoli, tofu, cashews, mock meat and some mushrooms. The flavours of this dish were just amazing, I don't know why but they were not overpowering and worked really well together.

We rounded the meal out with cha siu on forbidden rice (which was very dry, so I poured some of the soup from the previous course in to it) and then tang yuan and ice cream for dessert. The ice cream was served with this homemade strawberry jam which was pretty amazing, and the tang yuan, soft and chewy as it always is, had a crumbed (but gluten-free) exterior which made it unusual to chew. I really struggled to finish dessert though, as I was just so full.

This meal was amazing. There's still a week of CNY left, I totally recommend dropping in and trying it out.

K has blogged about it already, completely gluten free. And just as varied and delicious!

Veggie Kitchen: Intention of Love
159 St George Rd
Northcote

GF available

some links about animals and food politics and things

unexpectedly a lot of links

Pets petrified in cyclone crisis

Pets were not allowed in the cyclone evacuation centres, while farm animals were in paddocks when Yasi hit.

RSPCA spokesman Michael Beatty says there have been plenty of bird deaths as well as reports of animals wandering the streets.

and No-pet evacuation rules 'putting lives at risk'

Cassowaries are getting help after the cyclone!

Animals in Brazil Suffering After Disastrous Floods

10 Horrifying Stories of Factory Farming Gone Wrong, a pretty gross slideshow (USA-centric)

Sled dogs massacred after Canada Winter Olympics - business dropped off after the Olympics, so the huskies that were brought up specifically for the Olympics were then killed.

In other 'why are humans so crappy' news: Cockfighting bird stabs California man, Jose Luis Ochoa, to death: police. Specifically, cockfighting: why do it?

Back in Australia, an article on the ABC where the risks for jumps jockeys are identified. So if when you're arguing against jumps you find that people don't care about the horses, try this argument instead.

An op ed at the Herald Sun on a new proposal around disposal of young calves.

Where climate and conservation collide

At the state's largest wind farm at Woolnorth in the island's north-west, 19 wedge-tailed eagles are known to have been killed since it began operations in 2003. Another three sea eagles also have hit the rotors.

At Vegans of Color: How NOT to Inspire More People to Go Vegan, on an awareness graphic.

The Face of Exploitation by s.e. smith at This Ain't Livin', on the human exploitation elements of food (both animal and vegetable).

I link to Treehugger way too much, but: Chinese Activists Call Canada Racist For Selling Seal Meat because Canada has sold seal meat to China (perhaps) on the assumption that those Chinese will eat anything.

This is not vego-specific (though our catastrophe's addition at the end is), but how to shop when you are poor is a good post.

at the smh: Wasteland: the $7.8b of food Aussies throw away .

I failed to post about this before call for papers closed, but the 4th Annual Australian Animal Studies Group Conference is being held 10 - 13 July at Griffith Uni in Brisbane.

Potluck #1 is up! Announcement for #2 is coming soon.

some salads and things

Ages and ages ago Em blogged about this quinoa avocado salad, and I promptly forgot about it until Michael also blogged about it.

I totally slacked off, using lemon juice (from a bottle!) instead of lemons with their zest, and I skipped the coriander and increased the amount of sultanas slightly. I also neglected to toast the sesame seeds, because I was trying to keep my dishes down.

I served this with some tempeh (over-marinated, I'm sad to report) and a curry-ish noodle salad (inspired by Gen at FoE, but unlike hers mine was a complete failure).

My Very First Quiche

I've never made quiche before, and this was my first attempt. It was amazing. Try it - you won't regret it.

my very first quiche
inspired by Eat More Vegies

ingredients
1 cup chickpea flour
1 and a half cups of water
olive oil
2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
small amount of dried basil
handful fresh basil
2 tomatoes, sliced thinly
quarter of a red onion, diced tiny
1 sheet puff pastry, thawed
some vegan parmesan, if you have it (totally optional)

method
Grease a tray, and line it with baking paper. The tray I used was square and about 20x20cm. Press the puff pastry in to the tray, prick it with a fork once or twice, and in a preheated oven bake for 10 minutes at 220C.

Beat together the flour, water, oil, nutritional yeast and dried basil, as well as a little salt and pepper if that takes your fancy. Pour a little bit of this mix in to bottom of the puff pastry. Throw in (or layer in, as it takes your fancy) some of the onion and tomato, then pour in the rest of the batter. Set out the remaining onion and tomato on top, as well as the fresh basil leaves.

If you have any vegan parmesan, sprinkle this on the top.

Bake for about 40 minutes, until it's golden and quiche-like.

AMAZING.

spamination

I've been getting heaps of spam lately, so I'm going to be moderating all comments on here for a little while. This makes me sad! But hopefully I'll do some other stuff too, and it will cut down on my epic spam.

apricot and apple braid of deliciousness

I have been thinking about this apricot and apple braid ever since I first stumbled across it, and during a cooler day I managed to finally buy some apricot jam and give it a go.



I've never made anything like this before. It was a little bit fiddly but once I got used to working with the dough it all sort of fell in to place, and became a lot of fun. The braiding is cheating, I'm not sure if the way I did it is the way it is supposed to be done.

The dough didn't rise as much as I had hoped it would whilst it was proofing, but it all still turned out okay in the end, and didn't stop the braid from being delicious. I used dry yeast, and next time I do this I will activate it separately in a little warm water before mixing it through, in the hopes that it will work a bit better.

This has made me realise how much work my rolling pin skills require.



apricot and apple braid
modified (and veganised) from my kitchen snippets

dough ingredients
2 heaped cups of baker's flour
1/4 cup of sugar (I used castor sugar)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon dry/powdered yeast
1 chinese soup spoon apple sauce
half ish cup of soy milk
100g melted nuttelex/vegan margarine

filling ingredients
3 green apples (peeled and sliced)
1 heaped tablespoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
quarter cup lemon juice
a smidge of nuttelex
third of a cup of sultanas
some large dollops of apricot jam

plus extra soymilk + apple sauce for glazing

method
To make the dough, mix flour, sugar, salt and yeast (for reference, in future I will mix the yeast with a little sugar and some warm water separately and ten minutes in advance, before progressing with this step). Combine the melted nuttelex with the soy milk and the apple sauce. Then knead it all together! Knead it for at least ten or fifteen minutes, before covering it and putting it in the fridge for the day or over night.

To make the filling (the next day ish), start by soaking the sultanas in a little hot water whilst you prep the apples. Then in a sauce pan melt the nuttelex and throw in the apples with the brown sugar and the cinnamon. After the apples have softened, add the sultanas (drained) and the lemon juice. Smush it all together, then set aside to cool.

Hopefully the dough has risen! Punch it down and knead it some more on a floured surface. Roll it out until it's a giant rectangle, and quite thin (as in, height-wise, not width-wise). Image it divided in to three long thin rectangles, and then cut two centimetre strips in to the two outside rectangles, towards the centre. Check out the pictures in the post at My Kitchen Snippits if you're confused about what I'm describing.



Across the middle, spread all the jam. Put the apple mixture over the top of this, and make sure it's all evenly distributed. From one end, fold in alternating sides so it looks sort of like a plait. Fold at an angle. Plait them as close together as you can - leave too big a gap and the delicious juices run out and cover the bottom of the baking tray and gets all sticky every where. Seal the ends, and leave (covered) to rise for about half an hour to an hour.

Preheat the oven to 175C, glaze the braid with the soy milk + apple sauce combination (just mix the two together well before brushing on), and bake for about half an hour. On fan-forced I only required just under 25 minutes for it to be golden coloured.

Cool then eat.

DELICIOUS.

japan ix: getting by

I had a lot of fun in Japan, and I had a lot of fun eating, but the eating in Japan was not without its difficulties. I can read katakana and hiragana, and I can guess at the meaning of kanji based on my ability to read Chinese hanzi, so sometimes menus in restaurants (or picking items off shelves) was half of a guessing game, half of a hoping that I'd read it correctly.

This meant needing some back ups for times when I wasn't sure what was going on.

My very favourite back up was konbu onigiri / こんぶおにぎり. I developed this obsession with 711s in Japan not only because it was the only place I could reliably withdraw cash, but because rather than the food being fatty and unhealthy like you'd get in Australia, the convenience food (handily, found at the conbini) were bento boxes and onigiri. I love onigiri. With the konbu onigiri there's a slight chance of it containing katsuo bushi, but Anna assured me it was my ever present foe and to continue on regardless.

I managed to get my hands on some baked goods at various points. I found der Akkord in Minato-ku, a totally vegan bakery. From there I supplied myself for the trip home with chocolate mousse, some apple pie, and some flavoured breads. Some of the breads were sour-dough-y, which was a bit off putting, but the mousse and the curry filled breads I had were delicous, and made nice snacks on the flight home. In addition, I was delighted to discover they had a folder, in both English and Japanese, with a full list of all ingredients in all products. In Minowa, I found Cafe Mugiwarai, a tiny vegetarian bakery where I picked up a sultana-filled bread stick to supplement one of my many rides on the shinkansen. Nobody there spoke English but we got by okay.

I became obsessed with edamame whilst I was in Japan. Conveniently it is available everywhere, including ready to eat at supermarkets (but made more delicious by a quick dousing in water hot from the kettle, and the liberal application of salt). Plain tofu was also easy to find, and often I would use my hostel kitchen to whip up a quick tofu scramble for breakfast.

We frequented quite a few shrine and temple market areas, and especially during celebration-y times (such as New Year, when we were there) the stalls will include grilled corn on the cob, basted in plain soy sauce (all the stalls I ate from only used plain soy sauce, though perhaps others used something different). I had not realised until this point how delicious corn + soy sauce could be.



I was able to pick up some other food from floating around the temple markets. There were some snacks and things which were fine, but which I was too full to eat; and in Kyoto I found samosas that were drowned in curry before being given to me. This, incidentally, is a delicious way to serve samosas. And they were pre cut, solving the problem Fi mentioned just the other day.

I suffered some cravings for ice cream, which I sated with frozen fruits, available from the ice cream chests in various conbini.

I would recommend not trusting things just because they look okay. I grabbed some noodles which looked okay, but buried under the noodles and the cabbage were the tiniest shrimps I've ever seen, which was incredibly disappointing. Also disappointing was the meal that came out sprinkled with prawn flakes on the top, waving in the breeze.

At one point, desperate to eat, I resorted to ducking in to a Chinese restaurant that had a television out the front playing Theresa Teng from its speakers, hoping that someone in there spoke Mandarin (they did). Here I was able to eat some vegetables, which were often thin on the ground, it being winter in Japan.

If you're looking for vegan noms around Japan, I super strongly suggest doing some research. Maybe I'd have fared better if my Japanese was greater than a stilted "肉のたべません….わたしわベジタリアんです...", but the research that I did was quite helpful.

Don't trust Happy Cow unless you have a back up plan.  Happy Cow worked for me only once (leading me to Otis!); otherwise I was often unable to find places.

I found Cindy and Michael's posts from their 2010 visit to Japan quite useful. I even used it for non-eating things (I took their lead and did the iPod walking tour of Kabukicho and visited the Mori Art Museum, both of which were excellent experiences).

Vegetarians in Japan was a good reference point, though one that I ultimately did not end up using.

A lot of people have heard of Wandering Vegans in Japan, who in 2010 moved back to Australia, but their list of vegan restaurants in Japan is worth checking out.

Survival Guide for Vegetarians (not only) in Japan is also a fairly good site with lots of links and ideas.

Lisa lent me her 2008 version of the Japan Vegan Restaurant Pocketguide which, even though it was arguably out of date was still very useful, as it contained maps and directions. Lisa's Japan tag was also a handy resource.



A summary of my Japan posts:
i: mos burger
ii: roots cafe, hakuba
iii: disney noms
iv: pure cafe, tokyo
v: mikoan, kyoto
vi: ajanta, kyoto (now with added photos)
vii: otis!, hiroshima
viii: vegan healing cafe, shibuya

And that was Japan!

japan viii: vegan healing cafe, shibuya

Just before I left Japan, I wandered in to Shibuya to catch up with Alex and Elizabeth, who had added a side trip to their journey back to Canada (from Perth) in order to see me.

After wandering around Tokyu Hands for a little while, we found our way over to Vegan Healing, a tiny cafe just around the corner. It had a PeTA van out the front, and was filled with notes about rallies and things.

The menu itself is pretty brief, and is available in both English and Japanese.

Both Alex and I went for the tempe sausage.



This was served with a chickpea sauce, and rice and vegies, and was delicious! The flavour was very subtle and understated, but I really enjoyed it.



Elizabeth picked the fried soy meat, which was a bit like a deep fried mock chicken. It came with a delicious little soup. I have to admit to being a little jealous of this meal, it had a lovely flavour.

Prices were not too bad, and the service was good. I also bought some cookies, but they were rock solid. Sad! But overall a good experience.


Vegan Healing Cafe
Parashion Shibuya Bldg Ste102,6-20 Udagawa-cho,
Shibuya-ku,Tokyo

(東京都渋谷区宇田川町6-20 パラシオン渋谷102号)

Check out the webpage for a handy map

japan vii: Otis!, Hiroshima

Go to Japan, eat Mexican food?

Otis is this adorable live music venue just south of Peace Park in Hiroshima. It's been open for 23 years, and for the first few years people used to draw on the walls, including this giant piece by some guy from Pixar (whose name escapes me now). It's a really fun place, and they serve vegan cake!

It was a cold day, as were all the days in Japan, so I went for a delicious spicy soup, served with salad and bread. They all knew what vegan meant, and I wish the photo of my cake had turned out so you could see that instead of being served with ice cream, it was served with cubes of frozen mango. Brilliant!



Otis!
1-20 Kako-machi, Naka-ku
Hiroshima

広島県広島市中区加古町1-20

Five minutes walk south of Peace Park on the main road

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)

japan v: mikoan, kyoto

I got to spend some time in Kyoto, which I absolutely loved. One of the things I enjoyed most whilst I was in Japan was wandering around the temples and shrines in Kyoto. It's always lovely for me to visit the Buddha, just saying hi and stuff. I even got to visit the 1001 Buddhas at 三十三間堂. The temple is dedicated to Kannon, who is the Japanese incarnation of my favourite lady Kwan Yin. The temple isn't just home to Kannon, though - aside from the 1001 statues of Kannon, there's also a number of guardian deities, with their familiar grumpy faces.

I had hoped to visit a temple with attached shuojin ryori restaurant, but alas a look at the Vegan Pocket Guide revealed that they were all at temples that we weren't visiting. Fortunately for us, Mikoan, a strict vegetarian shuojin ryori restaurant run by two ladies, was only a short walk from our hostel.

We booked in advance for Mikoan, and after a brief rest from all that walking and a quick visit to the most eighties onsen ever, we walked on over for dinner. I do recommend booking in advance, as the restaurant is tiny (it seats maybe eight people, and is like sitting at someone's breakfast bar in their living room). I asked one of the people at reception in the hostel to make the booking for me (my spoken Japanese is desultory at best, though my reading is better than I thought it was).



All four of us ordered the set plate (1000円), and somehow managed to all be served completely different things, sticking mostly (I think) to the five colours five tastes principles of Japanese Buddhist food. The entire meal was a delight. There was an assortment of fried things, and vegetables, and the most delicious soup to accompany it all.

Afterwards, we met the resident cat, with whom Josie fell in love, and who was very adorable.

Mikoan
〒600-8032 京都市下京区寺町通四条下ル中之町570
570 Nakano-cho
Teramachi-dori, Shijo-saguru
Kyoto

Down an alleyway near a bookstore (don't be tricked by this bookstore - it looks like a normal bookstore on the ground floor, but every floor above that is an adult bookstore)

japan iv: pure cafe, tokyo

I had this great plan! We were all settling in to our next hostel, and then we were going to go on an adventure, for vegan noms. Alas, after we navigated our way to Loving Hut in Shinjuku (just near the Yotsuya Sanchome Station), we discovered that it was randomly closed just for the evening! Fortunately, though we were tired and it was dark, I had developed a backup plan: Pure Cafe, located inside the Aveda store in Minami Aoyama, very close to Omotesando Station.

Pure Cafe is this tiny little vegan cafe which does breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks, and also sells some groceries and vegan canvas bags (as well as some vegan yoga gear).

The menu is not extensive, but it is delicious. Each day there is on offer about six or seven dishes, and you get to pick about three of them, depending on which option you go for. They also sell some delicious cakes for take away, which I did, stocking up on fig cake and banana cake to take to DisneySea the next day.



I went for the daily deli plate, which was 1500円. I selected the crumbed tempeh, with the enchilada and the minestrone soup. This came with brown rice and a fresh salad. This whole selection was amazing. The crumbed tempeh was made specially (as Josie had requested it nut free, and it is apparently usually almond crumbed), and it was very delicious. The batter went perfectly with the tempeh flavour. The enchilada was filled with a tomato and avocado and bean salsa, and was similarly amazing. The minestrone was also really good, made even better when I mixed my rice in to it.

This was a good meal, and the service was lovely, though I found the smell of all that soap whilst eating to be a little distracting

Pure Cafe
5-5-21 Minami-Aoyama, Minato
Tokyo

Omotesando Exit B3
Go left out of the exit (heading down Aoyama Dori), then take the first left down a little street (but not a tiny alley).

japan iii: food at disney

Hey so whilst I was in Japan I went to DisneyLand and DisneySea. It was super awesome. There was a volcano in the middle of an island, and a roller coaster came out of it, and there was a 20 000 leagues under the sea ride, and it was very steampunky, and there was a Monster's Inc. ride, and I bought a ridiculous hat, and it was all very exciting.



I had prepared in advance, food-wise, with onigiri (more on that later) and a big breakfast. I've been to very few theme parks, and I was advised by experienced park goers that vegan food would be thin on the ground. Usually in Australia, I'd assume that I could at least have chips; however I had noticed as I wandered around Japan that this was not often the case, so I didn't want to take the risk and stocked up on delicious onigiri.

I was therefore delighted to find that the Disney Park Guides have a little column for vegetarian food, and where it can be found, where vegetarian means 'no eggs, dairy, meat or seafood but does include garlic and onion.' I am not Jain, so this was super okay by me. Granted there was only one restaurant in each park that had this option, but it was a sure option!



At DisneySea, this restaurant was Ristorante di Canaletto, next to the Gondolas, in "Venice." The service here was lovely, the wait was not too long and we got blankets (for sitting outside at less than 10C), and my pasta was quite tasty! That's it featured above, with the eggplant. Someone very important (or so we guessed - she was the only person in a suit and not a uniform) came out to reassure me that my food would be completely vegan and totally suitable for me, which was kind of cool (and way more reassurance than I had needed, but I really appreciated it).

At DisneyLand, the restaurant we went to was the Eastside Cafe, in the World Bazaar. I was worried, because it was all set menus, but there is a little vegan set menu with a surprisingly tasty green salad and a garden vegetable pasta. The pasta was nothing exciting but again, it was definitely vegan, and it was nice to be inside from the cold, and off my feet. Don't believe the website, though - it is not a leisurely meal, we were whisked away as soon as possible, to clear up the table for someone else.

Disney: it was fun, and tasty!

japan ii: roots cafe, hakuba

I was cautiously excited about both seeing snow for the first time, and learning how to ski in Japan. Through my hostel I was enrolled in ski lessons with Evergreen Outdoor Centre, and they were excellent teachers. I had lots of fun!

What was also exciting was the news that there was a vegan cafe right next door to the ski school! I knew about it even before I left Australia - traveling companions Josh and Josie were already at the snow, and emailed to let me know that they'd eaten there, and that it was delicious.

I visited Roots twice during my stay in Hakuba. Being situated next to the ski school but not next to much else, it was only open during the day, so lunch was my only option.



I ordered the same thing both days, not because the other options didn't appeal to me, but because I desperately wanted rice and curry. The curry was simple but really flavoursome, and filled with carrots, potatoes and enoki mushrooms, and served with a salad and some potatoes. On my second and final visit I also purchased one of every type of baked good in the cafe. I did manage to also sample a few of the wraps - the soy chicken wrap in particular was incredibly delicious, and the falafel wrap was also pretty good!

Prices were good, and the service was okay, though they were always incredibly busy which may account for some of that.

Although the cafe is vegan, they do serve cow milk, so make sure you specify when you're ordering your beverage.


Roots Cafe
Next to Sakka One
Somewhere in Happo

GF available