mini cheezecakes

I went on a picnic and baked some mini cheezecakes (as the birthday girl didn't want an actual cake).



These cakes were coincidentally based on the cheezecake I baked for Em last year, but why change a delicious cake? I love this cheezecake a lot, and I've been a bit obsessed with mini things lately, so it seemed like a good time to give them a go.

I only needed about three quarters of the biscuit base mixture, so it's a shame I accidentally poured the whole packet in to get mushed, as there is now a whole heap of biscuit mixture in my fridge! I pressed about five millimetres of biscuit in to the cupcake containers. A note: use foil cups ONLY. Do not use paper cups. It will end in tears and recriminations when you go to eat it the next day.

Other than that alle the ingredients remained the same. I poured the cake filling in to the cake cups, on top of the bases, and put in to bake at 180C for a while. Then I let them cool completely, and made the berry compote and poured it on top. Rich, delicious success!

The picnic was lots of fun, it was a perfect day for it. Shar brought soup, which was super delicious, and Danni made the most successful pizza ever. And there was scrabble! And surprisingly I enjoyed watching season one of Friends.

baking from babycakes

I've been a little bit intrigued by Babycakes ever since I first heard of it; however I have little chance of visiting the shop any time in the near future, so it was with delight that I borrowed the Babycakes cookbook from Emilly.


I've tried baking two things so far. The first was the gingerbread cake, which I first tried at Emilly's birthday. I was taken by how moist and delicious this cake was. The added pumpkin makes it really moist. I cheated and made a very sugary cream cheese topping instead of making the frosting in the book, but the cream cheese complemented it quite well.

The cake itself was tasty, but it dried out very quickly, which is a shame as it makes quite a lot, so there was a lot to get through.


look at all that spare apple!
I followed this up with the apple and cinnamon muffins. I get really grumpy at recipes like this, where they tell you to do something (roast eight apples) and then you only use a portion of the end product (one cup of roasted apples). It is a good thing I was feeling lazy and only ended up roasting five apples.

There were other modifications I made as I went on, most of them already written in pencil in the cookbook; significantly reduced the amount of agave and the amount of vanilla essence (two tablespoons!), and some other modifications I cannot recall as the book is not in front of me.

Overall I've found the book a tasty experience so far, though of course I will require more testing in order to truely guage how I feel about the book.

pre-MICF noms, melbourne cbd

I went to see another MICF show (Fear of A Brown Planet) with Danni, and we decided to go on a hunt for dumplings. Nix had introduced me to Shanghai Village a few weeks earlier, and in our rush to catch a movie for MQFF I hadn't stopped to take photos.


photo by danni
Shanghai Village has the usual decor, and very fast service. Both times I've been now I have been able to get a table without too much fuss. The tea is over-steeped but free. We ordered a serve of steamed dumplings and a serve of fried. They're filled with the same things: mushrooms, spinach, carrot, tofu and spring onions (I think); but I like the steamed ones more.

This amazing dumpling feast cost $13.50, shared between two, and it was almost too much to finish.

**

Last night I saw my final MICF shows (Hannah Gadsby and Claudia O'Doherty), and I had been thinking about soup all day, so Emilly and I met up at The Soup Place for a quick meal. I'd never been here before, and I'm trying hard to find new dinner places to go to before shows that aren't just LotF (as evidenced by trying out the dumplings).


All of their soups are dairy free and gluten-free, so their vegetarian ones are also vegan (they don't put egg in them either), which gave me a big choice to choose from! I went the pumpkin, to which I added a little bit of chilli and salt, and it was perfect, exactly what I was after! Emilly went for the lentil and vegetable, which she said needed a bit of salt but otherwise was good. The bowls are big and at only $8.90, not bad for a quick meal before a show. Or before two shows.


Shanghai Village
112 Little Bourke St
Melbourne

The Soup Place
14 Centre Place
Melbourne

kind of like a kapitan curry thing

For ages I had planned to make this curry. A friend modified her step-mother's fish curry so that it was vegan, especially for me, and it was simple and tasty and filled with familiar delicious flavours. So this recipe sat in my inbox for months and months, and finally last week I went to make it...and every where I went I could only find mock fish with whey in it. Even brands that were previously vegan contained whey.

Too lazy to look up any other recipes for new curries, I amalgamated this instead with what I had in the house and in my head (which is like an ode to curries).




kind of like a kapitan only not really

200gm mock chicken pieces
1cm knob ginger, minced
1 clove minced ginger
half of a brown onion, sliced finely
a whole lot of curry powder* (I didn't measure, but about 1 and a bit tablespoons)
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon tumeric
half a teaspoon garamasala
a dash or three of ground coriander
1 large tomato, diced
small handful of snake beans, ends off and halved
some curry leaves
a couple of lime kaffir leaves
400mlish coconut milk
a cup or two of water


*so here is the thing about curry powder: sometimes people refer to it as 'inauthentic.' This is a smokescreen! Curry powder comes from the curry leaf. You should never use it as the only spice in a curry, but it is a perfectly cromulent addition to your curry along with many other ingredients! Unless you would like to tell my mother that she is inauthentically Malaysian Chinese. That would be amazing.


method:
In some oil, fry the onions over a medium heat until they are soft and translucent (about ten minutes), then add the garlic and ginger until fragrant. Then throw in the curry powder, cumin, tumeric, and garamasala, mix it all together, then throw in a little bit of the water. Let it simmer for a few minutes so it all mixes through and renders down, then throw in the mock chicken pieces. Let these fry in the spices until well coated, then add the tomatoes and the rest of the water. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer covered for fifteen to twenty minutes. Or even longer, if you like. After this, add in the snake beans, curry leaves and lime kaffir leaves, and leave to simmer for another ten. Then add the coconut milk, simmer another five, and it is ready to go!

veg out time, south yarra

So the next comedy show I went to see was Ava Vidal (will link my review when I write it), at Chapel off Chapel. I am not a huge fan of going to Prahran, mostly because I don't know anywhere to eat in the area. I tried to book us in to Oriental Tea House, which Fi had totally talked up; however they were booked out, so I decided Veg Out Time would have to do.

After some unfortunate shenanigans, the likes of which we do not talk, Danni, Emilly and I wandered in to Veg Out Time, which was almost completely empty! Danni has already blogged about her meal (summary: tasty).



I went for the two curries + half (brown) rice, which was I think $8.90. The curries in the bain marie are all clearly labelled vegan where suitable. I selected the chickpea + potato, as well as the pumpkin curry. The pumpkin curry was really tasty. Soft and flavoursome. The chickpea curry was also pretty good (I'm really in to chickpea curries right now).

Emilly went for the dumpling salad (no photo because it was too blurry). She reports that the dumplings were delicious, but there were only half a dozen of them, on the side of a giant plate of mostly lettuce-y salad, so it was not as satisfying and/or exciting as it was promising to be. Would probably not order again, was the verdict. Maybe she should have tried the dumpling soup?


Veg Out Time
366 Chapel Street
South Yarra

Clear maneuverability and pathway through but the bain marie is probably a bit of an awkward height.

Other reviews: In the Mood for Noodles (and previously).

vegie bar iv, fitzroy

Really quick visit to Vegie Bar on Friday after the launch party for Peril 10: Skin, which you should all read. I really recommend Footscray Whitewash by Thuy Linh Nguyen, but I recommend you read them all! Also the next edition is on Food, so you should submit if you can! Which reminds me I should put something together before submissions close at the end of April.

Anyway, Vegie Bar. We rolled in there about 10pm, and fortunately the kitchen was still open. Everyone else had eaten beforehand so they all went for desserts and entrees (dumplings + cakes). I had been craving pizza since about 6pm, when my friend Lisa had sat in front of me at Friday Drinks and eaten an entire very unvegan molten pizza, and all I had been able to think about from that point on was pizza.



This was not that pizza. The flavours were fine, and I was so hungry really anything would have satisfied me, but it wasn't amazing.

previous visits: one and two and three.



The Vegie Bar
378 Brunswick Street
Fitzroy

Step up, tiny rows, average to low for accessibility
Nobody seems to have reviewed it recently so no links for you!

Old Town Kopitiam Mamak, QV Building

So I met up with E and C to go and see Humourists Read Humourists at the Wheeler Centre as part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. In fact it was my first one for the season! (I have since been to see more) As the show was at 19:30, we thought we'd eat dinner first. E had been recommended some Japanese place in the QV Building by a friend, but she said the friend was omni and so there was no way for us to know if I could actually eat there until we got there.

So we turned up, and I could not eat there. Not a thing. Fortunately, there was Old Town Kopitiam Mamak just over the other side of the escalator; and if there's one thing I can do, it's make Malaysians cook me vegan food.

The food was fine, this is not really a review, I ended up with nasi goreng with the usual substitutions. This is however a PSA: the 'vegetarian curry laksa' is not, in fact, vegetarian.



In other news, the couch at the Wheeler Centre is great, and someone left me a question on my formspring letting me know that they thought they'd spotted me at the Rosie Burgess Gig at the Bendigo in Collingwood yesterday! You can totally come say hi if you like, I am usually quite friendly and cheerful and I very much enjoy meeting other Melbourne vegos! (and non vegos who like folk-thrash-rock)

Old Town Kopitiam Mamak
level 2/shop 11 QV square QV Building
Melbourne

trippy taco ii, collingwood

I love Trippy Taco, and I spend a lot of time in Collingwood + Fitzroy, so it surprises me that I don't go there more. However I have been there twice in recent weeks, and both times I ordered the same thing.

Usually I am all over the tofu asada burrito (it is giant, and the most amazing ever), but a while back Danni went on and on about how amazing the nachos were, so it was to these I was drawn.



These are massive! This is the small, and I would seriously recommend sharing it. The first time I went recently, Danni and I shared this, along with a serve of the Trippy Fries (after checking they were vegan, of course; if you haven't heard, recently and temporarily their fries were not even vegetarian), and the fries were actually too much, I felt sick afterwards from too much food.

These nachos, size aside, are seriously delicious. The corn chips are hand cut and have this great flavour, and the combination of the black beans with the salsa and the avocado and the vegan cheese is super tasty. They are my new favourites.

Having not learnt my lesson re: suitable amounts of food, on the weekend I met up with E, nix, db and nix's friend who is also E, and we had too many people to fit inside (and also there were no tables), so we ordered takeaway and sat in the little paved area on the corner of Gertrude and Smith. And I ordered not only the nachos (small), but also the choco-banana dessert tortilla.

These nachos were still super tasty, but sadly stone cold. If I had been any closer to TT, I would have taken them back, but that whole 100 metres (and a crossing of Smith Street!) was just too far for me. I think what happened was that the choco-banana melt was my downfall and took longer than the nachos to cook/was ready much later, because it was still piping hot when I went to eat it after my nachos. And was it worth it?



It disappoints me to admit: not really! Nachos still totally worth it, but I wasn't really that in to the dessert tortilla. After a year and a half of reeeaaaally wanting to try one, this was definitely unfortunate.

Perhaps I have learnt my lesson?

Trippy Taco
48a Smith St
Collingwood

Gluten Free available
Really bad for accessibility! A step up, and a hallway that's too small to maneuver down even if you're TAB, and it's always poorly lit.

Other reviews: In the Mood for Noodles (and previously); Easy as Vegan Pie; Vegematarian.

call for submissions: potluck #2: comfort food

Do you remember Potluck #1? Of course you do, it was super exciting, and all about holidays. I am pleased to announce that I am hosting Potluck #2: Comfort Food. Submissions can cover anything you like, and you do not have to stick to the theme! but please remember that we are trying to talk about intersections. Potluck is, after all, intended to be a carnival for multicultural and intersectional discussions of food, including but not limited to food discussions intersecting with disability, gender, sexuality, fat, animal rights, and cultural and racial issues. How many times have you gone to eat your comfort food, only to be told it's gross and weird and disgusting? How many times has advertising told you that your comfort food is wrong and terrible?

Submissions are open until May 15th, giving you a comfortable six weeks to get something in. You can leave submissions in this post (please note that comments are moderated but will eventually appear!). Please feel free to submit links to your own posts or to someone else's. You may submit multiple links. Links will be included at the discretion of the host.

Please note that this is not just for vegans! It is just here because this is where my food stuff, and also I am pretty sure glass icarus is not vegan. :o)

Also we are looking for the next host, so if you are interested feel free to get in contact.

tibalicious (tiba's ii, brunswick)

So after some short drinks and aborted dinners, SJ and I finally met up for dinner. I suggested Tiba's, on the grounds that I was the only vegan in Brunswick who had never been there.



We both went the vegetarian set plate, but mine was strictly no dairy. I was surprised that this meant I didn't get any babaganoush - I have eaten their babaganoush recently, so I'm super disappointed to learn it's not actually vegan!

In terms of the plate I actually received, it was great. Way too much food for me, a bargain at $14! The hummous was super delicious, I loved the spinach pies (greasy as expected, but tiny so it was okay!), and the salads were great.

Tiba's meets expectations! Hooray!

Previously: here.

Tiba's Lebanese Restaurant
504 Sydney Road
Brunswick

You may not find a seat, it's pretty crowded

brownie things

I don't know how universal an experience this is, but when I was a kid I used to love going to Pizza Hut where they had all you can eat, and when it came time for dessert I would always get a square of chocolate cake, and I'd cover it in soft serve ice cream and marshmallows.

This brownie tastes like that cake, and I'm okay with that.



brownies like at pizza hut (australia, circa 1992)

ingredients
two cups of plain flour
almost one cup of cocoa (I ran out)
one cup of castor sugar
shake of salt
one tablespoon baking powder
two or three tablespoons of canola oil
two and a bit cups of rice milk
one teaspoon lemon juice
quarter cup walnut pieces
quarter cup choc chips

some extra milk and choc chips to make the ganache/icing

method
Combine flour, cocoa, sugar, salt and baking powder. When it's all nicely mixed and the cocoa isn't clumping, gradually add in the milk, oil and lemon juice. Mix it all until it's smooth, then add in the walnuts and choc chips.

Pour in to a lined baking tin (I used 20cm x 20cm and it was perfect), and bake at 180C for about 25 or 30 minutes.

Let the brownies cool for a few minutes in the tray, then on a cooling rack. When it's getting pretty cool, heat a quarter cup of milk in the microwave in five or ten second bursts until it's warm, then pour in about a quarter cup of choc chips. If it's not chocolatey enough for you, add some more, and keep mixing until they're all melted. Set aside to cool for ten minutes, then pour/spread over brownie slab. Cut and eat.

walnut + mushroom pasta (with bonus tempeh)

I was skeptical, at first, but it turns out a creamy pasta made from walnuts and featuring soy sauce is actually really delicious! I saw this originally at Seitan is my Motor and have modified it a bit, but I suspect the original deliciousness is still there! This wasn't too complicated, though it did make quite a few dishes.



walnut + mushroom pasta
modified from seitan is my motor

ingredients
quarter of a cup of light soy sauce or tamari sauce
200g plain tempeh
three quarters of a cup of walnut halves or walnut pieces
1 chilli
just over half a cup of rice milk
1 clove garlic (minced) (or a teaspoonish of minced jarred garlic)
some oil (canola is fine, though olive is better. margarine/nuttelex is also okay)
1 teaspoon paprika
a shake of thyme
a shake of marjoram
350 - 400g fettucine
eta: and mushrooms!

method
Dice the tempeh small, then soak in the soy sauce for about half an hour. If it soaks up all the soy sauce, add a little bit more. Make sure it's light soy! If you use dark soy then there will be tears. Sometime during this half an hour, set the pasta on to boil. When the pasta is done, drain, but reserve a smidge of the water.

In a blender, blend the walnuts with the milk, the garlic and the chilli. Slice the mushrooms. In a pan, saute the tempeh (with any leftover soy sauce in which it was soaking) in a little oil or nuttelex, until it starts crisping, then add the mushrooms. Saute these until they are almost cooked through, then throw in the walnut mixture, plus the paprika, thyme and marjoram. Simmer for five minutes or so, until it has started to thicken (...more) and then throw in the reserved pasta water. Let it all simmer through, then combine with the pasta and a swish of lemon juice, and serve piping hot.

The soy sauce combined with the tempeh and the walnuts to be amazing, and the addition of the chilli was perfect! If you want to reheat it, toss through a little lemon juice.

oreo cheezecake

Two weeks ago when I was in Perth I went out for lunch to The Royal, and Chris and Nick ordered the Oreo chocolate cake (...for dessert, not for their mains), and it was a solid chocolate cake with some sort of cream filling and a chocolate ganache, with an Oreo perched on top. Neither of them managed to finish these monstrosities, and I started pondering vegan takes on this. And then earlier this week Lisa tweeted a picture of a vegan Oreo cheesecake, and I started thinking about that. So I've had Oreos on the mind recently (I started dropping hints at Cupcake Central, and there's talk that they'll make a vegan cookies and cream).



So I decided to give something a go, and here's what happened. All the recipes, vegan and non-vegan, suggested using one pack of Oreos for the base. This was a giant lie, and also had me fretting around the internet about what I should do with the filling (most common solution: eat it; surprisingly not the solution with which I went). I managed to crack my favourite mixing bowl (never mind that it's at least five years old, plastic, and cost five bucks from Crazy Clarks). I spilt sugar all over the kitchen. I finally wrestled the cake in to the oven, and then when I pulled it out I was convinced I had burnt it. But after all that effort, I decided to glaze the thing, and if it failed then it failed.

Here's the surprising thing: it was delicious. I've been eating it all week. It's very rich, and I would make some modifications to it, but it worked, and mostly I'm happy with it.



oreo cheezecake

ingredients
2 packets of oreos (or 1 packet of plain chocolate biscuits + 1 pack oreos)
quarter cup of melted margarine/Nuttelex
quarter cup sugar

2 x 250ish packs of vegan cream cheese
half a heaped cup of castor sugar
half a heaped cup of coconut sugar (you can use another half cup of castor if you don't have coconut sugar)
1 tablespoon plain flour
2 tablespoons lemon juice
3 egg replacers (I used applesauce)
dash vanilla essence

quarter cup soy milk
heaped half cup of chocolate chips
some golden syrup (just over a tablespoon)

the method
to make the base, grind up one and a half packs of biscuits. I used chocolate oreos, and added the filling to the mixture (but when I used plain Oreos, I harvested the filling and only used the biscuits). Melt the margarine and pour in to the mashed up biscuits, along with the quarter cup of sugar. Mix until combined, then press in to a lined spring form or cheesecake pan.

Preheat the oven! Somewhere up about 280C.

To make the filling, beat together cream cheese, sugar, flour, lemon juice, egg replacer and vanilla essence. Also add any left over Oreo filling you might have harvested from the Oreo bases. You may also want to crush up some more Oreos and add them to the filling if it takes your fancy. When it's smooth, pour it in to the base. Drop it a little if you have too many lumps. Just a note - if you do add the Oreo fillings to this, it will be lumpy. Don't worry, it will seep into the mixture with no problems.

Shove it in the oven for 9 minutes, then reduce the temperature to about 90C and leave to bake for another 30 - 35 minutes. It'll be a bit brown on top, but don't let it burn.

For the ganache: pull it out and set it aside to cool. Some fridge time is preferable. When it's nicely set (at least an hour in the fridge), bring the soy milk to the boil, then remove from the heat and add the choc chips and the golden syrup. Stir this until the chocolate melts. Let it cool for ten minutes, then spread it around the cake.

Let it all cool, then it is ready to go. It's pretty rich, so maybe don't be too generous with the first cut.

[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