icecreams and sundaes out and about

Yesterday was 32C here in old Melbourne-town, and despite today's amazing and delightful rain and coat weather it truly is heading towards summer, so I've started meeting people out and about for fancy iced treats.

Notable eats so far:
Coconut + Sago Sundae - St Ali South (pictured)
At $13.50 this sundae is not cheap, but it's also giant, gluten free, filling, and totally shareable between two people, which I wish is how I'd eaten it. It's served with gluten-free muesli, pineapple, mango, and topped with freeze-dried fruit. I ordered it without the pineapple, and despite my scepticism re: the muesli I was totally into it. It was very, very rich though, which is surprising to me given it's on the breakfast menu. I would eat again, but only if I was feeling rich and could share it with someone. 12-18 Yarra Pl, South Melbourne

En-Thai-Sing - Gelato Messina
$9, still pretty exxy, but SO INTO IT. Pandan and coconut sorbet, mango, simple but delicious. Desperately want to make coconut and pandan sorbet this summer at home. I believe their menu also includes a huge range of delicious dried fruits including dragonfruit, and a ginger and five spice pudding. They also do a chocolate sorbet, which intrigues me. I would eat this again but probably not too often, and definitely not while their queue goes halfway down Smith Street. Also that NAME, geez. The owner had better be South East Asian is all I'm saying. 237 Smith St, Fitzroy

Passionfruit Sorbet with Chocolate Soya Icecream - Casa del Gelato
This is my standard, I will never part from it, it is the best combination so give it a go. Casa is the best because they have so many vegan options including baci, and also they are just down the road from my house. Cones start from $5. I just wish they'd engage in some queue management on beautiful days when you have to push five people deep. 163 Lygon St, Carlton

Blood Orange Sorbet - Spring St Grocer/Primavera Gelateria
Primavera Gelateria does a variety of rotating flavours, with at least two dairy free on each of my visits. I think it was $6 for a scoop, so it's exxy but it's good. 157 Spring St, Melbourne

Eats to which I'd like to extend:
Frozen Cheezecake - Merry Cupcakes
I miss ice cream cake a lot. I hope this will turn out to make up for that. 261 Brunswick St, Fitzroy

Any icy highlights come your way yet? Please share the icy love.

totally not feeling the good food night noodle markets

Let's talk Pasar Malam. 

Pasar Malam (or night market) is a stalwart of my childhood: many evenings spent swinging my legs under my chair, eating my char kuay teow or my lontong and slurping on my freshly squeezed watermelon juice, served to me in a clear plastic bag. The noise and the clatter of two dozen stalls, woks hissing, and over it all the yelling and the chatter. The floors were always solid, the chairs plastic and uncomfortable. The food was fast, and cheap, and if I was feeling picky I'd stand with the lady at the front and add and remove things from my order until my char kuay teow was perfect (I've never liked prawns, or chinese sausage), and this was not an inconvenience, it was merely an expectation. 

There are other Night Markets, across the rest of Asia and indeed the rest of the world; but to Australians, the image of a night market most frequently conjures something like a pasar malam. 

This week, the Night Noodle Markets have come to Melbourne as part of Good Food Month, and it is nothing like this. 

If you were lucky enough to gain entry on Monday night (25 000 people attended, and some were turned away at the gates), you might have passed through a Shinto Arch, erected at the Western Entrance. That's funny, you might think. Shinto temples do indeed host festivals, and I've had some delicious noodles at festivals held on Shinto grounds, but they're nearly always religious and the Shinto Arch, religious as it is, seems an odd choice for a pan-asian food festival. 

To one side are the food trucks. If you're wondering where you're going, there's poorly planned signage: with streets like Lotus Avenue, Jasmin (sic) Way, Orchid Lane and Peppercorn Lawn, coupled with the Shinto Arch and the names of some of the vendors, perhaps you're thinking about losing your way. 

The Night Noodle Markets are nothing like what they're trying to evoke: they're trying to evoke something South East Asian. The Good Food Month webpage talks about SEAzn experiences, describing the market as hawker-style, and even quotes Teage Ezard (of Ezard), saying about his first pasar malam experience in KL: "I ate late at night with a local who took care of our ordering. We ate a huge amount for next to nothing!" 

Here's what I ate on Monday night:

Mint, ginger and lemon iced tea: $5

Serving of sweet potato fries (not that large) and one single spring onion pancake from Ghost Kitchen: $10.50 

Pandan, coconut and mango sundae (called the En-Thai-Sing, which, ew but also lol): $9

Originally I joined the Wonderbao queue, because I've never tried Wonderbao and I've heard many a good thing. However after standing in the queue for ten minutes and not moving a single step, I ditched it and wandered over to the food trucks, where at least the queues were faster, though dumplings were still $2.50 each. 

Street food across Asia is a success because it's ordinary, cheap, accessible and fast. Vendors often do only two or three things but they do those two or three things well, and fast, and to order, which none of the vendors were doing. As a vegan, when I'm hanging in the pasar malams of Penang with my sceptical extended family I never have any problems modifying my dish to get exactly what I want. Asian street food gets a bad rap amongst vegos, which is totally unfair - I so rarely have problems, particularly in SEA, due to the fact it is literally put together in front of me. It is always convenient, cheap, fast, and exactly what I want. The food available at the Night Noodle Markets is none of these things, and is the antithesis of a pasar malam in every way. 

In part, this is due to the participating vendors. To get a more accurate night market we should be staring down the face of Camy's Dumpling House, a Dessert Story or two, and the Noodle Kingdom. Some of the vendors come from outside the CBD (Footscray and Burwood), and some are lower range, but for the most part the vendors were all inner-city, catering to toned-down Asian (ie, for white people) mid-range to high-range dining. The Good Food website describes the vendors as "Top-notch eateries." If I wanted to eat at a top-notch eatery at higher than usual prices, I'd go to those eateries and book a table. That's not what a night market is for.  

This is different from the specific cultural events like the Melbourne Malaysia Festival, which are usually run in partnership and aimed at both those whose culture is being eaten, and those who just want to share in our deliciousness. This superficial pan-Asian (but not even really) event appeals to us, but ultimately cannot meet our expectations, because they're not designed for us, the Asian-Australians (or Asian Expats) who long for these things familiar to us. This event is not that event. This is exotification and appropriation, dressed to be Good Food. Good Food is special, by this definition. Hawker food is not Good Food, and there will never be a real pasar malam if this is all we can aim for: an event for those who love us for a specifically modified image of our food, rather than its reality. 

Even the setting was like nothing out of a pasar malam. When I arrived, everything was wide and spread out, necessitating a five minute trek between sections. When I was leaving, there were queues at each entrance, with people being turned away or choosing to turn themselves away and venture into the CBD for their dinner. 25 000 people visited on that first evening, and that is a fucking nightmare by any standards, in a space the size of Alexandria Gardens. The queues at each vendor were ridiculous, and often poorly managed, and a commenter on the Good Food webpage mentioned that it closed at 9pm, which is hardly late at all given sunset is currently 20:16.

The punters were heavily on the asian-side, which isn't a surprise: we love our night markets (a generalisation by which I will stand). The servers at a number of the venues were not-Asian, though, and this is not an article on authenticity (which is why I haven't really talked about the food) but it does serve to support the idea that this is a Night Noodle Market that doesn't really meet Our Asian Needs: it's got some familiar elements, but it's not exactly what we want, the cheapness, the accessibility, the speediness, the convenience. 

This failure and disappointment was inevitable, given the lack of a real pasar malam. A part of a night market is, in its way, its accessibility and familiarity. A pasar malam should not be an Event - it should just be a thing. Perhaps the real answer is not a Good Food Month night market which runs (poorly) for two weeks out of the year, but a year-round (or summer round) under cover pasar malam, with actual prices (not show prices - Hayley, my companion in this adventure, noted that Wonderbao had increased its prices approximately $1 per item for the market). It leads to the question, then: at whom is Good Food Month aimed, if the Good Food Month Night Noodle Market met none of the assumed criteria. What defines good food? Surely the very definition of good food as presented here, with Chin-Chin and Longrain right here before us, cannot include hawker food. Perhaps the actual real answer is not a year-round pasar malam: perhaps the answer is that Melbourne can't support a real pasar malam, because costs are too high and there's no established history of it and who is going to establish it and keep it running? I'd like to say it'll be me, but it really won't. 

Actual Night Market food, it seems, and an actual night market, is not good enough for Good Food Month. 

And there was a detestable lack of noodles. 

The Night Noodle Markets are held at Alexandria Gardens from now until November 30th. Entry is free. Don't go. 

lunching and music at little king

Today I ventured in to Little King twice: once, to see my friends play at 9am, as part of Melbourne Music Week; and the second time, to meet Hayley for lunch before we ventured off for an afternoon of art and criticism (and later, crowds and a severe lack of noodles - review to follow probably Wednesday).

Little King is a tiny little cafe just off Flinders Lane, behind St Paul's Cathedral, situated in the alley that links the Westin with Fed Square (across several roads). And before this weekend when my friends told me I needed to go, I'd never heard of it (despite its regularly vego menu and its adorableness). It's a beautiful spot, when it's not filled with chefs from the Westin smoking, and at 9am on a lovely warm day it was a great place to listen to Prudence Rees-Lee play (my friends are her harpist and her percussionist).

After the lunch rush (and racing home to do some work), I zoomed back down on my bike, which I locked to the gate (a serious lack of parking on Flinders Lane on the east side of Swanston! Totally outrageous), and settled down to wait for a delayed Hayley with my book and my notebook and a coffee served in a totally adorable cup and saucer.

Little King's menu changes daily, based on what they feel like making. It's mostly vegetarian. There's some vegan baked goods and a soup (today: vegan pumpkin and leek), but today despite the simplicity of it all I elected for the avocado on toast with a bit of tomato. Topped with some lemon and pepper and a bit of herbs and things, and served on some sour dough, this was actually really lovely and I had no regrets.

I bought a berry friand to snack on later. Total costs came to about $20 for the lot. Seating is some excellently hipster boxes and tables at the same height, and the venue is awfully inaccessible with misc steps all over the place. Credit card facilities are available. 

Little King
4/209 Flinders Lane
(just behind St Paul's Cathedral)
Melbourne CBD

vegie mum, doncaster

When I first went vego Lotus, the Chinese-Malaysian restaurant in Northbridge, was my life saver, giving me all the delicious comfort foods that I required without schlepping out to my parental house or cooking it myself. The biggest problem with Malaysian food is all the secretly animal stuff, the cockles in your laksa and the lard in your CKT, which requires intense questioning deng deng boring lah, so I usually just have to make it myself.

So I've always wanted to go to Vegie Mum in Doncaster, because I'd heard it was Chinese-Malaysian vego but whenever I tried to go I was prevented by things like Chinese New Year and failing to book, or the lack of PT out there and my lack of car ownership (no regrets).

Anyway now I have been twice in the last three months, and it is all Fiona's fault as she lives in the dreaded Eastern Suburbs and can't travel very far because baby. We even went there this week, which Fi has already blogged! Plus added park.

Because we are not heathens Chinese-Malaysian food is, like regular Chinese food, a sharing kind of thing, except when you are selfish like me and insist that it's very important you get char siu noodle soup because it's one of your favourite things to eat ever and you never get to eat it because you're not gonna make your own vegan char siu.

I did this, and then Fi ordered the laksa because she had never had it before quite recently and now like all good people loves it, and then I tasted her soup and I have never before experienced such regrets. Next time I am gonna eat that laksa for sure. Look at that mock prawn! The only downside of the laksa is that it contains eggplant, which is a crime against laksa. There is no downside to the char siu noodles, except a) it's not laksa and b) you have to remember to specify not wonton noodles, because wonton noodles contain secret egg.

I have previously eaten their CKT (which is excellent); their kari kapitan and roti (good); and their spring rolls (nothing special).

Vegie Mum is pretty standard suburban Chinese except for its vegetarianness; the tables are plastic and so are the chairs, it's all bright white tiles and a little dingy. There's a small step in to the restaurant, can order and pay at the table; CC is taken. There are always people in there, and the menu is in Chinese and English. The Chinese Malaysian owner doesn't seem to believe that I'm Malaysian, so one day I'm gonna take my mother in there and really pointedly talk in Hokkien or Manglish or something.

Vegie Mum
27 Village Ave
Doncaster
Not open Mondays

scones

how i spent my sunday night, by stephanie a penguinface (aged 31 and a bit)

a) cooking japchae
b) watching and writing about Serangoon Road (new blog posts on this show occur every Monday morning on my blog No Award; I live tweet my rage at @yiduiqie on Sunday nights)
c) scones (sweet scones are the best okay)

scones are easy and delicious

to make them you need: 2.5 cups of SR flour
one third of a cup of sugar (pref white)
30g marg/nuttelex/etc
half cup milk
half cup water
1tsp apple cider vinegar
half cup sultanas (optional)

extra sugar and flour

add milk + vinegar; set aside.

rub together sugar, flour and marg; add sultanas if you're adding them. make a well, pour in all liquids, mix with a knife or something but don't over mix i learnt this the hard way. flatten out to 2cm (i just pat them with my hands) on a floured surface. cut out (i use a tumbler), sprinkle with the extra sugar, bake at 220C for 15 mins or until golden brown. eat straight away plain or i guess you could use jam or something but why wait.

i've taken to taking out a cup of the flour+sugar+nuttelex mixture so i can make a non-sultana batch of about five for non sultana people eating; so this batch made in total 13.

i'm not saying i accidentally used plain flour this evening and had to desperately try and save it with baking powder but uuhhh see pt d below

d) dancing around the house to Laure Shang (visit that song, you won't regret it).

shu restaurant [collingwood]

蜀 is a short form for Sichuan, and Shu is all about the Sichuanese food and flavours, though a little toned down for the Collingwood palate.

The dishes at Shu are seasonal and organic where possible. There is no menu, the food you're served is dependent on what's available and what the chef wishes to prepare. And every Wednesday is Vegan Wednesday at Shu, where you can get a 12 dish vegan banquet for $40; and so, having only found out of its existence less than 48 hours earlier, this is what Cindy and Michael, Hayley and myself decided to do this Wednesday past.

We started with four individual portion dishes: house made tofu with cinnamon-infused soy sauce and a rocket flower (cold); purple carrots with house made pickled chilli and borage (the purple carrot was raw and thinly sliced so it became a sort of plate) (cold); daikon roll with enoki, zucchini flower and cucumber (cold); tofu, soybean and sesame dumplings.

I was especially taken with the cinnamon-infused soy sauce and the house made tofu: the flavours were mild enough to really appreciate the loveliness of the tofu, but I loved the delicate cinnamon-ness of the soy sauce.

It's good that three of these dishes were cold and therefore we didn't have to eat them in a hurry; four bloggers at a table meant it took approximately a million years to photograph and take notes.

This was followed by a mizuna, pickled cucumber and trumpet mushroom salad, and a cashew, kale, broccoli tops and garlic shoot salad. Later in the evening, when yet another greens dish came out (broccoli and cauliflower, this time), this started becoming all a bit overwhelming, but at this point I loved the broccoli top and garlic shoot salad, it had a beautiful light flavour and the garlic shoots were excellent.

We also saw dishes with eggplant with broad beans, chilli (lots), calendula and onion; fried tofu with bean shoots and nasturtiums (not spicy at all); and tofu with wild coriander (kind of mapo doufu-y but sad lack of mala).

We ended with unanimously the greatest dishes of the evening. Dish number 11 was individual portions of fresh noodles, served with asparagus, preserved gailan and a walnut infused oil. This had a lovely flavour, maybe there was sichuan chilli in it (but if so only mildly), and I could definitely have kept on eating these noodles and I'm glad it's not a seasonal dish because I want to eat it again.

The final dish was potatoes in a whole lot of spices. Not necessarily hot spicy but my word was it delicious, and I happily ate the last remaining potato in the bowl.

The repetition of the green-ness is obviously a restriction of the seasonal element of Shu's menu - though I do not at all criticise them for it - Rebecca and Shu go out to a farm to pick the ingredients every Wednesday and it's all a bit fun. I love the variety of it and the surprise as well, the flavours were lovely (though I could have used some more spiciness, and we'd been warned it was spicy and this was a lie~).

I wasn't stuffed full by the end, which was a little disappointment (we walked to Berrissimo for desserts), since I'm used to having too much to eat at a Chinese banquet.

I will very cheerfully visit again. I hope there are more adventures in delicious carbs.

The service was lovely though disclaimer: Rebecca knew who we all were. The lighting was dim and there was a step going in. I didn't check out the toilets, but Michael broke them so look out for that.


Shu Restaurant
147 Johnston Street
Collingwood

bush tomato marinade

Bush tomato is not really tomato, it is more closely related to eggplants but it looks a bit tomato-y in its fruit form and colonialism and English, ugh, yo. They're found in various species and forms across Australia and are super delicious but also occasionally poisonous! Which is a great punchline for a joke about Australia, I guess. Because it's so widely spread it has a lot of indigenous names, commonly akudjura (when crushed or powdered) or kutjera.

Anyway in my quest to use more indigenous spices that have been pushed aside by racism and the euro-centricity of Australian cooking, I am currently playing with bush tomato, and at the recent vegmel 4th birthday picnic I made a bush tomato salad where I marinated basically everything in bush tomato. This is the GREATEST MARINADE ever. If I ate meat I would put it on all of them, but I don't so TOFU and maybe I have yet to try tempeh with it but I'm sure it'll work.

Bush tomato tastes smokey and kind of like amazingness.

BUSH TOMATO MARINADE

2 tbl ground bush tomato (I get mine from Gewurzhaus on Lygon Street where they love me)
2 tbl sunflower or macadamia oil
2 tbl olive oil
1 tblish of minced garlic

Mix it all together, slather it on some tofu and leave it to sit. This amount goes across about 400g of tofu (firm! as always with marinading).

I served it with shaved carrot and zucchini and some cherry tomatoes, in a bush tomato-based dressing.

BTW if anyone in the Melbournes knows where I can buy not-ground bush tomato, please let me know, I want to try turning these into scones.

lemon myrtle and macadamia nut biscuits

Last night I used some newly purchased ground lemon myrtle to make lemon myrtle and macadamia biscuits. They were so amazing they were immediately eaten all up, not all by me fiona is also to blame! So sadly there is no photo to share. Lamentably, this means I will simply have to make them again immediately. Maybe gluten-free.

Lemon myrtle is my favourite indigenous Australian spice, and a little bit goes such a very long way. Macadamia is a nut I always forget about, even though it tastes amazing with all sorts of things, and I only ever remember it when I'm passing through the airport and it's filled with macadamia products (because macadamias are Australian and apparently really expensive overseas).

lemon myrtle and macadamia biscuits

you will need:
240g plain white flour
100g sugar (i used raw)
200g margarine + sunflower oil (i used about 150g nuttelex and 50g sunflower oil)
1 tsp baking powder (FLAT)
1 tbl lemon myrtle (FLAT)
comfortable handful of macadamias

oven: 200C

Cream together the sugar with the oily things until looking good and fluffy. Add the flour, baking powder and lemon myrtle, and combine until lovely and smooth. I ended up having to rub it all together with my hands, but that brought it together beautifully. Crush or chop the macadamias and mix into the rest of it. Roll into circles and squash down on baking tray. Bake for 10-13 minutes, depending on how chewy or firm you like your biscuits. I forgot about mine and so they ended up beautiful and brown and fragrant and firm like a rock (though still edible).

I promise to photograph mine next time, but really the most important thing about them is the smell. Baking lemon myrtle is the best.

rolling like a steamed bun: a day of eating in singapore

If you're around this blog for more than five seconds, you'll know how much I love sharing meals I ate at places you can't go because they're not in Melbourne, so here is a recent day of Singapore noms and fun times had by me and my darling friend Em of Sugarspoons, who you may remember from previous adventures on Vegmel when she lived in Melbourne.

We started our day at Jones the Grocer at the Mandarin Gallery. Jones the Grocer is an Australian chain that does groceries and has a few cafes across Australia and into Singapore. The centre was mostly closed but Jones the Grocer was bustling - so bustling it took forever for us to be seated and served! However the service was an aside, because the Very Important reason for our visit was that Jones the Grocer, as an Australian chain, can actually provide us with soy flat whites! (Unlike the Dome at the Singapore Art Museum, which, despite being Western Australian, cannot) We shared a perfectly serviceable tomatoes and avocado and jam on toast (and I had a second soy flattie), before we meandered off to buy presents for babies and also on secret Azn Girls Business. 

After ogling the totally expensive teas at TWC (you know it's expensive because their waitstaff are tall white anglo boys! and also their tea is like $100SGD for 100gm) and visiting the masking tape exhibition at the top of Ion (totally amazing, Em had to be physically restrained from touching and buying things), we were met by G and headed off to the Living Cafe, a rawish cafe that has lots of delicious vegan, raw and gluten-free treats.

At the Living Cafe we were overwhelmed by choices, and went for the time honoured tradition of sharing a whole lot of things. We ordered the raw zucchini lasagna and the veggie bowl with brown rice as our mains to share. The zucchini lasagna was lovely, however it had to deal with the unfortunate competition of yong's in my heart, and it couldn't compare. The lasagna was placed together as we watched (rather than pre-prepared and stored for delicious cashew cheese compression as at yong's), and while the tomato and red capsicum sauce (and the cashew mayonnaise) was extremely tasty, the slightly under-ripe-ness of the tomato was off putting. Fortunately the veggie bowl was a nice thing to alternate with it, and we were able to cap off our savouries by stealing some of G's sweet potato wedges.

Dessert caused us some consternation. There was a whole cabinet full of amazing looking delicious raw cheesecakes - most of them containing honey! We were devastated, but fortunately and to our delights we were informed by the chef (a vegan!) that the recipe on the chocolate cheesecake had recently changed, and so we were able to sample these two raw vegan cheesecake delights. They were amazing, a++ would eat again.

I was so happy with these desserts that I took back to my hotel raw cookies for the fam, and a piece of banana cake for myself for my plane ride back to Australia the next day.

I would sample the delights of the Living Cafe again, but I probably wouldn't try the same savoury dishes.

After some meandering (and purchasing of Crumpler products - by the Singaporeans, not by me, obviously) we headed over to JOY OF JOYS Haidilao, which you may remember from such adventures as that time Stephanie lived in Beijing and ate nothing but hotpot. Haidilao has recently opened up its first Singaporean branch and I loved it so much I took the fam back the next day! Totally worth it. My Chinese tutor (from Beijing) joined us, and it was lots of fun catching up with her, gossiping in Mandarin and stuffing my face with all my favourite things. We ordered the spicy/mushroom double pot, because it is always the perfect choice, and I got to use my old friend the Haidilao ipad and we got dancing noodles and lots of mushrooms and it was just the best.

And then I went back to my hotel, had a cup of tea with the fam and fell into bed, my belly stuffed until I was a steamed bun! Perfect.

Jones the Grocer is located in the maze that is the Mandarin Gallery. There's no steps but the tables are close together. It is cafe and cafe-goods only (though I love the supermarket located in Ion near the H+M). Get to either of these places on the MRT.

The Living Cafe is located at 779 Bukit Timah Rd. I can't remember if there's a step for entry. There is a little bit of free parking (though not much).

Haidilao of joys and delights is located at River Valley Road in Clarke Quay, near the Japanese Centre. Get there on the MRT.

No idea of prices as my noms were sponsored by Em, in exchange for my love and a giant bag of vegan goodies from Melbourne.

carlton noms: crafternoon + the beaufort

Ms Hayley recently gave herself blog amnesty and I've been feeling all blocked vis food blogging (not vis media and social justice blogging at no award though) so I'm gonna do a similar thing. 

Crafternoon: Emma and I went to Crafternoon a few Sundays back as a way of getting out of the house when we'd both been having lazy Sundays. We took the Sooty Monster and meandered down to Crafternoon in the hopes that it was still open, and it was! Crafternoon is open seven days a week, and it's a small, lovely cafe that offers crafts with your coffee and cake and brekkie and lunch. Vegan items are clearly marked on the menu, as are GF options, so I was delighted to order the lemon and almond tart with berry compote and coconut icecream. I am not usually a huge fan of tarts (on the grounds that I am not a huge fan of tart flavours) but this one was beautiful, and combined with the compote and the icecream made a lovely flavour sensation that I was sad to finish. I enjoyed the presentation of the tart, and I appreciated the paper and crayons already on the table so I could start designing the Mecha Penguin Jaegar that Danni and I are gonna be piloting when the apocalypse comes.

Crafternoon is located at 531 Nicholson Street, North Carlton. There is street seating, and a step up into the venue (plus what seemed like a narrow door). Ordering happens at the table. Reasonable prices ($4 for my tart). $0.5 soy surcharge.

The Beaufort: Hayley's blog amnesty includes a review of her first visit to the Beaufort. My visit two Fridays past was also my first, I went with my Beijing Ren for our usual monthly catchup (we're trying to move beyond Chinese restaurants). I had thought it would be more Gaso/EBC in its vegan opportunities, which I was sadly incorrect about: there were only two vegan options, the Philly Cheese Fake and the vegan Bahn Mi. I went the Philly Cheese Fake with vegan cheese, which was delicious containing a million mushrooms and wrapped by some lovely bread. The Fake comes with some fries which were sadly the saltiest fries I've ever tasted, but I was also delighted by my Granny Smith with alcohol (freshly juiced in front of me and served with Gin). Music was hilariously nineties.

The Beaufort is located at 421 Rathdowne Street in Carlton. Its interior is way too dark, but they let your puppy inside and the service is prompt and friendly. It has also been reviewed by Cindy and Michael.

ginger and chinese five spice cupcakes

My friend Sara-Jane is on the Great Australian Bake Off, so despite my usual reluctance to watch tv I wrote it in my diary, and Tuesday at 8pm found me watching commercial tv with ads and everything. 

This first episode included the challenge 'signature cupcake', which, who has a signature cupcake? If you have one, let me know, because I've never heard of anyone having a signature cupcake. Signature cake, sure (berry and dark chocolate double layer cake, thanks). But signature cupcake? 

So I made one up. And went shopping for ingredients at 10pm, after the show finished. 

Ginger and Chinese Five Spice Cupcakes with Lemon Icing

Someone referred to the ginger and chinese five spice biscuits I bake basically once a week as my 'signature cookies' about two weeks ago, and it's what my mind drifted to when I was considering what would be my signature cupcake. 

what you need:

photo stolen from SJ

2 heaped cups of SR flour

3/4 cups of brown sugar

1 tsp baking powder

3 tbl ground ginger

2 tbl chinese 5 spice

3/4 cup milk

150g margarine

2 tbl light agave or golden syrup

2 chinese soup spoons of apple sauce

1 tsp vanilla essence

handful of crystallised ginger

for the icing

more crystallised ginger (not heaps)

300g icing sugar

2 tsp lemon juice

1/2 tsp vanilla essence

140g marg

what you do:

Oven: 190C

Melt together the margarine, sugar and golden syrup over a low heat. Allow to just melt, then cool a little, before adding in the milk and the vanilla essence. Follow this with the apple sauce and combine. Sift together the flour, baking powder, ginger and five spice. Mix into the liquid until just combined. 

Into lined/greased cupcake pans, spoon a base, and insert one piece of crystallised ginger (i make them smaller), then cover with more batter. Continue until you've got all your cupcakes. 

Bake for about 20 minutes, then allow to cool on a rack. 

Icing: beat together all the icing ingredients except for the crystallised ginger. When the cupcakes are cool, then ice. Chop up the ginger so it's tiny and sprinkle on top. 

cold weather soooop

It's cold and I'm usually tired and lazy, and I'm still very much unemployed (so I'm cheap), and also I'm suffering some injuries right now, and I'm not very good at soups that aren't laksa or dumplings with noodles. So I've been trying to branch out, do some other things that aren't noodles in broth (which, we'll talk about another day) but which are still easy and delicious and good for me. 

Anyway, this is a lentil soup I stole from a friend's partner. I don't know if mine turns out the same because I've changed it a bit but it's pretty delicious and it makes me happy on a cold winter's day. 

I know it looks gross but it's super great. Souper Soup! (haha) 

Lazy Lentil Soup

you will need:

2 cups of dried red lentils

1 brown onion

1 carrot

1 potato

1 stock cube

a chilli 

about 2cm of fresh ginger, sliced (or a tablespoon ish of minced ginger)

about a tablespoon of lemon juice (a bit less if fresh)

lots of chilli flakes

salt and pepper to taste

a litre ish of water

what you do: rinse and drain the lentils. dice the onion and fry it in a little bit of olive oil. dice the carrot and the potato (you can peel if you want, but i usually don't bother) and when the onion has softened add them in. stir them around a bit and add the lentils and the chilli, chopped thin, and the ginger. add the stock and the water and bring to the boil, after which drop it and leave to simmer. just let it go for about half an hour, until the carrot and potato are cooked through and the lentils are super soft. while it's still simmering, use a masher to roughly mash it all. you can blend it if you want but i prefer it this way, it leaves it a little rough and filled with bits. add in some of the chilli flakes and all of the lemon juice, turn off the heat and let it sit for five minutes. serve sprinkled with more chilli, and salt and pepper. so good, so easy. 

slow cooked lentil ragu with fettucine

last saturday i had my very first visit to little deer tracks in coburg, where i had an amazing lentil ragu over linguine and obsessed about it all week, until finally i cracked and on friday attempted one of my own. it was delicious, we finished nearly all of it and i was so sad when i ran out of pasta. 

it filled the house with beautiful, rich aromas and filled my mouth with tastiness and my belly with warmth, i recommend you make this immediately as we now, finally, appear to be commencing our descent into a melbourne winter. 

slow cooked lentil ragu over pasta

ingredients

1 brown onion (diced finely)

2 celery stems (diced finely)

1 carrot (diced finely)

1 field mushroom (chopped finely)

1 garlic clove (diced finely)

1 red chilli (diced finely)

200g puy lentils

600g diced tomatoes (i used canned)

4 cups stock

1 bay leaf

handful of basil leaves (shredded)

splash of dried oregano

long pasta (fettucine, linguine)

what you do

soak the lentils in some hot water while you chop your veggies. 

in some olive oil, brown the onion, then add the celery and carrot with the mushroom. allow to fry until the mushroom starts to release its juices, then add the garlic and the chilli and fry through for a minute or two. drain the lentils and add these and the tomato to the pot. simmer for a few minutes before adding the basil, bay and oregano, as well as the stock. bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer, and leave simmering, half covered, for as long as it takes for the lentils to cook through. the longer the better - i simmered for about an hour. top up with stock or wine as appropriate, if necessary. 

cook the pasta as appropriate and serve together. 

i also shredded a small handful of baby spinach leaves and added them in right at the end. if i'd had some some red wine i would have added a splash or five at the beginning to bring out a rich flavour, but it was totally fine and rich without. 

will make this again almost immediately. i'd love to try this as a lasagne sauce. you can barely tell there are mushrooms in it if you chop them finely enough. 

a whole lot of pumpkin pasta

It's been getting cold and it's been getting rainy, and last week I went to the Caterpillar's Dream and had a very disappointing lasagna, and I wanted to do something exciting with my pasta. I remembered that Cate had issued a challenge: Sweet Spices, Savoury Suppers, and I realised this would be a perfect opportunity to try making a pumpkin sauce and throwing everything in the house into it. 

you will need:
1kgish of pumpkin
1 shallot (sliced thin)
some minced garlic
half a zucchini, grated
100g firm tofu
1 cup soy or almond milk
half cup stock
olive oil
small head of broccoli
handful of nuts (i used pecans)
some baby spinach
1 tsp nutmeg, 1 tsp sage (or more if it takes your fancy) (you could also add a shake or two of cinnamon)
soy sauce
whole lot of salt and pepper
long pasta for four people

what you do:
boil and mash the pumpkin. puree/mash it with the stock and the soy milk until it's all lovely and smooth. add in the minced garlic.

during the pumpkin prep stage, put the pasta on to boil. when it's almost done to your satisfaction, add the broccoli florets and let them boil a little. drain, rinse with cold water, and put it all aside.

dice the tofu, marinate in some soy sauce, and then fry until it's all lovely and crispy. put this aside.

in a little oil, fry the shallot until golden, then add the zucchini and fry for about five minutes. add in the pumpkin mixture, and let it simmer for a while. add the nutmeg and the sage, and as much salt and pepper as you like (i stood there cracking pepper and salt for a while so i'm not sure how long - taste it, but remember you'll also be adding tofu that was marinated in soy sauce). when you're happy with it, stir the baby spinach through, and then combine with the tofu, pasta and broccoli. top with nuts and serve. (i shallow fried and chopped the nuts but raw is fine too)

If you haven't previously checked out Cate's blog, I recommend it - it's not vego but she does lots of great cooking for various dietary requirements, and I have personally had the pleasure of eating all sorts of her delicious creations.

[wa] veggie mama, mt lawley

On a cycle up to my beloved Mt Lawley for a compulsory visit to Planet Books and Fresh Provs, I spotted a new face on the Beaufort Street landscape: Veggie Mama, next to the adult shop on Vincent Street (where no veggie restaurant had been before).

I returned the next day for lunch with my friend V, ready to be delighted. And delighted I was! Clearly labeled (egg free, dairy free, gluten free), there was an array of baked sweets, baked savouries, fresh salads and made to order juices, and I was overwhelmed for choice.


For about $20 I got this filling plate of filo and salads, and a fresh juice of apple, orange and ginger. The quinoa salad in particular was lovely, and the filo, filled with potato, spinach and pine nuts, was delicious and filling. Despite it being a warm and busy Autumn (Easter) public holiday, service was fast, friendly and helpful. And afterwards, I was too full for a muffin, which disappointed me mightily.

Well located and with early opening hours, Veggie Mama is almost certainly a place I will return to on a future visit home.


Veggie Mama 
Cnr Beaufort and Vincent Streets
Mt Lawley

Get there on any bus that goes up Beaufort Street
Entry to the shop is a wide door, but ordering happens at the counter, which is accessible only by a two-step flight of stairs. Credit card available.