Dining out adventures.

Yep so my friend from the north has been down for a week... cue epic binge eating nom fest. Have hardly stepped inside my kitchen for days but MAN life has been tasty. I tend to stick to the favorites but they're favorites for a reason damn it. Below are the reasons you will find me at the gym before the sun is up, every day, from now on.

Yep, as per almost every weekend, I was involved with Las Vegan. Sadness descended after I spent the whole car ride talking about how AMAZE the pepperoni calzones with chips are to find out they're a lunch time thing... I LIKE PEPPERONI CALZONES WITH CHIPS FOR BREAKFAST and I'm not ashamed. Anyways sadness was dulled with fantastic big breakfast (olive sourdough, house beans, shrooms, avo and TEMPACON). Karly got the breakfast burrito which is basically everything I ate but rolled up. Naturally we needed to share a serve of sour cherry pancakes also. For $9, I can't not.

Fig slice from Wide Open Road - you're doing it right.

Sunday night was a pretty epic fail. It ended okay but the stars did not align the way I'd planned. I was super pumped to show my friend the wonders of Munsterhaus as it was basically invented for her. They were closed. On to Veggie Bar, always a sure thing. Actually a one hour wait = no. Alright, Yong it is, I guess they ARE delicious. Oh you're randomly closed for renovations tonight Yong? WELL STUFF YOU! Feeling quite devo at this point, we walked down to Madame K which I'd heard mixed reviews of. Food was said to be good but it's a bit expensive. Reviews were correct, food was okay, prices were high. Next time I'm hoping Munsterhaus, Veggie Bar or Yong will feed me.

Behold the mouthgasms of Cornish. Chicken, bacon and cheese burger with chips, eggplant chips with vegan mayo, insane cripsy duck BLT of Jeff's dreams and finished off with THE BEST COOKIES AND CREAM CHEESECAKE with icecream!

Wonderbao vego pack - $8 WIN. Veggie BBQ bun, open style crispy tofu bun and sweet bean bun. Wonderbao are reliably perfect.

Laksa King, naturally. Vegan laksa soup with rice noodles, bok choy, broccoli, shrooms, eggplant, squash, snow peas, fried onions and tofu puffs!

A Minor Place is Wide Open Road's little sister cafe and I like her WAY MORE. Better vegan options and so many less dollars needed. This amazing breakfast of sourdough, rocket, avo and white beans with dukkah is only $13 and I need it every day of my life. Wide Open Road only offer one hot dish and it's closer to $17 - dislike.

I refuse to let a single interstate vegan guest leave without faceplanting into Berrissimo's chocolate mousse frozen yoghurt. Fresh strawberries and coconut on top = correct.

Lentils with tamarind sauce.

You know, although I've been going a bit dining out crazy lately, I've still been cooking a bit. Came across this lentils with tamarind sauce recipe a few weeks ago and immediately added it to my 'to cook' folder. Sunday rolled around and I finally had time to grab tamarind concentrate from an Asian grocer. That's the only exotic ingredient in this dish which is good, cause now I have some I can make another 10 batches of this before needing an Asian grocer again. Oh and 10 batches it will be - this was DELICIOUS! Incredibly simple and cheap but the tamarind takes it to the next level. This is the first time I've cooked with tinned lentils and it was fast. I decided it was totally restaurant quality which the boy quickly agreed with. Cook this, serve with basmati and naan and feel all the happiness.

Cornish Arms.

Oh Cornish, you kill me. Dieting vegans should just stay away, so far away. This place is heaven. Vegan parmas, chicken bacon and cheese burgers, beef burgers, eggplant chips, curries, pizzas and cheesecakes... Happy times. Sunday and Monday are $12 parma days so that's normally when we loiter. I used to swear by the parma but actually ordered something different (almost unheard of!) a few weeks ago and now the chicken burger is my fave. Vegan chicken, bacon, cheese and mayo on a white roll with chips? Correct. $12, even better. Jeff went CRAZY and ordered the vegan mixed grill. It sounded like a monstrosity of barbequed fake meats, and it was. It was DAMN TASTY, all meats were smokey and chewy and non-soy tasting. Creepy real... for $20. So yeah, Cornish are the winners of vegan pub food and destroyers of my healthy eating plan.

Middle Eastern Restaurant.

Well seeing as I was so proud of myself for posting the other day, thought I'd keep the blog ball rolling.

Middle Eastern Restaurant offers pretty rough service. Every time I've been, I'm the only one at the counter and they seem very reluctant to serve me. Through muttered words and a pretty heavy language barrier though, orders are placed. Unusually long waits then happen for food, seeing as I only order felafel rolls. These things do not matter. The ranking on the NOM scale for these beauties is right up there. Amazing fresh fried felafel with a huge abundance of pickled veggies (I normally ask for extra but these guys know how it should be done!) I was very happy to sit on freezing Sydney Road on Sunday and devour this $5 winner! Middle Eastern is for when you're in the area and don't want a big sit down meal or fancy service (fancy as in when they serve you). It's also for when pay day is a distant memory.

I live! And I eat.

Hello!

So it's been almost a year since I've posted here... life gets in the way and stuff. One day I just lost all motivation for blogging (both here and on my design blog). It sucks cause I read blogs religiously and refer to my favourite vegan ones almost every day for recipes and dining out reviews. Wish I could give something back by writing more on here but I've just lost the blog bug! Before I clear the million pictures off my phone I thought I'd share some noms from the last few months. I know my favourite thing on other blogs is the pictures from dining out, always pointing me in the right direction to eat :)

Behold! The food of a non-healthy food-addicted Melbourne vegan adventure;

Crispy "chicken" roti wrap from Veggie Bar with nachos in the background. This place is a sure thing, particularly great to take omnivores to as they do vegetarian food SO WELL.

Assortment of vegan bakery heaven - La Panella.

 This picture is ridiculous (random bed picnic) BUT these dips are THE BEST. Green tahini of my dreams and hands down the best hummus in Melbourne - from Shuki and Louisa.

The day I found out my work was walking distance to I Love Dumplings was a happy one. Also a worry. I do indeed LOVE dumplings and would enjoy them every day if I could. These dumplings were special, they were probably my favourite dumplings in Melbourne. That's a BIG call. Very flavoursome and not too doughy. Serve of 15 for only $8 or so too! Token garlic greens were also shared, equally delicious. I love you I Love Dumplings.

 

I had wanted to try Munsterhaus for EVER and finally got around to visiting a few months ago. Wow. Food is fantastic and fresh and well seasoned, desserts are delicious too. Best ice cream ever had since going vegan, turns out it's tofu based and made at The Tofu Shop! Deliciousness aside, these guys were a tad expensive for me ($16 for medium bowl of salads) so they're a special occasion place.

I had been told all about Shakahari, everyone seems to love that place. It too is a special occasion spot with mains around $20. This satay was AMAZING but I wasn't a huge fan of the service. Won't rush back.

 The service at Eat Pizza however - outstanding! I called and asked for a pizza with the lot (vegan salami, vegan ham, vegan cheese and every veggie in sight) and the staff were super bubbly and got it all right. I had a chat with the guys behind the counter when I got there and they said they get a lot of vegans traveling out to the Maribyrnong store for these pizzas. I don't blame them! It was awesome and is my new go to for vegan pizza noms. The website is under construction which sucks but I just called and asked what was available - Eat Pizza.

 Piano Piano was a sneaky win in East Brunswick. With Milkwood and New Day Rising just down the way we've never been able to break the tradition and try something new but so glad we did. Creamy beans on toast with avo to the left, shrooms and avo to the right. Shrooms are pre-cooked in butter but the staff were happy to fry me some in oil. Pretty damn tasty for a dish so simple.

 Tasty tom yum from Your Thai in the city. Tuesday night uni classes meant I was here pretty much every week for soup times.

A quick trip to Brisbane last month meant we drove straight to Banana Lounge. These guys started up about six months after we moved down to Melbourne - wish we hadn't missed them! Pretty awesome breakfast. My wrap was the stand out, Mexican beans/tofu were decent and the desserts were great. We went back for the buffet the next day which was not so good. Sadly on weekends it's buffet only so you can't order the regular breakfast items OR the lunch items. If we go back it will be a Mon-Fri trip I think - or weekend lunch only.

 We've been basically living at Lentil As Anything since we moved down last year. Tasty menu of vegan treats that change twice a day for pay-as-you-feel? Don't mind if I do! Took us ages to finally get around to trying the breakfast which unlike the usual buffet set up is a la carte. WOW. This breakfast is amazing. We went back almost every weekend for the month after. I got a crepe with potato rosti in it covered in a rich bean sauce. We also got corn cakes with rosti and bean sauce, it had caramelised onions too. These meals were above and beyond, best way to start the day and a refreshing break from avo on toast.

 Vegan chocolate mousse frozen yoghurt!!!!!!! Tastes like soft serve over frozen yoghurt but who cares!? It's heaven in a cup and I can hardly stay away when I'm in Fitzroy - from Berrissimo.

 

 Of course we've been to LORD a few times. Classic cheeseburger with fries and onion rings. Best onion rings I've ever had. You do feel like dying afterwards but it's in that good delicious-junkfood-clogging-your-arteries kind of way.

 Purple Peanuts aren't very vegan-friendly. All that was on offer was a rice salad and a rice ball, that turned out to be made out of the rice salad. It was a damn tasty rice salad but still, I was hoping for more Japanese noms.

Wonderbao I love you so much! Vegan steamed BBQ buns and crispy tofu delights! Also cheap as all hell, filling you up for around $5-$9 for an assortment of noms.

 

 Oh Las Vegan - you make me so happy. Fresh baked olive sourdough, home made chips and tempacon of my dreams. Snitz burger that tastes like happiness and sour cherry pancakes with cherry ripe brownies. You have never done me wrong. Service is a bit dodgy and slow but I will always visit you regularly because the food is FANTASTIC and so cheap.

 Cherry chocolate cupcake and BANANA AND SALTED CARAMEL CHEESECAKE from Mr Nice Guy = yes <3

Dragon Bowls.

Okay so my house mate made this for me after I'd come home raving about the Yong dragon bowls.

I was all "oh my god you can not top it, it was so good! Need it in my daily life!"

She was like "eat this" *presents home-made dragon bowl*

I eat it, along with my words.

NOTHING TOPS THESE BOWLS!

They are that rare combination of epic deliciousness AND healthiness...

They own me.
The soft rice, the crisp salty garlic tofu, the fresh salad, the warm citrusy miso dressing... perfection.

Ingredients - serves 4;

Bowl

 • Grain of choice (I use brown rice but quinoa or even noodles would work well also)

• 1 block of firm tofu, diced

• 1/2 cup soy sauce

• 3 garlic cloves, minced

• Shredded greens of your choice (I used iceberg lettuce this time for some crunch but spinach, cabbage, rocket would all work)

• 1 large or 2 small carrots, grated

• 1 large beetroot, grated

• 1 packet of alfalfa
• Sesame seeds, for serving

Dressing

• 1 orange, juiced

• 2 tbs lemon juice

• 1/2 cup miso soup

• 1/2 cup oil of choice (I used peanut)

• 2" piece of ginger, minced

Method

• Cook your grain, set aside.
• Fry tofu in soy sauce until golden (about 15mins on a medium heat).

• Add garlic and fry for a further 5mins. I am known to continually add more dashes of soy sauce to keep the pan from being too burny/dry (also I am addicted to salt). Once sufficiently browned, set aside. 
• Blend all dressing ingredients together and set aside.
• Assemblage time! Layer grain, then greens, tofu then veggies. Pour over dressing and top with sesame seeds.
• NOM TIME! 

This is creepy good you guys, like, almost my favorite thing to eat in the entire world and we ALL know how much I love eating... :D

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Gurkhas.

We tried out Gurkhas Nepalese the other night in Brunswick.

It was tasty but the servings were quite small which was a bummer (don't let the tiny plates fool you!)

We had the smokey BBQ tofu skewers (with magical sauce) but the Asian greens never turned up on the plate.

We also had wok flashed mushrooms, cauliflower and potatoes and a side of saffron rice.

So glad we over-ordered (3 mains for two people) cause we polished the plates off.

The food was delicious and I really enjoyed adding Nepalese to my cravings list.

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Sausage rolls and relish.

 

I'm cooking a few dishes for a friend's wedding soon and spent the weekend as a test run.

Recipe SUCCESS!

Sausage rolls were insanely good and were scoffed down by three meat-eaters that day!

The reviews assured me that the rolls were super meaty-tasting but I had doubts (tofu, walnuts... oats!), way too hippy for my liking.

Still I gave it a go and am seriously glad I did as this meal is going straight to the pool room.

I also made relish to accompany, as I'm fancy.

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Epic food times.

So, there has been a lot of eating of tasty things lately...

The food pics in my phone are getting a little out of control (and I've been consciously trying to NOT photograph everything I eat) so it's time to offload them all here.

Being vegan in Melbourne is too easy, I kind of miss Brisbane's lack of dining out options.

I'm getting poorer and rounder but as of this week, more home-cooked meals and I actually have to use my gym membership!

Amazingly cheap and tasty potato and leek curries with biryani rice from my new local, Madino. The dry-style leek curry with coconut and chilli is life changing.

Miso and bento from Tomoshibi. They even made me a special batch of vegetarian miso (no fish flakes!)

Tasty birthday treats.

One of (too) many trips to Casa Del Gelato - home of hazelnut and chocolate flavoured soy gelato! Hazelnut FTW.

Birthday treats baked by the boy.

Went to see LORD for the best "chicken" nuggets of all time.

Finally got around to seeing what all the fuss was about at Laksa King. BELIEVE THE HYPE! (and make a booking) Best laksa of my life and the melting chunks of eggplant were pretty unbelievable.

 Many visits to Lentil As Anything at Abbortsford lately, always tasty (but not always pretty) curries to be devoured!

Actually cooked at home last night, dad's AMAZING Thai green curry recipe. Kind of a big deal. Seriously looking forward to leftovers tonight.

This other time I cooked at home too, a basic tofu/Chinese broccoli/chilli sttir-fry with brown rice and sesame seeds. Drowned in so much soy there is no taste of tofu in sight (WIN).

Okay so this photo does not do Mankoushe any favors but OH MY EFFING GOD their felafel wraps are a new level of awesome. I actually had a moment when eating this. Bread BAKED TO ORDER with moist felafel and magical tahini... hands down NO CONTEST the best felafel in Melbourne. Go there, got there now.

It was a freezing winter night and I baked Linda McCartney country pies along with steamed greens, garlic sauteed sprouts, creamy mash and onion pepper gravy - like eating pure happiness.

After eating Mankoushe, my idea of the humble felafel wrap changed forever. I had to up my game with home-made wraps. Here I made felafel balls with cos lettuce, tomato, Spanish onion and sweet chilli but the secret was the fresh baked wraps and hommus that I bought from a Lebanese bakery (goodbye Coles/Woolies wraps/hommus forever). It was no Mankoushe but was by far the tastiest home-made wraps I'd made.