Veggie Bites

It was a last minute decision to eat out with a colleague of Martin’s from the US, and Mama’s is a good, consistent, Italian restaurant, and one that we know does a variety of veggie dishes as well as meaty ones. We had garlic and herb bread to start – the herb bread seemed a little stale which was a bit disappointing, but didn’t really detract from the meal. I ordered the Fuseli Pompeii again, Martin went for the Fettuccine Pesto, and our companion ordered something with prawns and chilli. We all enjoyed our meals, it is just a shame that Martin wasn’t feeling 100%, so he couldn’t finish his meal! Wow – it would appear that I have not ordered an arrabiatta pasta dish from an Italian restaurant for a while now – I must be feeling a bit ill!

This was a geek dinner and there were eight of us unexpectedly descending on this restaurant. They were able to accommodate us fairly easily (being a Thursday), however, a few little things went wrong with the experience! One person didn’t receive their drink and Martin received the incorrect meal. They were very apologetic and made him the correct one, but also commented that they sound very similar – although, one had artichokes in it and the other didn’t and I clearly heard Martin say artichokes when he ordered. Anyway, the food was pretty good. As I have mentioned previously, my favourite pasta from here has disappeared from the menu, so I am usually at a loss as to what to order. I am not a huge fan of their pizzas, and am also not so keen on the bruschetta either. So I decided to order the rigatoni matriciana without the bacon. I was a little concerned that it wouldn’t actually happen that way, but it did and it was great – nice and spicy, but not too hot. My only complaint might be that it was a little on the small side. We also ordered garlic bread which is always yummy! Overall, not bad, but I think there are better Italian places around!

I have yet to find a really good Vietnamese restaurant that I really like – maybe I am just not a huge fan of Vietnamese food – I always find it just a little disappointing – maybe I expect too much! We haven’t eaten here for a number of years, so when we had to head over that way, we decided to try some take away. We ordered spring rolls, red cooked bean curd, sate veggies and bean curd, and stir fried noodles with veggies and bean curd. The spring rolls were great, the red cooked bean curd was ok, but didn’t have a huge amount of flavour, and the noodles were very bland (especially so with boiled rice the next day for lunch – or so Martin said!). I think the highlight of the meal was the sate. I have yet to find a Vietnamese sate that I really like, but this one was great. I’m not sure that it is enough to entice me back though! There are other things I would like to eat!!

Now, this is an interesting concept – a Turkish chain – it is new in Canberra and a lot of people I spoke to were keen to try it. This was a farewell lunch, so there was a group of almost 30 of us. Before I comment on the food, which was quite nice, I will comment on the way they treated us – because although this is usually about food, I always feel the need to comment when the service or the way we are treated is less than ideal! This restaurant does not do banquets (weird for a Turkish place, huh?!), and two different people rang them to find out if they could do a banquet-type thing and roughly how much it would cost people. They were both told that yes, they could do a banquet type thing and it would cost between $22-$25. Sounds reasonable, right? When we got there, they decided on the food and then came and told us it would cost $30, when told this was unacceptable due to the quote on the phone (twice), they recalculated, took some food away and told us $26.60, then stood there and argued over $1.60 times 30 people and slowly whittled away any good will that any of us were feeling! Anyway – the food! We had a variety of entrees – both meat and veggie (although I will only comment on the veggie ones) which included sweet potato felafels (yummy!), some balls made from Middle Eastern cheeses and covered in some weird pastry (really yummy!) and two different salads – fattoush – salad with bread and a rocket and beetroot salad (not being a fan of beetroot, I preferred the fattoush salad). The mains were a ‘variety’ of tangines (like a stew with couscous at the bottom) including a veggie one (hmmm, kind of average) and Turkish pizzas (although, they were open on the top and kind of small – also, they were not cut and came with a knife so we could do our own cutting – weird!). There were two veggie pizza’s – tomato, haloumi, parsley and eggplant – which was kind of nice and a bit spicy, and the roast pumpkin, chilli pomegranate jam and feta – which also came with a big pile of rocket on top (really yummy!). So, all in all, the food was quite nice, however I (and many others) were incredibly disappointed at the way we were treated. I’m not sure the food was good enough to negate that experience, so I am not sure I would bother going back…

After an incredibly long day, I had good intentions of cooking, but when Martin suggested take away, I figured ‘why not?’!! We got our usual veggie spring rolls, sizzling fried bean curd with Chinese broccoli and needle mushrooms and stir fried green pepper with dry bean curd and chilli bean sauce, and also asked if they could do a vegetarian chow mein with soft noodles (one of my favourite meals) – which they could. The food was great – the stir fried green pepper and dry bean curd was incredibly hot and spicy this time – even for me (in fact I am surprised that Martin ate it!!)! The chow mein was great, and the left overs were great the next day for lunch! Definitely one of my favourite Asian places!

I always love Mama’s! I think that is clear from previous reviews! Although in the last review I said that I usually order the same thing, this time I actually went for something a little different. There was a yummy looking special, but I decided I couldn’t really go past the Fuseli Pompeii, however Martin ordered the special, so I got to taste that too! The Fuseli Pompeii was great and is one of Martin’s favourite dishes – it comes with a tomato-y sauce with spinach and semi dried tomatoes – if it just had a bit of chilli in it, I think it would be my favourite pasta ever! The special was a creamy pesto sauce with capsicums, which was nice too. However, after a while it got a little bland and I was glad that I didn’t have to eat the whole dish. We also ordered garlic bread which is always yummy and after all that food we were so full that we could barely do our shopping! Needless to say, we had salad for dinner!