Veggie Bites

We were having dinner with my Grandad and Uncle, and the choice of restaurants in Te Anau is fairly limited as it is a smallish town. Italian seemed to suit all of us and this place had a pretty good deal – 2 people for $40 and you got garlic bread, two pastas or one large pizza (from a limited selection), dessert and coffee. We chose to have two pastas and Martin ordered the Pasta al Verde while I had the Pasta Piccanti – a tomato based sauce with mushrooms, olives and chilli (I think – it was a while ago now!). The serves were huge and they tasted pretty good. We also ordered a salad, probably because we felt we should eat something healthy as well as having dessert! My Grandad and Uncle shared a pizza and they said it was delicious! For dessert I ordered the cheesecake and Martin had the pecan pie – he claimed it was to compare it to one I make that is a hit with everyone who tries it! Of course, he said it was nowhere near as good as mine, and I was a little disappointed with the cheesecake – it came as a mousse-y type thing and had a funny taste to it. Needless to say, neither of us finished our desserts. Instead of coffee we had hot chocolates, and we were so full we could barely finish them. The two people for $40 was and excellent deal – there was an awful lot of food for $40!

I am not sure whether room service counts as a restaurant and if it is something that should be reviewed here… But here goes anyway! We ordered a continental breakfast to share because we had some other food to go with it and we wanted to get away nice and early as we had a big drive ahead of us. It was quite expensive and really not very good. The fruit was horrible, the toast was cold and the orange juice was awful. The cereal, being the mass produced type, was as good as it could be expected. I really wouldn’t bother again!

When our friends suggested we eat here we jumped at the chance because they said it was vegetarian. When I realised it was seafood and vegetarian, I have to admit that I was pretty sceptical! There was a lot more seafood than vegetarian on the menu, but I guess at least they tried! I had the warm lux salad and Martin had the ravioli, our friends had fish and ravioli. We also had a couple of local beers – which I can not for the life of me remember what they were called – all I can remember is that I couldn’t pronounce the name of the one Martin ordered! The warm lux salad was pretty nice – it was salady type ingredients with warmed veggies on top. I did pick off the bean sprouts, but apart from that – delicious. I can’t remember what came on the ravioli, it could have been pesto – it was pretty good, but certainly not fantastic! We also shared some garlic bread as an entrée which was quite nice too. This place is certainly not a fantastic vegetarian restaurant – but it also wasn’t terrible.

We wandered around for ages trying to decide where to eat. I felt like pasta, but Martin felt like Indian. We eventually went back to this place because we figured we would probably end up eating Italian the next night! We ordered the mixed entrée which was huge – samosas, bahji, potato cakes and something else. It was all quite yummy, once I had de-pea-ed everything of course! For our mains we ordered the vegetable jaypuri, malai kofta and a side of dhal makhani, along with raita and two garlic naan. And a bottle of Villa Pinot Gris to wash it all down! The food was ok, the malai kofta was very different to any that I have had before, the jaypuri was pretty good and the dhal was a little average, but the garlic naans were great – hot and crispy and you could really taste the garlic! There was so much food, and there was no way we could finish it all – we didn’t even try! I think that this place might have been a chain – they seemed to have two or three restaurant addresses (in different towns) listed on their take away menu. This always disappoints me – not that I don’t like chains, it is just that I prefer to eat somewhere that does more authentic food rather than food that may be catered to the masses.

Martin had breakfast once or twice here when he was in town for a conference, so we thought we would check it out. There weren’t a whole lot of veggie options on the menu – but there were things that could be adapted. I ended up ordering the potato cakes and poached eggs with tomato instead of sausage as well as a chai latte. Martin had a bagel, muesli and a banana smoothie. The potato cakes were pretty good, not as good as the ones I had the day before, but certainly good, the poached eggs were cooked well and the whole things was pretty good. Martin said his bagel was average – not much you can do with a toasted bagel! But the muesli was fantastic – it came with lots of fresh fruit on top and heaps of different grains and nuts etc as well as yoghurt and milk. His smoothie was pretty good, but the chai latte was terrible – it is one of the worst I have ever had. I don’t know what they did to it, but the spices had a really harsh, nasty flavour – maybe they managed to burn them with the hot water. I added some sugar and some of the milk that Martin had with his muesli and then it was passable, but certainly nowhere near good! Overall, the food was good – but avoid the chai lattes!

This was a late-ish lunch after a late-ish breakfast and way before a very late dinner! We weren’t overly hungry, but we knew we had to eat something as we were doing a tour that started mid-afternoon and wouldn’t finish until late. We were both looking at the same things on the menu, so we decided to get both and share them. We ordered the soufflé omelette with tomato, onion, capsicum and cheese and the coconut pancakes with kiwi fruit, banana and caramel sauce. Both dishes were delicious. The omelette was absolutely huge, there was no way I could have eaten it all myself, so I was glad Martin was having half! The pancakes were also quite big with lots of fresh kiwi fruit and banana (although I am not a huge fan of bananas, it had been quite difficult to get them here for a while due to the cyclone in Queensland – and when you can get them, they are expensive and taste horrible, so we ate a lot of bananas in New Zealand!). There was quite an interesting range of food on the menu, which, of course, I can’t remember now, and I would certainly check it out again!

It was late, we were exhausted and starving, and this was the first place we came across that was open, so we decided to eat here. Having said that, I would go back here in a second – the food was fantastic! There were a decent number of veggie options, but nothing too unusual, and nothing that we hadn’t seen before, so we went with things we knew we liked. We ordered chilli and basil veggies, tofu penang curry and pad thai, along with a couple of glasses of New Zealand wine (a Church Road Merlot Cabernet and a Sanctuary Pinot Gris). The dishes were larger than we thought and we were not able to finish the pad thai, which was delicious – perfectly cooked noodles with a delicious sauce and no extra veggies! The chilli and basil veggies had the perfect amount of chilli and the veggies were perfectly cooked. The tofu penang curry was also great with a stack of extra veggie in there as well as tofu. The curry sauce was nicely spiced and smooth, coconutty and creamy. As I said, I would eat here again in a second – so if you are in Dunedin and want good Thai food – then check it out!

This was our first morning in New Zealand and we were looking for a place that the Lonely Planet Guide recommended that did a good veggie breakfast. When we found it, it was still closed, so we retraced our steps back to this place – and I am glad we did – it was awesome… I had the fried eggs, wholegrain toast, basil and tomato compote with side hash browns and Martin had scrambled eggs with toast and a side of tomatoes and mushrooms. The hash browns were fantastic – not your usual run of the mill, deep fried, out of the freezer type hash brown – but real little potato cakes with onion and herbs in them – yum! Martin commented that everything on his place was hot – you know how sometimes when you have sides that they are not as hot as everything else because they have been cooked at different times – well not this time – everything was piping hot! We both had an orange juice and then Martin decided he wanted a berry smoothie, so I had a hot chocolate. The breakfast here was not the cheapest thing in the world, but it was delicious! We did have a quick look at their dinner menu on the way out and there was very little in the way of veggie options, so my recommendation for vegetarians would be to stick to breakfast!

Note: This has been categorised as “Modern Australian” but clearly isn’t since it is in New Zealand! I use “Modern Australian” to categorise “fancy cafés”. That is, places that offer a variety of different foods in a more formal setting than a café. Although Mulberry’s breakfast is a café experience, their dinner appears to be a little more upmarket.

We had read about this place in the Lonely Planet guide and in the Air New Zealand magazine, so we decided it would be an excellent place to stop for lunch on the drive from Christchurch to Dunedin. They do tours of the factory, but we didn’t have time to do that. We did pick up a pamphlet when we arrived and discovered that all of their cheeses are made with non-animal rennet which made us both very happy! Unfortunately there were not a lot of vegetarian options on the menu, so I ordered a chicken panini without the chicken. The lady who took our order looked a little surprised and I explained that I was vegetarian. When it arrived and I started eating it, I decided that they probably added a few extra things to it as it was quite different to what I expected – it had a relish instead of pesto and came with mushrooms which were not listed on the chicken one. It also had tomato, spinach and brie. It was quite delicious! Martin ordered a mushroom and camembert melt and because he was really hungry also ordered the crumbed feta salad – which was large chunks of smooth, creamy feta, crumbed and fried on top of a salad. This was one of the most delicious feta cheeses that I have ever eaten. We debated as to whether we could buy some cheese and take it in the car without any means of keeping it nice and cool for the rest of the trip, but we finally decided that we shouldn’t do that. It is definitely worth the stop and I would try and leave a little more time to have a look through the factory and taste some more of the cheeses!

We walked for ages trying to decide what we wanted to eat – nothing really appealed to us. Martin had eaten here before, and guaranteed me that there were decent veggie options. I finally agreed and we went in and asked for a table. The restaurant was packed – with all three of the empty tables already reserved (as it turns out – they were for a large (& rather interesting) group). A table for six was being vacated and it was offered to us, although they changed their minds when a group of five followed us in, and they offered us a smaller table which was about to be empty. We had just ordered when another family of 10 arrived and we were asked to move to yet another smaller table and it was at this point at 7:30 at night, that they decided to put the closed sign up, instead of staying open until 9pm as specified! The restaurant was packed – there was food being run around everywhere and the poor waitresses did a fantastic job of keeping everyone happy! Speaking of food – we ordered the vegetable Dolsot Bibimap and the vegetable Jab Chae (sweet potato noodles). The Dolsot was a rice based dish and came in a hot cast iron bowl. The rice was on the bottom and there were sliced up veggies and egg white beautifully arranged on top, along with some spicy sauce and the egg yolk. The idea of this dish is that you mix it all together and you get a fried rice type of thing, with the heat of the bowl and the rice cooking the egg yolks as they are mixed in. It was delicious – absolutely delicious. The Jab Chae was also yummy, but just the slightest bit peppery for me. I would eat here again in an instant, and would definitely recommend it – but make sure you get in early!