Veggie Bites

Bookplate

Posted in Café on 2009-10-28 05:43 by mel

Date: 24 October 2009

This is the cafe at the National Library. I have been here a few times for afternoon tea, but never had a meal here. So, when we were going to be here for another reason, around lunch time, we decided to try it out. They don’t have a hiuge variety of meals, but there was a decent choice. I had the spinach and feta fritata which came with salad. Martin opted for lemon souffle pancakes. The fritata was delicious and Martin said his pancakes were very good as well. We didn’t get the chance for dessert – a shame since everything I have had on previous visits for afternoon tea has been great! The only annoying thing is if it is full, it is very noisy and you can wait a while to order, however, the food arrived very quickly, so I guess that kind of cancels out the wait to order!

Flavours of India – Civic

Posted in Indian on 2009-10-11 11:07 by mel

Date: 9 October 2009

We have eaten at Flavours of India in Civic a lot and also have had take away from here quite a bit since the first time we ate here – four years ago! This is really good Indian food and they have a pretty good variety of vegetarian dishes… of course we now have our favourites…

Aloo papdi chaat is now my all time favourite Indian starter! It is described as “spiced potatoes & spinach fritters tossed together with sweetened yoghurt, tamarind chutney & spiked with chaat masala” – YUM!

For our mains we had kadhai paneer (cheese, capsicum and onion in a sort-of-creamy tomato sauce) and aloo palak (potato and spinach), along with rice, raita and naans. Yum, yum and yum! As I have said before, not the cheapest Indian food around, but definitely delicious!

Cream

Posted in Café on 10:57 by mel

Date: 4 October 2009

Well, having said we don’t get to eat out much any more, it is kind of ironic that the first two reviews are from consecutive days!

Cream is a relatively new place in the centre of Canberra and we have checked out their menu a couple of times and decided not to go in as, at the time, the menu had a ‘v’ (which they said meant vegetarian) next to a number of meat dishes! Their menu seems to have been edited and it seems that ‘v’ now means able to be adapted to vegetarian rather than actually vegetarian! We have eaten here twice now – both times for brunch/lunch which basically means we ate breakfast! I have had the blini (done vegetarian of course!) with a chai latte, and the eggs benedict with spinach and a side of kipfler potatoes and mushrooms with a hot chocolate. Both meals were delicious. The blini wasn’t huge, but was fine for me. The eggs benedict was some of the better ones I have had – the eggs were poached beautifully, which for me means the white was not very runny at all! The hot chocolate was divine! It was made with actual melted chocolate in the bottom of lovely hot frothy milk – oh, heaven!! The downside to this place is that it is very, very noisy… Oh well, maybe in summer we can sit outside – but summer might mean it is too warm for a hot chocolate!

Satis

Posted in Vegetarian on 10:45 by mel

Date: 3 October 2009

I have been meaning to review this great little place for some time now. We have eaten here a few times and tried to eat here a few more times. It is a funky little veggie place with a great open kitchen and a very happy following of food loving regulars! It is often hard to get a table as it is pretty much packed at meal times and they are only a small place. We tend to end up here just after the main meal times, so occasionally miss out on the dishes we want – but it is not usually a problem – everything is yummy! This time, late as usual, I had the pizza with pumpkin, pesto and cherry tomatoes, and while Martin initially wanted the fajta, he ended up with the tofu burger as they were out of the fajita. The pizzas are delicious and very generous – they are made on square lebenese type bread, and the pesto on this one was amazing! Martin was very pleased with his tofu burger, although I thought it would have been nice if it came with some salad on the side…

Definitely good food and we’ll definitely go back – might even try and get there in time for breakfast one time!

I’m ba-ack!

Posted in Administrivia on 10:33 by mel

Way too much has been going on and I just haven’t had time to write any reviews – anyway, the blog has been updated and it is now easier to add new reviews, so I’m back!

The reviews certainly won’t be as frequent – we don’t eat out as much any more, thanks to Sebastian – but I’ll do my best!

Miscellaneous

Posted in Administrivia on 2007-10-02 00:00 by mel

Well, I have been incredibly slack with regard to keeping this up to date. No reviews doesn’t mean that we haven’t been eating out, it just means I have been too busy to get around to writing anything useful!! We have tried a few new places – Satis, Thai Spice, 2602, Pulp Kitchen – among others, some I will return to and write about, some I won’t bother with! Anyway, I have found the time to write a few reviews of new places, and I am hoping to keep it all a little more up to date from now on!

Bollywood Dimensions

Posted in Indian on 2007-09-28 00:00 by mel

If you are a regular reader, you’ll know that I find it hard to beat Bollywood Masala as my favourite Indian restaurant. Bollywood Dimensions has recently opened in Braddon and we wondered whether they were in any way related – and the answer is they don’t appear to be! Being lovers of Indian food, we thought we should try it and headed there for dinner with friends before seeing a concert. Their vegetarian menu is quite extensive (as it should be, considering it is Indian!) and there were a few things on there that a little different to the standard dishes on an Indian menu, so we thought we would try some of them. For our entree we had ‘Masala Vada’ and ‘Exotic Tandoori Paneer’ – both were excellent. The masala vada were nicely spiced and a little on the hot side which is fine with me! For our mains we had ‘Creamy Butternut Pumpkin’, ‘Majestic Shahi Paneer (Chef’s special)’ and a side of ‘Royal Panch Ratni Dal’ along with rice, raita, garlic naans and lassi. The food was good. The pumpkin dish was nice, but I am constantly disappointed by dishes containing pumpkin – I guess I expect more from them. The paneer dish had a comforting creamy sauce and large chunks of paneer. The dal was simple yet delicious. The naans were crispy and flaky as opposed to being soft and gooey as they so often are. I think we will go back and try some of the more standard dishes so that we can do more of a real comparison. Oh, and just so you know, all the dish names are in quotes as that is how they are listed on the menu. In fact the menu is a great read, however the overly descriptive names of the dishes do start to become a little over the top!

The Hermitage

Posted in Modern Australian on 2007-08-18 00:00 by mel

I have often wondered about this place as it is very close to the Canberra Theatre and The Playhouse, so we decided to try it with some friends before going to see Broad. The website claimed that there were vegetarian dishes available, which actually meant one entree and one main – and nothing that could easily be adapted! We shared some bread and decided against entrees – saving room for dessert instead! I was in a bit of a quandary, as the main didn’t really appeal – risotto with snow peas and mushrooms (not a fan of peas or freaky mushrooms!!) and the entree contained goats cheese and beetroot – something I am still acquiring the taste for (but only the fresh stuff!). I had decided on having the entree and a salad or a bowl of veggies for my main, but I changed my mind at the last minute and went with the risotto. Not surprisingly, Martin ordered the same thing! It was an unfortunate decision – the risotto was nice, but by the time I picked out all the bits that I don’t like, there wasn’t much left! I think I would have been happier with my initial decision. For dessert I had a chocolate mousse, which was delicious. Now, I know that restaurants can’t cater to my (sometimes odd) tastes! However, it would be nice if there was more than one veggie entree and one veggie main on the menu, so that a vegetarian couple can have an interesting and varied dining experience! Or so that a single vegetarian diner can have a choice! The whole experience here had some little quirks. One of which was that it took a while to get our wine opened and once it was, our glasses were continuously topped up for us before they were empty – this is one of my pet peeves, as it means you can not monitor how much you are actually drinking. I am glad we tried it, from a veggie perspective, I wouldn’t bother going back.

Milk & Honey

Posted in Café on 2007-05-26 00:00 by mel

We were going to try a new cafe in Civic called Cream, but a quick perusal of the menu indicated that they have very little idea of what a vegetarian dish actually is. Their menu has little ‘v’s on it, indicating vegetarian meals – but they were listed next to lamb and seafood dishes! Anyway, we decided that was a little too dodgy for us! So we ended up here for lunch. It has been ages since we ate here, and despite it being lunch time, we both ended up ordering breakfast! I love restaurant breakfasts – I could eat them all the time (and then I would be really fat!!). I had the eggs benedict with spinach and a side of tomatoes and potatoes. Martin had scrambled eggs with a side of mushrooms, tomatoes and potatoes. We also both had fresh juices, Martin had a hot stuff and I had a citrus splice. The food and drinks were great, however, it seemed to take forever for the food to arrive. While it is good, it is probably not my first choice of place to eat in Civic!

Remi

Posted in Italian on 2007-05-25 00:00 by mel

This was the third time I had eaten here, always with the same person! It is close to her work, so easy for us to get to and gives us maximum time to chat! Last time we both had pad thai, although mine was the veggie version and it was really yummy! This time I had the margarita pizza and my friend had the pumpkin and spinach risotto. We were so busy chatting about things that we were not eating very fast and the chef sent a waiter over to ensure everything was ok with the food! Next time, if we are planning on ‘working’ over lunch, we will have to sit where the chef can’t see us! I am always impressed with the food here, and it is reasonably priced for lunch. Oh, and the hot chocolates are pretty good too!