Some notes from Australia... (Brisbane)

You might have noticed that I've been a bit absent lately. This time it wasn't just Cambridge eating into my spare time, I have legitimate excuses that are not attached to my code or my thesis. Firstly, I no longer have a computer at home which makes blogging a little difficult since my supervisor is not too keen on blogging in the office. Secondly, I spent all of July in Australia.

I moved to the UK in September of 2010 and have not been back to Australia since then. Despite the fact that I complain about the English weather, the horrid English food and the grumpy NHS doctors, I really do love the UK. But I also love Australia and it was really lovely to be home.

I have lots and lots of new and exciting recipes I would like to share with you all but I thought I would take some time to dedicate a few blog posts to some new and old favourite food spots that I visited while in Australia for all of my Australian readers (since I do tend to neglect them most of the time!).

In general, I think Australia has become a little more vegan friendly (or perhaps I've become so accustomed to paying exorbitant prices at UK restaurants that I'm eating at nicer places in Australia?). Even in my small, country hometown of Grafton I found a really lovely restaurant to eat at (twice!) and a couple of other places that were more than accommodating.

One thing that really got on my nerves is that everywhere in Australia charges extra for soya milk and decaf coffee. Apparently Australian cafes think it is necessary to charge me an extra $1 per cup of coffee for not being cool enough to drink caffeine and cow's milk! Not cool, Australian cafes, not cool at all.

Apart from the price of the coffee, it was so lovely to be able to enjoy cafe culture in the sun again. I especially enjoyed being back in Brisbane and meeting friends in all of the lovely cafes and restaurants that I've grown so fond of over the years so I think that will be the first place I write about. I didn't take any photos of any of the food in Brisbane, since I've eaten in the places so often, so I'll just write a few lines about each of my favourite places and I hope it helps any vegans visiting the area in the future.

I hope you are all enjoying your summer here in the UK (and the lovely mild winter at home in Australia!) and I look forward to sharing more of Australia (and then some great recipes!) with you soon!

Brisbane Vegan Recommendations

The Forest Vegan Cafe
West End

I don't think there is a single restaurant (vegan or non-vegan) in Brisbane that can beat The Forest for value for money. For $13 you can get an enormous plate of food (your choice of hot mains with brown rice or salad from the counter) or a good sized bowl full for $8. There is also a huge range of burgers, wraps and sandwiches with a lovely selection of vegans cakes and desserts (although the cakes are the same cost as the mains!). It's been refurbished in the past few years (although, unfortunately, the bathroom facilities have not so if you can avoid them then you probably should) and there is always free, self-serve water available.

The hot food can be a little bit bland sometimes (especially if you go for something like the dhal) but I would highly recommend getting a mix of salads and hot food because the salads are always delicious even if the ingredients look a bit surprising.

I ate here several times on my recent visit. They are open every day for both lunch and dinner and everything is vegan.

The Three Monkeys Cafe
West End

Although I never actually order any food at The Three Monkeys (you can get them to make some of the sandwiches vegan but I can never be bothered with the hassle, especially since The Forest is 500m down the road) but I love to meet friends here for a big bowl of soy chai. There is no denying that the atmosphere at The Three Monkeys is not really found anywhere else in Brisbane so I don't feel so bad about only ever going there for the chai. Note, though, that the soy chai is served with honey so if you are a non-honey vegan then you should tell them so when you order at the counter. It's also a very busy place and seating is hard to get so I would recommend scoping out a spot first and then ordering.

Govindas
Elizabeth Street,City

Govindas is another great value-for-money place. Located opposite the Myer Centre on Elizabeth Street their entire restaurant is vegetarian and most of it is vegan (just ask, they are well aware of what a vegan is and can always let you know what you can and cannot eat). If you are a student then you can get the all-you-can eat Feast Deal for $10 instead of the usual $12.90. The Feast Deal includes rice, daily special mixed vegetable curry, split mung dahl, koftas with fresh tomato and herb chutney, a pappadam, fresh garden salad, halava with custard (unless you tell them you are vegan and then they give you a vegan alternative) and home made ginger & mint lemonade. And you just keep going back for more and more until you've had enough!

 If you don't want to have the Feast Deal you can also buy smaller portions of each of the daily specials or order off the menu.

It's yummy food, great value and lovely service.

Kitchen Sanitarium Cafe
Eagle Street, City

This was a new Brisbane experience for me. It was open when I used to live in Brisbane but due to the fact that it is only open for breakfast and lunch, and it's in the middle of the city, I just never made the effort to visit before. Which was stupid. Because this cafe is awesome.

It's a totally vegetarian cafe with lots of vegan options available on the lunch menu. If the cafe becomes a regular spot for you there are daily specials to break up the monotony of having the same thing every visit. However, I dn't think that this will be a problem; I had the Spiced Pumpkin Wrap on my visit and couldn't believe how full of flavour (or how large) it was.

I also met a friend there for breakfast early one morning, which was also a lovely experience, but there are a couple of things to note. Firstly, there is only one option for vegans on the breakfast menu: avocado on toast. It's yummy but if you don't like avocado you might be out of luck. Secondly, they don't advertise coffee on their menu although they do serve it. So, if you are desperate for that caffeine hit, just ask for it.

It can get quite busy during lunch so I would recommend booking a table.

A Night In India
Toowong

Ah, A Night in India, how I missed you and your dhal palak! I cannot say enough good things about this restaurant. The service is awesome, the curries are delicious and they know what a vegan is and are more than happy to accommodate (curries can be made vegan and the roti is vegan).

Book ahead on Friday and weekend evenings because the restaurant is super busy. Also, takeaway gets a discount and the portions are slightly bigger so if you live nearby I would recommend getting takeway and enjoying the deliciousness at home!

Dragon Inn Restaurant
Chinatown, Fortitude Valley (aka The Valley)

They may serve a lot of meat, and they may have some pork dishes in the vegetarian section of their menu, but their Sizzling Szechuan Tofu and Chinese Mushroom with Tofu dishes are so awesome that I will keep going back here for a very long time. This is my favourite Chinese restaurant in Brisbane. Just be careful when you order anything else. Not everything may be as un-meaty as it seems...

Food Inc

When Geoff and I first starting going out we used to have Date Night every Saturday. Date Night usually consisted of dinner and a movie.

Since we started living together Date Night turned into takeaway in front of the television watching a DVD (most recently it's been The Wire and then Planet Earth). But last night Geoff was determined to rekindle our more exciting routine so we went out for dinner and a movie.

We couldn't get a table at A Night in India or at the Himalyan Cafe so we opted for the Indian restaurant near the Palace Centro. It's called Sitar and the food was quite good, prices average and the service was pleasant but very unprofessional.

We had decided to go to a 9.10 movie so had to scoff our food down and I ran to buy the tickets as Geoff paid the bill. And just as we were walking into the doors of the cinema they closed in front of us signalling that the movie had started. We forced our way in as the opening credits started.

The movie we saw was Food Inc. It's been around for quite a while in the US but has only recently hit our cinemas. With the help of Michael Pollan (author of The Omnivore's Dilemma) the documentary looked at the origins of the food most Americans eat. And it wasn't just one of these movies that scares the average omnivore into not eating meat for a couple of weeks until they forget about the raw impact of the movie when they get hungry and crave a Quarter Pounder. This documentary shed some light onto the power of consumers to shape the products supermarkets stock, the problems with a few multinational companies holding all the power over what we consume, the veil between product and origin, and the problems with genetically modified food (particularly the soybean).

I always preach that meat eaters are so distanced from the animal because of the way a piece of meat is presented in a supermarket that it's easy for them to buy and eat without thinking about the consequences. I still hold this belief but this film made me think about my choices too. I can say I don't contribute to the slaughtering of animals and the moral, environmental and social consequences that go with it but what can I say about the vegetables, grain and soy proteins I buy?

It's a really well made film and makes its point very well by letting people in the industry, particularly farmers, voice their opinions.

My dear friend Laura was talking about goals this week on her blog. I have a few short term goals (make the perfect vegan caramel popcorn; finish my thesis soon!) and now some new long term goals: don't buy genetically modified foods, buy local, shop at farmers' markets and try to buy organic.

Easy like Sunday morning...

We ate breakfast at Sassafras in Paddington last week. I've been here once before. I like the good range of vegetarian (and vegan) options. Sometimes they even have yummy vegan cakes that look amazing. However, the service can be terrible (like standing at the counter for 10 minutes before one of the dozen people chatting and flitting around behind the counter cares to serve you) and the wait can be atrocious (when we went last week they told us the wait would be 45 minutes). However, if you have the time on a Sunday morning, like we did late weekend, it's nice to pop across the road and grab the paper (or Australian Vogue (I have a local fashion addiction, I can't help it!)) and read while you wait for your meal. And the meals are generous, although for the price you'd expect it. Breakfast for 2 will cost you nearly $40 but it's nice for a treat.

Koko Specialty Cakes and Desserts

If you've ever been to the West End markets of a Saturday or had a delicious dessert at The Forest then you will already know how delicious and well-presented the cakes from Koko are. They are vegan and gluten-free and made in Brisbane!

Weekend's Cooking... an ode to Timothy

So this is not what we had for dinner on Friday night. This is what my brother, very much a non-vegan, ate. And this is all he ate. So when someone asks me why I am vegan I could quite correctly conjecture that it is the universe's way of balancing out my brother's diet.

We had a Dhal Saag that I tried to make in light of the fact that I can't eat at A Night In India every night. I got the consistency right this time but not the flavour. I can't seem to get the spices right. I stupidly used chopped ginger instead of grated ginger and put ground cardamon in which taste a little funny. So hopefully I can get it right eventually and put the recipe on here.

I also tried to make nicer rice by putting in some saffron threads. Next time I should probably put the threads in some boiling water first and then stir it through the rice with some oil.

Geoff and I trawled through some of my recipe books for a quick and simple dessert idea. Geoff suggested Mango Rice Pudding from Linda Stoner's Now Vegan.

My mum gave me the book for my birthday last year. I really like it because it's Australian and so the ingredients are most likely found at your local supermarket.

Mango Rice Pudding
1 cup aborio rice
2 x 425g sliced mangos, drained with juice reserved
(I used a 800g tin because it was cheaper)
1 dessertspoon of cinnamon sugar
1 cup coconut milk
1 tbsp maple syrup
1/2 cup water

Put raw rice, mango juice, cinnamon sugar, coconut milk, maple syrup and water on low heat for about 15 minutes. Make sure you are stirring constantly to avoid sticking and that the mixture comes to the boil (but don't let it boil for more than a few seconds). Take off heat, keep covered but stir every now and again until all liquid is absorbed, the rice is soft and it looks like rice pudding. You can re-heat if you want. I place the mango slices on top or you can mix them in as you re-heat. Suggested to be served with soy ice-cream but I did not.

So this was yummy and easy to prepare. It would have been easy to cook had I taken into account that my stove's low heat was too low and that I should have brought the rice to the boil. So I sat in front of Superbad with Geoff and my brother and Dad for a while stirring and waiting for the rice to absorb. It didn't until I put it back on the heat again and brought it to the boil. So make sure you heat it enough!

The Sunday was baking day. Last week I made Ahmad a Chocolate Cake for his birthday and then he informed me it was Ramadan and couldn't eat it so I cooked another one for him for Monday. And I also cooked a Carrot Cake (Geoff likes carrot cake) and some Mint Choc Cookies.

They tasted okay but I want to perfect the recipes before I share.

P.S. I have no idea why this post was an ode to Timothy. I just know that it was. And why wouldn't it be? Tim's awesome. Just check out his blog!