Feeding to Fitzroyalty, or: Miss T goes live

I know you can't get enough of me. I can't get enough of me.

Fitzroyalty has kindly offered to stream some of my posts to hyperlocal pages, so vegan musings, eatering, shoppering and other ings are now also syndicated here:

http://indolentdandy.net/fitzroy/
http://indolentdandy.net/carlton/
http://indolentdandy.net/brunswick/
http://indolentdandy.net/collingwood/
http://indolentdandy.net/innernorth/

Or - you could just go straight to www.indolentdandy.net. Whatevs.

Step 1 of my plan to achieve total world domination is go.

PS the wonderful Cindy and Michael of Where's The Beef are also over there so it is most certainly a place of quality.

Melbourne Sustainable Living Festival turns 9 (demands skateboard and pool party)

Veterans of various ecological/green/hippie events will know that sometimes good intentions are not backed up by organisational skills. Like me, you may have consequently spent many agonising hours in line waiting for one of two Port-a-Loos. Yee-ha.

What a (literal and figurative) relief to discover that the Melbourne Sustainable Living Festival was organised by people who understand the importance of the essentials - bathrooms, food, seating, roaming guides and most importantly for the Australian audience, beer!

Held in central Melbourne at Federation Square and Birrarung Marr park, the Festival attracts both hardcore greenies and newbies just looking for a water-saving showerhead (and let's not knock consumerism here. If that's what gets bums on seats...). As the event attracted over 129,000 visits last year, this strategy is really reaching out to the community and creating change. Snaps!

Permaculture display around bike racks, with view over the Yarra to Melbourne landmark the Arts Centre Spire

A jaw-droppingly massive range of products and organisations were on show, from permaculture to RadPads to ethical investment to Indigenous media, and talks ranged from the joys of co-housing to consumerism and human trafficking. Impressive hey? Much-loved Ausssie greenie muso Paul Kelly and The Reverend Tim Costello, a religious leader who walks the walk, were standout participants.

Although only veg food was on offer (huzzah!) and I ate enough vegan Fritz gelato to require a little lie down afterwards, only one talk out of 300 was about the environment and meat-eating. I mean, dudes. Dudes. You know better than that!I

t wasn't all crushingly earnest soul-searching though: the Smoothie Peddlers cycled away to blend up juices and smoothies on stationary bikes -

Smoothie Peddlers - brightly bewigged and a-dor-a-ble

.... and in true Aussie style, the Good Brew Company brought along their delivery service - yes, they will deliver kegs to your party by bicycle! Rock!

Beer on bikes - it gets no better.

And to top it off, a free bike valet service encouraged human-powered transport all the way.

Bike valet facing Flinders Street Station. So, so sweet.

The Sustainable Living Festival stands out for its professional organisation, its appeal to both hippie and yuppie alike, and the sheer breadth of information available. Kudos for an event that's informative, fun, well-organised and without the traditional overload of tie-dyed cheesecloth!

FGY Art Gallery Temple takes a dive, or: Where is my laksa?

It is with a heart heavy with sorrow that I write these words. When a restaurant that I hold deep, warm affection and mushiness for makes schtoopid, schtoopid changes, I weep.

Dear old FGY Temple, your mock meat dishes were outshone only by the warm glow of your kumquat tea. Although previous visits left room for improvement, there was much to be encouraged about and I really did love your little bento boxes with their pumpkin cakes. On a later, unreported visit with Buzz, he had a very commendable laksa while I had mockporky noodles. You were doin’ ok, kid.

So why did you do it? Why did you take a scythe to your menu and remove anything that didn’t fit the following algorithm:

Noodles (flat rice, Hokkien / otherwise unspecified) + vegetables (stewed veg / bean shoot / carrot and bean shoot) + [(mock pork) / (Tom Yum)] = total boredom.

To the unmathematical, this means that FGY now offers dishes that are Hokkien or flat rice noodle (or just noodle) – there is only one rice dish and no laksa or bento – and all the noodle dishes are stewed veg, or mock pork (no more the mock Haikkenese chicken) and beanshoots and carrot if you’re lucky.


Buzz and I, maddened by hunger, ordered the same noodle dish in the hope that it would be speedier. By the time our entrée arrived – a very creditable and fresh vegetable dumpling platter with a tasty light soy and sesame oil dipping sauce – we had already drawn all over the (tri-fold, paper – no longer vivid pictures on durable laminate) menu to distract ourselves.


By the time the mains arrived, thankfully on the larger side, we were so hungry that we didn’t even notice that they had brought us the wrong thing … or did they? So hard to tell with a menu of infinitesimal difference (we could tell though, because we ordered flat rice noodle and got plain round rice).


And then we were charged $5 more than what we ordered. $34.80 for two plates of noodles, one juice and one entree is absurd.

So here is the mystery. If you were going to reduce your menu as it was too large, would you reduce it to items that are statistically insignificant from each other? Would you remove all items that couldn’t be scooped out of a pre-prepared stockpot? And would you continue to run such a drastically reduced level of staffing that you had one floor waiter, one seating/bar waiter, and one order-taking waiter? During lunch rush hour? Or would you self-destruct in thirty seconds?

I love the idea of FGY. I love the art gallery, the spiritual space, the kumquat tea, the nuns, and I really loved the Lazy Susans. But until such time as they restore their menu to at least a semblance of something worth reading, I won’t be trekking up to Queen Street. Even for kumquat tea.

Desecration Decoration, or: The Carlton Hotel is despicable.

In the hallowed, insular state-of-being of Australian Rules Football, there are immutable precepts and sacrosanct laws. One of them is that everyone hates the Collingwood Magpies. In return, Collingwood's mortal enemies are the Essendon Bombers and the Carlton Blues. As a one-eyed 'Pie, I am bound by blood, duty and honour to loathe mine enemies and smite them (this causes some real problems with Buzz, as we are in fact a mixed marriage. Whilst I am a mongrel magpie, he is a bloody blue and I can't repeat the epithets I delivered to him when Carlton beat Collingwood twice last season).

And I now have another Carlton to loathe and despise. Last night we went to the Carlton Hotel and the contempt I hold for their decorating preferences outstrips by a millionfold even my antipathy towards the Blues.

The Carlton Hotel is festooned with the stuffed bodies of animals - peacocks, parrots, butterflies, an ostrich and the neck and head of a giraffe. A rhino head is a copy in flocking, but in the midst of the other 'exhibits' provides little relief.

I just can't fathom the decision to pay for the corpses of deliberately killed animals to adorn your walls. They are positioned, observing, around the bar; dumbly witnessing the evening and the subject of both pointing fingers and bland stares from eyes that slide over them as they would any other object.

Perhaps I am an animal sizeist, but it was the head, neck and part of the chest of the giraffe that made me the saddest. So large, so quartered, so anomalous in her journey from wherever she was killed to an upstairs bar on scummy Bourke Street on a drunken Saturday night. She raised her head over the goings-on, like a spire, with the body of a tiny bird perched on her ear in a parody of life.

Somehow no matter where I tried to stand, I was always facing her.

As the night wore on I noticed more, and what became apparent after closer observation of the animals made me angry, contemptuous and despairing.

The ostrich had pearls wrapped around her neck like a choker; the giraffe had been prettied up with glittery eyelashes and golden eyeliner.

It was meant to be amusing, quirky, perhaps a reflection of the clientele; but it was the ultimate assault on the dignity of death. Such a fate - slaughtered to become a still and silent 3D mannequin, only to be gussied up for decoration and display. It's not enough that a living, breathing, sentient animal's dead body is presented for decoration, but it must be made a mockery of, dressed up and dolled up like a grand dame.

I can't think that the Carlton Hotel is bringing itself any good karma. I can only despise a decision to display what they have. You should bury those bodies with the dignity they deserve.

Eatering with Miss T Junior at ezard, or: I expand my palate

In a record-breaking display of inexplicable and unaccountable delay, Miss T today posted a significant restaurant review not less than four whole weeks after dining. The seriousness of this matter was compounded by the revelation that the restaurant in question was a premier Melbourne eatering establishment, ezard.

Miss T issued the following statement through her publicist: “I know I have let the fans down. My fans are everything to me. I am currently seeking treatment in an Arizona facility for exhaustion. I want to thank God, my family and the Academy. ”

Miss T has waxed lyrical before about ezard here.


So with that blush-cheeked apology on record, I did indeed eat again at ezard, this time with Miss T Junior, who is a long-term foodie and cook, and who received the dinner as her Chistmassy present.

My lovely eatering companion.


I will air my one gripe up front. I have previously commented that although I have no problem with the $35 corkage, although I wish it would be waived for those of us who BYO as none of the wines on the menu are vegan, I do expect that if corkage is charged and customers pay, there should be no silliness surrounding a bottle brought in. I arrived clutching a bottle well under the ezard standard but fully aware of and willing to pay the corkage. The waiter who seated us asked delicately, but not really, if it was a present for someone. I said it was for us and that I was aware of the corkage. He said he would speak to the wine waiter. Now why? This was most awkward, and when the maitre’d came over I explained – and it was not a problem. So why bother commenting – it was the one grump-making experience that I have to whine about.


So, wine glass full, we commenced.


Again, two of the three dipping spices were vegan – the Prickly Ash Szechuan pepper and rock salt, and the dried chilli and Chinese yellow sugar. And again, without the assurance of dairy-free bread, I unabashedly wetted my finger and happily ran it around the plate. The dark, smoky Szechuan and the sweet chilli, with sugar hitting you first followed by a chilli punch to the back of the tongue, are literally mouth-watering.



Our appetiser provided me with a hint as to what my taste of the night would be. It was Tom Kha, a coconut milk swallow of soup with kaffir lime, lemongrass and chilli. It was warm but not hot; creamy but not thick; limey but almost sour. The sharp first flavours of lime and lemongrass, bringing an almost curdled feel to the milkiness, gave way quickly to the soft texture of coconut milk, lightly honed by a small addition of chilli. It was an extraordinarily well-balanced dish, balancing well the pungent, hot and soft broad tastes of its components.



Emboldened by our waiter’s instruction that the kitchen could make anything from the vegetarian a la carte menu for me (something I haven’t heard before but will press to great advantage in the future), I ordered the eggplant two ways with sweet and sour pomegranate, and lemon (Miss T Junior, omnivore, ordered something unprintable on these pages, but enjoyed herself very much).

The first eggplant ‘way’ was, not to compare it downwards but to be accurate, a deep fried piece which made me think of the freshest, hottest, most straight-from-the-oil doughnut in the world. It had been brought to the table within seconds of being lifted from the frying, and it was hot-puffy, light as air and crispy golden with an oily sweetness.


Nestled between two such pieces, almost ironic-burger like, was a little salad of lightly oiled fennel and (maybe-perhaps?) dill, which provided the pointy end of the taste spectrum to counteract the fried sweety warmth. Underneath the bottom piece was a dollop of baba ganoush, a contrast of melty texture with a nasal smokey flavour.


Swirled around the plate was a pomegranate jus of sorts, punctured with pomegranate arils (apparently the correct term for the little berryseeds inside), which was sweet and intense, giving a sugared counterpoint to the astringent baba ganoush, pungent fennel and hot eggplant fritters.


My main, as always, made me shiver just a little bit. On both previous visits I have ordered the Asian gazpacho with fennel, mint and avocado (tempura-ed avocado, thanks) for entrée, and enjoyed it with such dish-licking relish that I promised myself that it would make a main outing. Fresh, incredibly tart gazpacho, a clear orange in flavour and so finely pureed that no remnant of its constituent parts is discernible, surrounds a tower of tempura avocado and shaved fennel all topped with a crispy roof.


I have wondered and marvelled before at the skill by which avocado can be dunked in boiling oil without creating the slightly disconcerting flavour of avocado when warmed. Like the eggplant fritters, I can only assume that someone is very fast indeed with the deep frying basket.

We ordered a side of potatoes with lovely soft mushy whole roasted garlic cloves and rosemary, which were generous in quantity, flavour and heat (nothing, and I repeat nothing, is more infuriating to me than ordering wedges, whether in pub or haute cusine fine dining, and getting an abomination of floury, lukewarm, collapsing potato mess) . However, there is really only so much you can do with potatoes, oil, rosemary and garlic, and although ezard surely did all that is possible, it was not something that I would choose again over, say, the dessert that was to come.



I sneakily alluded earlier to my taste of the night (didja see what I did? See it, see it? Didja, huh?) and as I know you’re all now on the edge of your seats and the verge of pant-wetting, here it is: coconut. Sur-priiiise!

Surprise for me anyway. I’ve never been much of a coconut groupie, except for slathering my legs in Reef Oil and sticking them in the sun to fry as a 16 year old. It goes along generally with my meh-ness about many fruits, and I’ve never made a beeline for it in food or scent.

But whereas the beginning of my meal was bracketed with spicy Tom Kha, the end was signed off with a sorbet of sublimity (yes I just made up that word. Sublimeness is clunky, and subliminal is just not on).

I digress. My dessert was three scoops of sorbet, each a little triumph of sweetery (did it again). The middle orangey one you see was a tangeriney sort of a thing, and although delicious, I did not finish it. Why? I give you: a) the two G&Ts I had before dinner; and b) the 2 or 3 large glasses of wine I had at dinner. Lest you think I am a lightweight, I give you c) a 43.4C day (that’s 110.12F for you top dwellers). Yes, the alcomohol had hit me where it hurted and I struggled to down any more.


The pear sorbet was, again, an essence of peariness. Light, sweet, and not as icy as the ice-crumbly orange sorbet, it combined an admirable light creaminess with a real fruit flavour.

But oh. Oh. (As Mrs T would say). The coconut sorbet. Like shavings of coconut flesh creamed until smooth (two non-vegan things there). The taste was fresh, real, authentic and unadulterated. It was clean and creamy, cold and melting. It was without a doubt the best sorbet I have ever had, and demonstrated that in the right hands – such as Teague Ezard’s – a tropical fruit can be both warm, pungent broth and cold, creamy dessert – in one sitting.


Once again, ezard proved that vegan fine dining can be accessible, easy and inventive. The service, apart from the little grrr moment with the wine, was informed and intelligent, and both Miss T Junior and I left feeling very lucky girls indeed.

Graffiti Safari.

Has anyone seen these Vegan tags everywhere (I know Pip has! But I can't find the picture of her next to it ....)? They're all over the train line from Clifton Hill to the city, Victoria Parade/Street and surrounds.


I saw some more AR-ish work on a recent Graffiti Safari with Buzz and Cousin Zacman - whaddya think?

Lunchering with Lisa, or: we CityWorkers tell Gordon Gekko that lunch is not for losers - it's for vegans

Over the last few weeks Lisa of unwakeable and I have been taking advantage of our CityWorker status to explore the CBD's vegan lunchering offerings. I delayed blogging about them as last week we had planned have our third lunch, along with Caroline, and I was keen to present a trilogy, a triptych, a triumvirate of lunchering as a little tribute. However, due the the perils of CityWorking which all too often include last minute office panics and cancellations, for the last lunch Lisa was obliged to stay back and my little plan was put on hold (also, as I'm sure Caroline will agree, our lunch last week was good, but perhaps not quite blog-worthy).

I am a poor vegan indeed, having never made it to Chatterbox. Lisa has already written about it here in a much more contemporaneous manner than I can now. We had the pad kee mou, which answered my constant cravings for the flat rice noodle Hor Fun at Binh Minh on Victoria Street, of which I dream nightly and daydream daily. The dish was very good, noodle-heavy but even I, Chilli Monster, had to leave behind some of the slices of fresh chilli which were scattered about in a most liberal manner. I did have to add some soy sauce to amp up the savoury factor, as is my wont, but all up it was a big dish at a good price (and I just loved the wandering waiters, increasingly desperate as they rushed about calling out ticket numbers in hope of a customer).

Chatterbox Curry and Noodle Bar, Shop 18, Tivoli Arcade, 235 Bourke Street, Melbourne

Below: a vegger vegging in the wild!

Our second lunchering involved a two-stop meal at Melbourne Central. The sushi sushi outside the train station barriers makes its veggie nori rolls without mayo (which reminds me, I once emailed sushi sushi to ask if they had considered ditching the mayo. I got a very friendly email back saying that I was welcome to ask any outlet to make me a fresh, non-mayo roll whenever I liked), and there is a noodle outlet in the main food court called Bamboo City which offers fresh. hot steamed buns of which two - the veggie and the red bean - are vegan. Both are great, but at $1.80 and half again bigger, the veggie one is better value.

I had three nori rolls (hungry, ok?) - the veggie, avocado, and avocado and asparagus. As always, all three were delish, and were made better by the fact that we sat inside sushi sushi and took advantage of the free soy sauce (nothing annoys me more than running out of those poxy sized plastic fish soy sauce holders before the end of my nori. In fact, I even keep a soy sauce bottle in my drawer at work for extra-drowning of my lunch).

Cafe La, or: Please bring back the vegan options!

Buzz and I wanted to go for A Dinner. Not dinner, but A Dinner.

It was not yet time to return to ezard, so I looked at felt (that’s a lowercase f, fanks) at the Hotel Lindrum. They had one vegetarian main and no vegetarian entrees, so I fancied my chances were nil (and even if they were higher, I was annoyed by their meat-heavy menu without reprieve). I didn’t bother to call.

I emailed Attica and they advised that they could not do a vegan degustation, could do a vegan entrée/main combo with some warning, but that they were booked until the end of the year. Also I had to not come on a Saturday.

Pearl was all seafood. I didn’t enquire.

So, heart heavy and belly hungry, I remembered that Café La at the Sofitel had kindly provided and noted vegan options on their menu when I last ate there in March. I specifically enquired about this when I rang up to book, and was assured that there were still vegan options on the menu. Yeeha!

It was therefore especially annoying to discover that vegetarian dishes were noted. C’mon! Different word, different meaning! If you’re not sure I’d really preferred you asked!

Jesse our waiter was a salve. He said it was “a good question” when I asked about egg in the gnocchi (there was), understood exactly what vegan meant (hooray), and when the gnocchi was indeed eggified he told me exactly what chef was going to make up for me instead and asked if that sounded ok (it was the same dish I had in March, so I guess it’s in the repertoire).

And so to the food …

I have to admit that the description of my entrée – salad of baby cos, sundried tomatoes, avocado and toasted pinenuts – fell short. The salad however was superlative.

Imagine a really great olive oil. Really, really, I’d-drink-it-on-its-own olive oil. Now add a bit of something endivey (do I mean endivey? Tasted like a small onion but not so pungent), and small pieces of smushed avocado. Now add in a few pieces of small well-cooked beetroots, an intense basil tapenade/reduction thingie, toasted pine nuts and torn baby cos leaves. More olive oil.

It really was totally fabulous and I would have happily eaten it again as a main.

My main was herb-encrusted tofu with spring vegetables. The tofu part of the dish was a little hit’n’miss – great crunchy herb encrusting, but sliding off a slab of firm plain tofu. I kept trying to spear a bit of each so that I didn’t end up with a mouthful of unflavoured tofu.

The vegetables and saucing however were just fantastic. The green beans were crisp and perfectly cooked, and the small cherry tomatoes lay on a dark, sticky, sweet swirl of dressing. I couldn’t work out what it was – perhaps caramelised balsamic? If anyone’s got any ideas, let me know.

EDIT: Big shout out to my podbuddy Cameron - it's dessert balsamic and it's apparently highly priced and highly worth it. It's ultra aged balsamic, almost with a toffee consistency - very sweet but still with a bit of a vinegar sting. Available from snooty food shops, as he so aptly puts it.

All of it was presented on a bed of olive oil-y sauce which provided a rich, smooth counterpart to the punchy sweetness of the maybe-balsamic.

Not pictured are our sides – ‘signature’ fries (which I think were just fries with garlic salt, but hot, crisp, golden, fresh and fatty), and garlic green beans, where the garlic was well-sauteed but not browned at all. They were good, but not necessary, sides. The state of our bursting bellies afterwards told us so.

Our meal was really very lovely and not at all expensive for what it was – two entrees, two mains, two sides, and four beers came to about $140. Coupled with a view over the nightlights of Melbourne from the 34th floor, it was indeed A Dinner.

(Photos were particularly difficult to take – something about the soft lighting and city lights perhaps … or the glass of Moet I had beforehand ….)

Habib Wholefoods, or: I CityCircle it, do some exciting shoppering, and get a bit of a shock

A couple of months ago I City Circled it around from work to Flinders Organics, where I had fallen into an obsession with their Spicy Cajun Salad. I was looking for a few things – precisely what escapes me now but I assume it was of the veganny variety – but upon picking up and putting back a number of things, I realised that there was virtually nothing on my list to be had.

A man approached me and asked what I was looking for. I reluctantly told him (whatever it was; maybe Tofutti slices?), not really wanting to discuss my shoppering choices, and he told me that he had just taken over the shop in the last few days and they were looking to build up their product range. I had some reservations, given that he had never heard of whatever-it-was-which-was-common and spelled it incorrectly, and then I City Circled it back to work and haven’t really been back since.

This lunchtime I wanted Spicy Cajun. Having read in my Guide that Flinders Organics is now Habib Wholefoods, I prepared for a little stickybeak.

Oh hooray for the Cheezly on the shelves! Hooray for the ginormous range of Tofutti ice-cream in the fridge! Hooray for the agave nectar and the light and dark syrup versions too! Hooray for the vegan ready-meals and the range of vegan waffles! Hooray for the Parmazano which I’ve been dying to try since I read about it on aduki online!

I made more purchases than planned, gleefully snatching things of shelves as I found them, and was very impressed with the excellent and expanded range of products now stocked.


I went to get my Spicy Cajun. As the lady was piling it up (to my cries of “Oh no, more even! More! Nom nom nom!”) we chatted and I mentioned how great the range was. She said that they had tried hard to get the range expanded, so I, with my vegan-shopper hat on, was particularly flowery and complimentary about all the things I had found.

When my bill was totted up, the salad which I had so encouragingly had made piled higher, came to $18.84. Whereas previously the salads were sold per container, they were now priced by weight and I a) had failed to check; and b) decided to just suck it up and learn for next time.

Habib Wholefoods: Shop2, 260 Flinders Street, Melbourne, 3000. Ph. 9639 5515.

FGY Art Gallery, or: I explore some mock-meat and reminisce over pumpkin cakes

Miss Natalie kindly suggested lunch at Fo Guang Yuan Art Gallery as my leaving-the-team lunch, so we hauled ass all the way down to Queen Street from our office at the Paris End of Collins (no less!), and entered the world of kumquat tea.

FGY (sounds a bit gynaecological, doesn’t it?) is a purely vegetarian restaurant/art gallery/meditation space housed in what I think is an old bank. The menu is a choice of lunch special, chef’s special or a la carte, but the highlight is, was, and always will be the kumquat tea. Sweet, syrypy, like hot cordial but nasty when cold, the tea comes served with whole kumquats in a glass tea pot and is a golden, Cottees cordial orange.


Things got off to a hysterical start when I asked what dishes were vegan, and the waiter replied that there was no vegan as it was a vegetarian restaurant.

He thought I said bacon.

We ordered twice as the first time (our waiter being a ring-in because the first waiter’s electronic notepad wasn’t working) didn’t write anything down, came back, repeated the order quite incorrectly, and had to record it all over again. Our mains arrived, then one half of our entrée, and then a little later the other half. Friendly as the service was, I don’t need to be asked three times if I have ordered; not be able to make myself understood to my waiter even in the most basic terms; then have my order taken again; and then have my meal arrive in dribs and drabs. Luckily the kumquat tea arrived with little cookies and I was able to sate my annoyance with sugar.

The menu is pretty heavy on the mock-meats, which as a rule I avoid but when faced with such a selection, was suspiciously keen to order something that I wouldn’t normally get to eat. Natalie and I ordered a Hainan “chicken” bento-type box which arrived with two types of salad, a frighteningly realistic pork-like mock-meat, and a pumpkin cake.


Check out the top left corner: I haven’t had pumpkin cake since high school, when we would troop down to the Snappy Happer on Canterbury Road … and yes, that’s Snappy Happer. No-one could ever say Happy Snapper properly and after a while no-one even noticed. The Snappy Happer was a fish’n’chip shop that served both potato and pumpkin cakes (…we have both kinds … country and western!) and I haven’t seen pumpkin cakes since. For those overseas readers not familiar with the humble potato cake, it’s a round thin potato patty deep fried in batter, salted and eaten with fish’n’chips (or just chips if you’re me). A bad potato cake is thin, soggy, yellowy-white and evenly battered. A good potato cake is golden with fat, has grotesque battery bubbles poking out of it like some kind of disease, and is piping hot and extra salty. Sadly the Snappy Happer is now closed, but the memory of those pumpkin cakes still makes me misty-eyed (and hungry).

So my FGY pumpkin cake brought back fond teenage memories, although it was extra fatty and oily and somewhat of a surprise in my bento box. The “chicken”-that-looked-like-“pork” was grey and textured and also on the oily side, and to be quite honest I ate it with some trepidation. It tasted … like … mock-meat. That said, I have no idea what chicken really tastes like so it could have tasted like human flesh for all I know. It wasn’t highly flavoured; it was a little bland, and the dominant sensation was the chewy texture smoothed out in oil. It arrived with some very orange ginger rice, which was patchily flavoured but interesting nonetheless. I’m not sure what Hainan-style is meant to taste like, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t taste it.


The vegetable dumplings were cute little things; not overly spiced and recently steamed. I really liked the mushroom buns suggested by miss Caitlin although I had initially wanted to try out the “pork” ones just to see; they were steamed well and hadn’t yet begun to harden post-heat, and I suspect that these two dishes were the only things only our table made freshly.



Trying to be just a little polite, I didn’t take photos of my companions’ meals, so also didn’t ask what they thought (although Miss Susan enjoyed her Korean-style sauce). Miss Susan, Miss Natalie and Mr David are all omnis, so it was generous and thoughtful of them to suggest FGY so that I and Miss Caitlin, a pescetarian, could eat with some choice. Although I thought improvements could be made in the service (vast improvements!) and some of the flavourings, I really did enjoy the meal, ate heartily, and commend FGY for its vision.

The real joy of FGY is the breadth of selection, if you choose well; the old-school Lazy Susan on the plastic-tablecloths; the company you go with; and without a doubt, above all, the kumquat tea.


Fo Guang Yuan Art Gallery: 141 Queen Street, Melbourne. Ph. 9642 2388.

A special meal with a special Buzz, or: we eat and swoon over ezard.

I was a very lucky girl last Tuesday. Buzz kept the venue of our special meal under wraps brilliantly (in fact a little too brilliantly and I now know he is an excellent trickster!) and we ate to my absolute joy at ezard, one of Melbourne’s finest restaurants and one which had already earned my respect on an earlier visit when it provided me with a vegan meal approaching perfection. This visit was no different, so indulge me while I describe it in loving detail and have a little bit of drool dribbling down my chin (you won’t be able to see this. But it will be happening).

ezard specialises in degustation, many courses of a couple of bites each designed to show off the abilities of the chef, allow the diner a taste of everything, and introduce a bit of experimentation into the meal. ezard runs a vegetarian degustation menu with a footnote that vegan meals are available on request. We chose the a la carte menu, but to know that a vegan degustation is possible makes me very, very excited. On each occasion I’ve eaten there the vegan meal has been prepared with no less care or consideration than other meals, which is an absolute boon when you consider that so many chefs consider veg*n food either a hindrance, an annoyance, or an abomination (Gordon Ramsay and Anthony Bourdain … I am blowing raspberries at you). On my first visit I made sure to tell the waiter how much I appreciated that ezard prepares such food, and was thrilled when he told met that the chef had put a lot of work into the vegetarian menu and was very proud of it – now that is a chef who is interested in food and creation and experimentation, not one who is unable to see past the butcher’s shop.

The meal started well when our waiter brought an extra dipping plate of olive oil to the table as the standard oil had been infused with parmesan.


This kind of active thoughtfulness continued throughout the meal, and is why the service at ezard is truly magnificent. Unfortunately I wasn’t sure if I could eat the bread (it’s brought in from babka – does anyone know if that’s dairy-free?) but that didn’t stop me dipping my finger in the oil and then sticking it right into the condiments. Two of the three were vegan: a startling sugar and chilli combination that started off tasting like a sugar cube and ended up with a mule’s kick of the red stuff; and a Szechuan pepper combination that was dark, smoky and sweet, and ended up being repeatedly dunked by my finger.

The complimentary appetiser was a red miso soup with lemon, wakame, sesame seed and tofu.


The lemon was an unexpected and surprising addition, which if mishandled could have turned the fresh miso into LemSip … but obviously it wasn’t and instead lent a very Chinese flavour to the Japanese soup. The sesame seeds also contributed something unusual, counteracting the tart acidity of the lemon with their nutty, neutral taste.

My entrée was an Asian gazpacho with avocado tempura and a fennel salad. The gazpacho was a tangy with a soft undernote of what I thought was basil; it was orange rather than the regulation green and had a thick pureed texture that contrasted well with the soft fennel.


The gazpacho was totally lick-the-plate-clean-with-your-fingers-in-public. The fennel salad was tart and tangy, complementing the soft texture of the thin fennel slices, with a smidgen of pungent coriander throughout. This again contrasted well with the tempura avocado, which was soft and slick with whole pieces of fresh, unblemished avocado. The first time I had this dish the avocado taste was untouched by the heat of the tempura (you know how it gets a different taste when heated? None of that – I thought they must have flash fried it at an incredible temperature and then cooled it almost immediately to achieve that bubbled tempura and totally raw tasting avocado, and I marvelled at it for months), but this time that heated taste was a little apparent, although with very little detriment to the dish overall.

My main was a dish that has continued to fascinate me. I didn’t love it, although I liked and admired it immensely – the reason I really enjoyed it was because it was so challenging and interesting, which left me feeling like I’d really experienced some top level cooking.


It was a witlof salad, with each witlof leaf separated and containing a piece of cold, cooked asparagus, peanuts and a sweet chilli-like sauce. Each fuzzy, furry, watery witlof leaf, slightly hairy on the tongue, was distinguished from the crisp asparagus and crunchy peanut, all of which was well-coated in a sweet, soft, fruity olive oil.


I really can’t say enough just how fascinated I am with this salad – the contrasts within it were superb and even though it wasn't my favourite taste of the night, it was certainly the one I’ve thought about most.

We ordered two sides, one a green bean with peanut and chilli sauce dish and the other Asian mushrooms. The green beans were well-oiled (not oily … well-oiled) and the chilli worked well with the salty peanuts scattered on top.


The Asian mushrooms had a sauce that was like one you might find in Chinatown, but was clearly made with fresh ingredients, a total lack of chemically additives, and which was garnished fantastically with fresh greens and crispy … things (if anyone can identify them from the picture, I’ll edit!).


Each flavour in each dish was considered, balanced, subtle and mathematic. Unlike my own cooking attempts, where packing a punch is the best I can hope for, these flavours were so well developed and carefully combined that every mouthful begged for slow and refined tasting.


My dessert was three sorbets – pear, blood orange and coconut (with a very lovely chocolate message!).


The pear was sweet and textured with vanilla undertones, leaving a lovely pear concentrate at the back and sides of the tongue.


The blood orange was Sorrento, Italy, where I once ate a lemon-lime granita in a vine-filled courtyard in the sun. It collapsed in icy crumbles, with the water diluting the intense citrus as it melted. The coconut was creamy, thick and rolled about the mouth until it softened and melted without aftertaste.

We finished with coffee (Buzz) and tea (me), which came properly – that is to say, with a teapot, a strainer, and a holder for the strainer. My one gripe here was the lack of soy milk – for a restaurant that so beautifully and fully catered for the non-dairy among us, this was a shame.

One other small thing was the $35 corkage. I understand that in a restaurant such as ezard the wines are chosen not for mark-up but to match the menu, and the corkage in part encourages guests to imbibe what is best suited, not what is on sale at the local bottle-o. However, as I couldn’t drink any of the wines or champagnes on the menu, a small reduction might have been nice. On the other hand, the prospect of $35 corkage made me want to make the most of it, so we had a bottle or Moet & Chandon Grand Vintage Rose, and let me tell you – it was bloody great, mate.

ezard truly excels in all it does. The service and food are equally matched and any meal that makes you leave feeling like you’ve really participated in something new and exciting, as well as just plain yummy, has hit the bullseye. When added to this is a real interest in feeding veg*ns with equal pleasure as omnis – in my opinion this is what makes a great chef. Teague Ezard is respected amongst peers and guests for his vision and technique, but to me the greatest compliment I can give is that I felt like I was just as much a valued guest as anyone else.


Incidentally, the meal was not ridiculously priced for what it was. In fact, I think we got the best of the bargain.


ezard: www.ezard.com.au. 187 Flinders Lane, Melbourne. Ph. 9639 6822.

A Study in Contrasts, or: I get some wicked service and some scatty service and think I need to forsake my weekend cooked breakfasts and take a stand.

Two recent eatering events have really highlighted the vast disparity in waiters' switched-on-edness to me. One experience left me ruminating on the value and warmth of a waiter who is engaged, knowledgeable and friendly, and the other left me just really pissy.

Item The First: On Friday night Buzz and I ate at Nudel Bar, on the recommendation of The Melbourne Veg Food Guide (and on the recommendation of my stomach, which demanded flat rice noodles and Asian-style vegies now, biatch). And as psychically predicted by stomach which led me directly and zombie-like to Nudel Bar, there were flat rice noodles with vegies on the menu, and I marvelled at the homing signal that my main digestory organ can emit when hungry.

When I ordered I asked the waiter if that dish contained any fish or oyster sauce. Clearly her psychic powers were on high alert too, because she asked if I was vegan, and said that she thought that there might be some non-veganness in there. She came back with a special menu that listed different dishes suitable for vegans, vegetarians, coeliacs and all other sorts of 'difficult' eaters (the menu didn't say that. I just made it up as an encapsulating term for us eatering freaks), and said that although my rice dish was on the vegan list, she had had a feeling that it did contain fish sauce, had asked the kitchen, lo and behold it did indeed and she recommended something else which she had also checked with the chefs. What a woman!

My vegan Mee Goreng was a huge serve, very tasty and all over just edging on to value for money at $19.80. What left me grinning and with a wish in my heart to return, however, was not the lovely crispy fried shallots or rich sauce, but the waiter's attention to detail, that she bothered to check with the kitchen for each dish, and that the restaurant even had a special list.already prepared. Nudel Bar, this is great service and the lovely waiter with red hair deserves a pay rise and a big hug.

Below: Vegan Mee Goreng at Nudel Bar.


Item The Second: Buzz and I often go to Gluttony on Smith Street for breakfast, partly because they have a separate vegan menu, partly because their cooked breakfasts are great, and partly because they are absolutely massive. In fact, when I was overseas I had particularly naughty thoughts about how many I could eat.

Below: big & tasty Gluttony breakfast for girls with hungry tummies


A few months ago we noticed a run of instances at Gluttony where, for example, my toast came with butter (and when sent back for rectification but never reappeared), or my plate came served with a little pot of mayonnaise which necessitated a whole re-litigation of how my breakfast was cooked, and removal of said breakfast once the kitchen had confirmed it was all very buttery. Mostly we were served by a very scatty waiter who appears to make a habit of not really listening and spacing out a bit. This made us abandon Gluttony for a time, but the lure of their chili beans and olive toast brought us back.

On the next few occasions we were served by a different and very capable waiter. Ms Capable Waiter informed us that vegan breakfasts were normally cooked in Nuttelex, whereas up until then we had been informed by Mr Scatty Waiter that it could only be cooked in oil. Ms Capable Waiter was very switched on and my meals came out squeaky-clean-vegan and yummy.

Today, however, marked a new low in Gluttony/MissT relations. We were served by Mr Scatty Waiter again. I very clearly said that I was vegan and wanted my meal cooked in Nuttelex. He said that they only did it in oil, which was confusing but I agreed - I'd already been pretty clear that no dairy was the go and said the 'v' word loud and clear.

Upon (late) arrival, a little pot of mayo nestled in my plate. It was served by Ms Capable Waiter again so I asked her what the sitch with the rest of my meal was. She went and checked with Scatty, who I clearly heard say "But she only said she wanted it cooked in oil!". This resulted in an outpouring of semi-whispered vitriol to our table from me. Scatty came over, said "my apologies!", took my plate away, and returned it less than a minute later without mayo, but with a piece of olive toast that had the lacy bit of fried egg white on it. Once I realised a few minutes later I tore it off, wrapped it in a napkin, handed it back to him and said why - he looked confused, smiled, walked off and did nothing more to work out why his customers were returning food into his hand.

A little later, he came over and asked if I wanted some mushrooms now - as it had been almost 15 minutes since my new meal came, and I already had mushrooms on my plate, this only served to raise the spectre of butter once again.

After a fair degree of intra-table sniping, I decided to ditch the passive-aggressivity and say something. On the way out I spoke to the owner, noting that we came here especially for the vegan menu and that this had happened on a number of occasions. He said he's speak to "him" about it, meaning either the chef or Scatty I suppose, but as he didn't spend that much time talking to me (or offering me a free meal or a discount or an apology or anything like that that I might do if I ran a restaurant that had a special vegan menu and I heard that a regular customer was frequently getting her meal un-veganized by my scatty staff).

If this was a restaurant that didn't especially advertise that it had a vegan menu, vegan cookies and was, quote, "vegan-friendly', I guess I would expect to have to fully explain how I needed my meal cooked each and every time, and I'd be prepared for some mistakes. But not here. Not more than half the time. Not any more.

It's a shame, because the chili beans really are fabulous.


Edit: It's a little later now, and although I intend to maintain the rage, there are a few things I'd like to clarify. Mr Scatty, I'm sure you're a lovely person although you'd probably agree that you do space out a little. Your service is always very smiley and friendly; it's just that I think you don't really pay much attention and that's why incidents like today's really get my goat (is that vegan or not?). I think you could be a lot better with a little application. Perhaps you should watch Ms Capable Waiter more and see how she is efficient, engaged and alert to her work. I would love to enthuse endlessly about Gluttony: it's got great food, coffee and juices; is not stingy on the cooked stuff; I really like the lino tables; there are always current newspapers lying around; and it's very puppy-friendly. But I don't want to have to be both alert and alarmed about my breakfast.

Thank you for your prompt attention,

Yours faithfully &tc,

Miss T


Nudel Bar: 76 Bourke Street, Melbourne. Ph 9662 9100
Gluttony It's A Sin: 278 Smith Street. Ph 9416 0336