Vegan Votering, or: Enlightened Cuisine as voted by the judges

Throwing themselves into the swing of things, recently newish Melbournians Steph and Danni organised a dinner at Enlightened Cuisine to celebrate the New Moon Festival. Sadly Danni was sent leaving on a jet plane, thereby missing the mock meat madness.

Having slavered over the 'lamb' curry last World Vegan Day, I was keen to sample more (and from now on I'll just drop the ' 's. You know I don't mean the real and nasty stuff, although I do actually feel a little uncomfortable writing meaty names which is interesting). The table of 9 decided to order from two of the banquets, very reasonably priced at $32 per person for 8 dishes.

So how to review 16 plates shared amongst 8 people, with Jo chipping in too?

By exercising our God-given right to vote and my geek-given ability to count on my fingers.

So here, voted by your judges (me, Buzz, Craig, Bec, Jo, Cindy, Michael, Sarah-Jane and Steph), are the winners of Banquets B1 and B2. Due to some confusion as to when the dishes arrived on the table, and which was announced as belonging to which, not each face-off consists of a B1 vs B2. Rearranging them would have sullied the total votes, but at the end I have tallied total votes for each Banquet to declare a Banquet Emperor. I also recommend you check out Steph's post and especially her fantastic pictures, which have me seriously considering the purchase of a fancy up-towards-the-ceiling flash attachment and even dragging my SLR around instead of just whipping out my little, damaged-because-I-dropped-it-lens-first-into-miso-soup-at-Peko-Peko point'n'shoot.

So to the count. Australia Votes!

In the fried entree section, no photographs were taken, but the spring roll (B1) trounced the curry puff (B2) 7 votes to 2.



In the souping, Shark Fin Soup (B1) played nicely with Sweet Corn and Crab (B2), 4 and 4 votes respectively.



Moving to mains, the Kung Po Prawn (B1), which squiggled in a way I imagine real prawn guts might, lost mightily to the fried Sweet and Sour Pork (B1), which was served with the very authentic tomato and pineapple chunks, 2 votes to 7.



In the Battle of the Tofus, the warm, rich and spicy Ma Pu Tofu (B1) lost to the overwhelming 5 Spice Tofu (B2), small artery-cloggers of pure cripsy fatty dollops, 2 votes to 7.


Next into the arena, the Sweet and Sour Prawns (B2), little fried prawnies in batter, were crushed by the immensity of the Kung Po Chicken in Nest (B2), which was cashews and chicken in a little basket of French Fries, 2 votes to 7. Yes they were fries. And yes, I forgot to take a picture of the prawnies because the 45 minute wait between entree and main had frayed my nerves a little and I was ready to jump on the table, perform the Stompy Troll Dance, gather all the plates in my Troll Apron, and run away into the night.



Each Banquet came with a serve of Stir-Fried Mixed Vegetables and Fried Rice, which we didn't vote on even though I was really liking the power of wielding the pen.

Finally, the Lychee Longan (B1) took on the Banana Fritter (B2). Michael declared his interests as a fully paid up member of the I Hate Nanis Club, of which Emily and he are Founding Co-Chairs and Chief Cheerleaders, and absented himself from voting because of his perverse aversion, and votes came out even at 4 each.



I am fully aware of the image that the picture above presents. Not only do I love crass, cheap humour, but it was the only picture that worked out and I love crass, cheap humour.

Geeking it up, we then voted for Best Entree (Shark Fin Soup tying with Spring Rolls at 4 votes each, with Jo not voting); Best Main in a two stage process (5 Spice Tofu finally scoring a massive 8 votes against Jo's Beef and Black Bean Sauce, a late entry); and again, a dead heat for dessert.

So to tally the Banquets (trumpets, drum roll, the envelope please): Banquet B1 scored a total of 27 points, and Banquet B2 scored 26.

But, as Red Pen Bitch, I have the veto! Banquet B2 also contained the two most popular dishes of the night, the 5 Spice Tofu (Overall Champion) and the Nest, and I therefore declare by the power vested in me by the State of Victoria and the Power of Greyskull, that Banquet B2 is the OVERLORD and WINNER.



Finally, calming me down from my voting bossiness, thoughtful Steph had brought us all Moon Cakes and told us the story behind the festival. Moon Cakes are ornate and decorative, and inside the sweet wrapping they are filled with sugary squidgy red bean. They were sweet in more ways than one.

A potluck in the south: TexMexxing, y'all

I eat more than I write, and that's why I am finally blogging about the TexMex potluck at Emily's house long after other, more diligent bloggers have done so. You can check out Kristy, Pip , Cindy and Michael (note there's two different links there to two different posts), and Lisa's posts too for more time-appropriate writing! Also, have a look at Lisa's chihuahua companion Kimba in her tequila-chihuahua outfit at Pip's blog. I will preface this post by saying that awesome as the food was, it takes second place to the adorableness of Kim's outfit (Sam wasn't having a bar of it).

The emergence of themed potlucks is, in my splendid opinion, a top hole idea. It gives structure and purpose, and allows us to really concentrate on finding something new and appropriate to cook. For pretendy-chefs like me who are always tempted to crawl back into the hole of easiness and comfort and prepare a boring variation on boring theme - and for me it's pasta five thousand ways - it's a real challenge and one that has the added benefit of expanding my personal repertoire as well letting everyone share in a special event.

Also, Emily bought a new tortilla skillet that she wanted to try out.

Pregan, my sister had made me some quesadillas which I devoured in cheesy gooeyness. I was eager to recreate them as non-quesadillas, and was happy to find that there are more than a few vegan versions floating around the interwebs. Some use soy cheese and some smashed red kidney beans to stick it all together, so I decided to take a bit of an experimental approach (and use up the one lonely can of kiddly beans I had a-mouldering in the cupboard ... no! it wasn't actually mouldy! I did not attempt to poison my friends!) and combine a bit of everything. I didn't take pictures of the preparation though as I was also cooking some food for my friend who recently had a gorgeous little girl (hello Minnie!) so my cookering that day was timed to the nanosecond.

I bought two rolls of Cheezly, the highly flavoured and highly orange nacho and the more neutral mozzarella, and grated the lot. Yep, the lot. I chopped some spring onions finely, diced some orange capsicum, used some sliced black olives form the fridge, sliced some spicy jalapenos, defrosted some corn (it's cheap and it lasts!), and smashed me up some o' them red kiddlies. I mixed it all together, and heated up Magic Pan.

I had a packet of El Paso Light Flour Tortillas - why get the full fat when I was just gonna sizzle it anyhows? - and I spooned the mixture into half the tortilla until it was about 1.5 centimetres high, folded it over into a moon shape, and then whacked it on to a pre-oiled Magic Pan.

Each non-quesadilla required a couple of minutes on each side, and there was a bit of trial and error in working out the boundary between nicely toasted and a bit too sizzled. However, none of them came out in such bad shape that I wasn't happy to present them to the potluck, so they're not really that hard to mess up. After they cooled I garnished them with some coriander.

Pip was kind enough to say she really liked them, and I think they came out ok. The kidney beans were very effective and coalescing all the ingredients, but who can seriously resist a great big handful of melted Cheezly?


I also made gazpacho, something I experimented with over the heatwave in February, and I can never get over how easy it is (and also I think of Red Dwarf so it makes me giggle).


Here's the recipe I tend to use to make a truckload, although there are some faaa-aaaancy variations out there that use black beans or watermelon too:

• 8 - 10 ripe tomatoes. It's better, although messier, to peel them.
  
• 1 orange or yellow capsicum
• 1 cucumber, sliced any way that your food processor will get at it
  
• a couple of stalks of spring onion
• a few cloves of garlic - I always like more
• a big slosh of lemon juice
• a slightly smaller slosh of olive oil if you want it a little less fattofied, but if you like it then feel free to splash it about some more (and use the good stuff; you'll taste it)
• parsely, coriander or other fresh herbs to taste
• red wine vingear to taste

Method: in the food processor until you think it looks good. You might like it more chunky and salsa-like than others, or you might prefer it baby-style pureed. Whatevs - you just can't mess this one up folks!

Back on the ranch, there were some truly stupendous TexMex offerings. I loved Lidia's Cowboy Beans which were beans with lots of mock meat including sausages and bacon, and which were accompanied by authentic (I think) cornbread, and Craig's chilli was hot hot hot!


Tim's chilli with corn, mushroom and chickpea was a good contrast in restraint, and the black beans, made by someone who's name I rudely forgot, were fascinating.



Vanessa made a fantastic paella with lemon wedges and artichokes, which I went back for long after I was full to have a little pick at, and a sangria that was, unlike festy sangrias I've had in Barcelona, not at all over spirited and very, very drinkable.


Tara made some unbelievably delicious salsa which I also got stuck into for thirds, and Lisa also made a fabulous dip - the creamiest, smoothest guacamole I've ever had. I didn't get a chance to try Cindy and Michael's green pumpkin seed mole from Veganomicon and I sorely regretted it.


And what would a potluck be without dessert? Kristy and Toby outdid themselves with two types of cupcake - tequila and chilli chocolate. I downed a tequila one and the icing was incredible - not enough to get you pished but definitely adults only!


There were two kinds of Mexican Wedding Biscuits, chocolate ones made by Cindy and some plain from Jo. They were both perfectly crumbly, and were complemented by some raw oatmeal cacao nib cookies which were fantastically sweet and sweetly accessorised with an ingredients list.


Finally, Pip and Tim made some churros. Yep, real, live, fried churros with melted chocolate. And cinnamon sugar. And lots of fatty sugariness - mmm-mmm-mmmm. They were fried and sweet and delish, and, like the sangria, better than what I've actually had in Spain. So there, Iberian Peninsula!


I didn't hang around much long after the obligatory tequila; Sam had had a bit of a testing night after not wanting to play with the other puppies and was clearly rejecting this attempt to introduce he and Kimba to their culture-of-origin.


In any case, I was in a world of stuffed-belly and the introduction of hard spirits might have seen me burst like Bec's awesome pinata after she and Toby had demonstrated their proficiency at various martial arts on it:



But seeing as there was an absolute mountain of lollies from Rishon's inside the pinata, I was glad I did. Ain't they purdy?

Vegans of Melbourne: I'm letting the cat out of the bag. We've tried to keep it our dirty little secret for far too long. Miaow.

There's a little place where things are cheap. Cheap, tasty and vegan. Cheap and plentiful. Cheap and delicious. Really, really cheap.

La Panella in High Street, Preston, has long been the northern vegans' secret stash of cheap-as-chips bakery treats. Doughnuts, pies, sausage rolls, apple slices, adorable little jam tarts in two flavours, coffee scrolls, pull-apart fruit buns ... no animal products, no fuss, no sky high prices.

Buzz and recently 'found' ourselves nearby (read: I planned our route that day specifically so we'd be passing by at lunchtime. I make no excuses and feel no shame) and the drizzly, rainy day meant that we ended up eating in the car like deros, or Biggest Loser contestants in their application video. Awesome.

Another word about cheapness (cheapery?). I'm not sure if it's the combination of the state of Preston real estate or La Panella's devotion to Supreme Master TV, or perhaps both, but La Panella's prices remind me of 1986 when lemonade icypoles cost 10 cents from the tuckshop, or 1993 when you could get a little paper bag full of Mates from the milk bar at the bus stop for 20 cents, or 1996 when I could (pregan) get a packet of sour cream and chives chips and a Freddo Frog for $1 from the canteen. Last year I took in doughnuts to work for my birthday, and fed 25 people on $17. As the Birthday Cake Monitor, I can confirm that the usual birthday cake required was about $35, so a win for vegan eatering there!

So back in the car, Buzz and I probably didn't need a pie and a doughnut each and a sausage roll to share. Shut up please. But my goodness... I'd never had one of the pies before and was more than taken aback at the TVP recreation of gristle and mince - Buzz so much so that he closely examined a number of little lumps in minute detail before declaring himself satisfied. Sweet!


The pie pastry is a little wholemealy and I have to admit that I don't really remember what a meat (bone/sinew/gristle/innards/bones) pie tastes like, but I know that this one made me think about cold days at the footy which is always a positive sign of pie authenticity. The inside was saucey-gravy-like and quite chewy, and I had to stifle an inner urge to start screaming about white maggots and yelling "Baaaaaaallll!" (I do that at the footy anyway; this was just me accessing my inner bogan).


The sausage roll (that's a sossy roll to you) was lighter coloured inside with a lightly chewy texture enclosed in flaky pastry. Unlike the Fry's version which is more pig-in-blanket, this one is all mushy and incorporated. Devastatingly, we hadn't rationed our tomato sauce properly and were left a little unsauced for this one (the picture above is of Buzz's half. When I said that "we" failed to ration the sauce, I meant that "he" failed to ration the sauce and that "I" subsequently missed out), but I found it lightly spiced with a well textured sausagey part, and fantastic flakiness.


And a choc jam doughnut ... let's face it, doughnuts rock. Boiling hot from the fryer with sweet soft dough, the constant expectation of an explosion of dribbling jam at any moment and a cool, sickly sweet icing top to sink your teeth through with purdy lil' sprinkles on the side, they are the best kind of junk food - there's absolutely nothing redeemable about them at all (c'mon. We've all pretended that pizza is bread and veggies and that chips are potato). This one was everything I remembered about them, including the mild sense of regret coupled with a strange sense of sugar-rush satisfaction at the end.

A number of other bloggers have expressed their heartfelt and humble appreciation of the mighty La Panella: Pip, Lisa, and Cindy and Michael amongst others (I'll just note here that Michael is quite right when he says that Cindy's homemade sossy rolls are better; Buzz believes the same and even rates Cindy's over the meaty version). I strongly suggest that you read these blog as well to convince yourselves that I am not over-exaggerating the wonder of cheap, plentiful, vegan bakery goodness.

Trying out TVP, or: I am a little unnerved

I did not blog about the vegan yum cha/bike ride at Vegie Hut, Box Hill. I did not take any photos either. I did however kick myself very hard under the table because I forgot to put the battery back in my camera, so I am obliged to leave recording of the day in the hands of Michael & Cindy, Lisa, and Kristy & Toby who were not so stupid. Suffice it to say, the food was varied, the company grand, and the ordering prowess exhibited by the experienced Kristy and Toby more than fit the bill (which ended up ridiculously cheap).

After the lunch we had a wander around Box Hill, visiting a vegetarian bakery (vegan items indicated with two - not one, but two! - blue Winne the Pooh stamps) and a vegetarian grocery, the name of which escapes me.

I made a number of mockery purchases there, in line with my recent exploration of mock meat, lugging home some items which will be the subject of a future Mockumentary post and also a very large, very cheap bag of Textured Vegetable Protein.

The TVP, defatted soybean for those who read labels, has to be reconstituted with boiling water before being added to cookering. To begin the experimentation I thought it safest and most palatable to add it to dishes that I was already confident making, so I whacked it in a pea and mushroom rogan josh curry, and a pasta (oh! What a surprise! Miss T eating pasta!).

My first mistake was overestimating. The packet said X cups TVP to Y cups water; I decided that (2 x X) would require (2 x Y). Duh-doooowwww! I ended up with an enormous, enormous, humungo-plus, super-size me bowl of wet and sloppy this:

To make the curry I used about 3/4 of a jar of Patak's Rogan Josh sauce. Quelle surprise! I used a pre-prepared sauce! I am a shopper not a cooker. My forte is purchasing. Anyway, it's relatively cheap, tastes good, is low in calories and fat, and requires a whole lot less effort and mess to prepare. Moving on!

Usually the sauce and a tin of minced tomatoes, combined with mushroom and pea, is red and sloppy enough. The addition of the TVP resulted in:


Aha! The addition of more tomatoes resulted in:


... and finally, joined by the love of my herby life coriander, this:


The curry was very good, but I was unnerved by the chewy minceyness of the TVP. It was interesting but, as I should have expected when cooking a dish that I cook often and happily enough, I didn't feel that the TVP made my curry so-extra-fantabulous-I'll-never-make-it-any-other-way-again. I will make it again, just not exclusively. TVP and I will have an open relationship.


With a ridiculous amount of TVP left in the fridge, I knocked up my neverfail can't-be-arsed dinner, generally comprising pasta, tinned tomatoes, whatever veggies are in the fridge but preferably eggplant, and two-day-tongue-burning quantities of fresh garlic. Buzz assisted me in his capacity of general helperer, photographer and passer-of-things-to-me/substitute-pot-stirrer-when-I-need-to-leave-the room guy. I like to think that when cooking I look serious, professional and tidy. This photograph should surely disabuse anyone else of that notion too. Note green sparkly glasses (with non-prescription lenses as I had just bought the frames and hadn't been to the optometrist, but wanted to wear them around anyway); peachypinky t-shirt; hot pink kitchen accessories and nasty kitchen tiles. Nigella I am Not!


As with the curry I needed to add a considerable amount more of tomatoeyness to compensate for the physical bulk and lack of distinct flavour of the TVP. Here I added a tin of minced tomatoes, a tin of cherry tomatoes and a good few dollops of tomato paste.


I can't really remember what meaty spag bol tastes like, but the texture of the TVP in this sauce was eerily familiar. There were a considerable number of veggies in the sauce which offset the mince-like texture and added more familiar flavours, but the TVP added a certain creaminess which reminded me of the cashew cream pasta from Vegan YumYum that Buzz and I made a while ago.


Again, I really enjoyed this pasta but didn't really feel that it added much to what I normally make. I suppose that in general this is my position on meat alternatives/substitutes/replacers - having not eaten it in so long, I really have no need for it. It is more like one of a number of different kinds of artillery in my cookering arsenal rather than my secret weapon. It's something I use sometimes like I use basil or pastry or sugar, not something I rely upon to recreate a dish I only know how to make with the real thing. With that in mind, in the future I think I'll use the rest of the dried TVP sitting in my fridge to make something new, rather than use it to augment dishes that I already think taste just fine without it.

The Mockarena, or: I cook a whole lot of mock meat

I've never really been the biggest cheerleader for mock meat. It's usually a soy-based, chemically attempt to replicate something that I find revolting, and I think it a gives the wrong impression to oblivious omnis - either that all veg*ns really really want to eat meat; that we will do anything to substitute it; or that they'd be better off sticking with the real flesh if that's the alternative.

But that's not to say that I wouldn't give it whirl. I discovered the Fry's range in my Safeway up in the very top left corner of the top shelf in a freezer far far away ... but they did have the sausage rolls (already eaten and blogged by Pip), schnitzels and cottage pie, and also three kinds of Syndian burgers. I got stupidly excited and bought everything except the pie, wanting (natch!) to help Safeway know that there were customers for these products regardless of the Freezer Siberia they were banished to.

All this made for a night full of mock meats and chewy protein.


Buzz and I had one schnitzel, one sausage roll and one country style veggie burger each, with a satay tofu mix that I made up from our pizza leftovers (satay tofu, onion, garlic, capsicum and a dash of lime juice ... God I felt thrifty!). I added some coriander, and just fyi, people who don't like coriander are not my friends.



I found that the sausage rolls cooked a lot quicker than the estimted 40 minutes, which threw my (already poor) timing out. The schnitzels, yay me, came out crispy as intended. The veggie burgers, however, responded poorly to baking. They collapsed and thawed unevenly, and I was forced to put them in a pan with some olive oil to help then fry up a little and bind the outer bits together. Even so, they were still crumbly and I think they'd be better used thawed.

I served them with two sauces - a sweet chilli soy and a mustard/tomato relish. I tried to make the photos below look a little Nigella-organic-ceramic but with my usual slatternly housekeeping there are splatters all over the bowls. Nonetheless, I'm posting it because of my darling little avocado bowls - aren't they fantastic?


The veggie burgers, despite their unauspicious beginnings, tasted very fresh and full of parsnip. I've just noticed on the Syndian website that their formal name is 'Country Whispers', which does nothing to make me do anything but snigger, but I was touched by this little statement:

Original products with true flavors: we do our best to bring out the original flavors of the ingredients and do not attempt to imitate another ingredient, for that reason we have no meat or cheese like products, or imitation to those flavor. Given all possible ingredients we will continue to produce our products the way we are producing them now. Enjoy what is real, not what is make believe!

Awww! And that's all (sic).


Of the Fry's range, I could tell that the sausage roll was my favourite because I found myself leaving it until last. Like Pip points out, they're more in the pig-in-a-blanket mold than Four'n'Twenty. The pastry was flaky and light whilst the filling was lightly spiced and nicely chewy without ickily bringing to mind tendons and ligaments.



My grandma was Viennese, and as an omnivorous child I loved to get dressed up in my little red dirndl and go with her to the Austrian Club where I would get to order schnizel and chips off the kids' menu. Although I don't particularly recall the taste of schnitzel it's one of those childhood dishes that is inextricably bound up with love and family and excitement. Schnitzel has always occupied a little warm place in my heart for the link it provides with my grandma and the family before her that we never knew.

This Fry's schnitzel, however, had crispiness as its main virtue (and I was pretty darn proud that I got that first go, which sadly illustrates the extent of my cookering skills). The texture was thick and rather realistic I think, but was thin enough not to overwhelm. The taste was a bit forgettable, but not at all objectionable and I think I might even have a go at a parma with the leftovers (a meat parma being one of my many uneaten meaty meals ... when you ditch the flesh at 10 you don't really get to get into those pub meals).



So, after the mock-meat feast, the sausages will definitely be making a repeat appearance, although I suspect that that the recipe in Tempting Tempeh could give them a run for their money. Perhaps that's where I can next put my pastry to use...

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.