Addis Ababa Cafe

Addis has long been a favourite of mine. I was originally introduced to it by Jean, who lives just around the corner but i suspect would travel miles for this food if she had to! it was my ex-partner's favourite, and one of the few places where he could eat meat and i could eat decent vegetarian. Decent is an understatement, this food is really really good. It has spice, without the burning heat of some indian or thai food. Vego choices: Misir Wett (red split lentils cooked in spicy berbere sauce - this one does have a kick to it!), Yekik Alicha (yellow split peas cooked with onion turmeric and herbs - my personal favourite), and Fosolia (beans with carrots, garlic, ginger and onion). All of these are served with injera - Ethiopian bread made with fermented rice flour that has the texture of a crumpet but big and flat for scooping up the lentils and veg with a delicious tang to it - but this can be an acquired taste, particularly as it's unexpected and not a taste often found in western diets; it reminds me of sourdough bread.

The restaurant is expanding it's catering for vegos and vegans with a monthly vego/vegan banquet. I went last month with kirrilly, jean and carol for a feast of seven exclusively vegan dishes with injeras for $25 each. You don't have to worry that it might not be vego - everything is. The restaurant was packed - this place has great word of mouth. You can get emails on upcoming banquets by joining the Addis Ababa group on Facebook. At the banquet, there were the three standard vego offerings, a spinach dish, another spicy berbere dish this time with veg, a cabbage and potato dish, and a green lentil dish with hints of cardamom spice. We got a huge take home bag - take your loosest pants with you, there's no shortage of food! No desserts, i don't think these are part of the ethiopian food culture, but ethiopian coffee or tea for afters is delicious.

Sign up for the banquet notices, or call the number below for info, and take your friends, this is truly a vego delight!

462 Port Road, West Hindmarsh, 8241 5185

Viva Sustainable Foods

Viva Sustainable Foods has recently opened on Magill Road, located within a growing cluster of organic and alternative coffee, hair and food shops. I came away so inspired. The shop has a selection of organic products, including unusual ones like organic Asian noodles, and all it's packaging is biodegradable, but it's the food that I'll go back for again and again. If I'd had a trolley with me to carry it all home, i would have bought even more, but as it was i almost put my shoulder out carrying what i did buy, i just couldn't stop! They have artisan and Beach Organics bread - i first came across Beach Organics at Willunga Markets, given that's a long way from where i live, i'm delighted they are branching out, i also saw their stall at the Rundle Street Markets a couple of weeks ago - the sourdough bread is hearty and thick and deliciously sour and wheaty. To have with it, i bought goats labne, which is made by the owner's father. This was undoubtedly the best thing i've ever eaten - little soft rounds of yoghourty cheese, rolled in herbs (with just a touch of mint, genius) and garlic olive oil - slathered on the beach organic bread was divine. I drizzled the oil over pasta the next day, so not a single drop of this fantastic flavour was lost. i also bought pumpkin and almond soup with caramelised onions to take home for lunch - lovely combo. The shop has a host of take home food - vegan and vegetarian as well as meat. The day i was there i was incredibly tempted by the vegan shepherds pie in individual roast capsicums - but weight and space issues prevailed! The shop has a long shared table in a room behind for eating in lunch and dinner. i haven't eaten in yet, but on the basis of what i've had so far, i would certainly recommend it. Or take plenty of carrying bags and strong arms and stock up!

Viva Sustainable Food store on 349 Magill Rd, St Morris SA 5068, opening Hours are 9am-5.30pm, Tues-Sat

T-Bar Tea Salon, Rundle Mall and Central Markets

To celebrate 'almost-spring' on Saturday (warm breeze, short sleeves, and that 'almost-spring' shift in the air, after a cold, wet winter), I had an iced tea from one of my favourite cafes in Adelaide, T-Bar. Green iced tea with lemon. Usually it has a smokey quality, or am I getting it confused with the black iced tea? Proper tea, anyway, not sugary, weak pretend-tea in a bottle. This is the good stuff. Okay, their vego options aren't extensive - a bap with pumpkin, feta, pesto, snow pea sprouts and sun-dried tomatos; and a falafel salad. If you're at the Rundle Mall shop, make sure you ask for the falafel salad to come with the green tossed salad and the cous cous salad, otherwise it's just lettuce, tomato and onion, though at the Central Market they do a good tossed salad with it already. But their tea selection is to die for. As are their Portuguese tarts - I adore these little flaky custard tarts, so much better than the stody bland bakery version - these are light and laced with cinnamon with a slightly caramelised top, and as Portuguese tarts go, these are far and away the best on offer in Adelaide. And if you're going, also try the green tea smoothie - slightly bitter, slightly sweet, and cold, fantastic in summer. Roll on warm weather!

You can check out their teas here
http://www.tbar.com.au/home

Chocolate Bean Cafe, Adelaide

The Chocolate Bean Cafe is a gorgeous space - a little bit bohemian, warm and welcoming, intimate yet with space for sitting alone and for looking outside for some street-gazing. And the food...They have yummy vegan cakes (so hard to find!) like the little chai cake piled with icing, or their choc and walnut cakes. Unfortunately, they don't have vegan savouries - though the vegetarian wrap will be vegan without the pesto. I don't often eat lunch here, I used to when I was a non-vego and worked on Grenfell Street at the East Terrace end, but these days I go mainly for the cakes and hot chocolates - all available with soy milk. However, I had lunch there last week with my friend Leanne, who is going through culture shock after moving to Adelaide from travelling for a long time, so I knew this would be a good way to introduce her to some of the lovelier parts of Adelaide. She had a toastie with the lot, I had the vegetarian wrap. The menu also has vego quiche and an avocado, tomato and cheese toastie (status of cheese unknown!).

Unfortunately the day we were there, there was a problem with the fire alarm going off. As we were sitting downstairs, rather than up, we were in amongst the noise and the traffic of new customers and the smells of toasting. If you go, get a table upstairs, it's more conducive to chatting and sipping. The vegie wrap is good - a little bit different from the usual fare with tomato, avocado, mushrooms, spanish onion, pesto and capsicum. But go there for the cakes and chocolate with a friend or by yourself with a good book for a space where you can sip and indulge as long as you like.

Chocolate Bean is on 18 Union Street Adelaide, ph: 8359 3399. You can excite your chocolate senses with their menu, which can be found at: http://www.chocolatebean.com/about.htm

Parisis at Magill

As a vegetarian, one is constantly called upon to account for this decision, particularly the boundaries of what one does and doesn’t eat. At a work lunch recently I had this conversation again. I told the story about how, when I first became a vegetarian, I borrowed another vegetarian’s pithy statement of what they will and won’t eat: ‘I don’t eat anything with a face’. But then someone gleefully, clearly thinking they’d ‘caught me out’ (I’ve discovered that lots of non-vegetarians love to do this, for example, by checking whether your shoes are leather, pointed out that this statement didn’t include shellfish, which I didn’t eat. So I changed my motto to ‘I don’t eat anything with a butt’. But, I’ve recently decided that what actually defines a vegetarian is someone engaged in continuous suspicious questioning of confused wait staff about whether their cheese is vegetarian. Yes, the perennial cheese issue arose again at Parisis, where I eat a lot given I live and work nearby.

Parisis has a fantastic Pasta Verde - spaghetti with peas, zucchini, broccoli, baby spinach, white wine, garlic and parmesan - it's aromatic and satisfying, beautifully green and garlicky. But the parmesan...I rang to order Pasta Verde takeaway for lunch for me and my friend Sarah (who loves this dish as much as I do), and asked the waitress whether the cheese contained animal rennet. She replied 'no', but, and this is perhaps a new measure of my cheese paranoia, it just didn't seem right. She quickly said that she'd just confirm that with the chef, yelled out to him, and Iheard the reply 'no'. Okay, it's pretty hard to get parmesan without animal rennet (if you're looking, try the sheep's milk pecorino at Say Cheese in the Central Market - they v. helpfully put a green sticker on all non-animal rennet cheeses). Unless I actually demand to go into the kitchen and look at the cheese myself, I fear I may never get a definitive answer to this question. And I'm getting increasingly tired of explaining animal rennet to people who work with food. Not that I did at Parisis, I just took the easy option and ordered it without cheese. And this is my new solution - no cheese. Lactose and I have always had a love/hate relationship anyway.

Do try the Pasta Verde - it's a green-vegetable lover's delight. And the Pizza Zucca (tomato, fetta, roast pumpkin, olives, mushrooms and pistachio nuts) is a refreshingly different vego pizza that tastes fantastic, though they also have the more traditional Vegetarian as well (tomato, bocconcini, artichoke, zucchini, eggplant, capsicum, spanish onion and olives). The status of the cheese is anyone's guess!

Parisis is at 613 Magill Road, Magill, ph: 8331884.

Nikitas Ouzeri

Well, I was a bit reluctant when I put up the 'T Chow' and 'Not Coffee' posts, because these were my first lukewarm review. However, it seems I've quickly come round to the idea of brutal honesty, justified in the name of good vego food (and good food generally) because this post is less than lukewarm! Dining at Nikitas starkly highlighted the vast difference between meat-eaters' and vegos' dining experiences. The people I was with enjoyed their meals and I know other people who've been here and had good things to say about it.

However, my meal was actually inedible.

First things first, the dips platter. This was good, though the fact that the dips were fridge temperature was offputting and blunted the flavour, particularly of the eggplant salad. There were five dips, and as I'd told the waiter I was vegetarian, he pointed out that 4 of the 5 choices were okay for me to eat, which is a pretty good vego ratio, one is often our lot. The stand outs were the feta cheese and olive dip, which was salty and creamy, and the garlic dip, which was beautifully garlicky.

There wasn't a single vegetarian main dish offered. Greek food can be heavily meat-oriented, but there are also divine Greek vego dishes (I know, I love Greek food and eat it often, see post on Argo's below), so I don't think it's inauthentic to include vego dishes on a Greek menu. As an alternative, I asked for the spanakopita entree to come as a main meal, and the waiter was very accommodating. However, it had clearly been re-heated in the microwave, and then put under a grill or in an oven for a few minutes, because only the top thin layer of pastry was slightly crisp, the rest soggy and claggy. The spinach was overcooked until it was dark and tasteless, even before its stint in the microwave, and the bottom was nauseatingly oily. This type of cooking is how spinach gets such a bad name, I took a few bites and left the rest - thankfully I ate a lot of dip beforehand. The sides were chips (yes, seriously) and 'salad', of the shredded-lettuce-and-chunk-of-tasteless-tomato genre.

There were only three tea choices, and only one non-caffeinated (not even peppermint) - I chose chamomile to try and settle my stomach.

Unfortunately, I can't even say good things about the ambience and decor. The restaurant was cold and the cake cabinet dark, creating a sense of emptiness, though there were four tables full of people. As well as the clearly refridgerated dips and tomatoes, from my table I could see a freezer stuffed full of frozen seafood, further compounding my sense that the food at this restaurant lacks freshness and the chefs are not passionate about good ingredients. The space lacked a sense of warmth and conviviality, and clearly there was little joy in the food or cooking.

If you're eating on Henley Beach Road, there are much better options (like the Abyssinian, for example) so do avoid this one.

Not Coffee

I'm not sure how I feel about including this cafe - I've only had one dish, though on the day I was there, the other vego choices included a pumpkin soup, a zucchini slice, and a vegetarian bap (Soft white bread is so ubiquitous these days, it really frustrates me, it's not just this cafe that attracts my ire over this. There are so many fantastic breads out there - for goodness sakes, be bold restauranteurs and give multigrain and sour dough a whirl!) I'm not sure if I want/need to be comprehensive in this blog - some restaurants I've been to I'm holding off on writing up until I've been there more times and had more of their selection of dishes. So think of this posting as a snippet, a little possibility, rather than a 'set in stone' assessment of the restaurant's menu (not that any of my other posts aim to that either!)

I had a vegetable and haloumi burger. But Uncle Albert's veg burger, (see post below) really raised the bar in the burger stakes. This burger was a toasted white roll, airy and nothing-y, which is why I don't like white bread generally, filled with roasted veges, mainly pumpkin and some zucchini, with reasonable flavour (though I would have liked there to be more caramelisation on the veg, they were a bit steamy, rather than browned) and some thin slices of melted haloumi cheese - it also would have been better with thicker slices of cheese. The burger came with a huge (and I mean huge!) serve of french fries, and a very nicely dressed salad. It's a big meal, and was reasonably priced, the cafe is light and airy, though the music was kind of loud, and the service was good. The cafe is also an art space, so there is some interesting art here too. As a choice for veg meals on Rundle Street (though Vego and Loving It will always win out here!) this is not a bad option. If you can't get to Albert's, but you need a burger, and you're with friends who don't want to go to a full vege restaurant, then head on in. My friend Kirrilly had the baked beans and egg on toast which was good - not vego though.

The two chows - Ky Chow and T Chow

I've visited both of these this week, so I've put them together here. I was introduced to both by my friend Laura, and I'm now a regular visitor to Ky Chow (especially since my ex and I broke up, he really hates this restaurant!) but last night was my first time at T Chow, and possibly my last. Laura loves the food at both, but the quality of the vego menus is vastly different, and the ambience as well. Ky Chow is wood and white and noisy and lively whereas T Chow is more traditional Chinese restaurant decor. The latter is better for large groups though, which we were.

Going with the good news first, Ky Chow's has ten vego choices. And a vego fried rice. Plus 4 vego entrees. I'm working my way through the menu, so I can only review what I've had so far. The Salt and Pepper Bean Curd is garlicky, with a light crispy batter (though if you get this to take away, by the time you get it home it's a bit soggy, so eat this one in house) and silky tofu. S&P Tofu can be done badly, I've tried this dish at other Gouger Street restaurants, and can safely claim Ky Chow is the best by far. And the Shallot Pan Cakes - how I love these! Flaky, buttery, oniony, divine! My mouth is watering as I write this, I could eat one of these right now. (Ky Chow also have Veg Spring Rolls and a Veg Roll, both of which are good, but it's hard to go past the Tofu and the Pan Cakes). The Hot and Sour Vegetarian Hot Pot is hot and sour in exactly the right combination, with glass noodles and lots of green Asian veg. Ky Chow's BBC (bean curd, broad beans and chinese chutney) is, like the Tofu, the best of its kind on Gouger Street, spicy and nourishing and really well presented, the beans are a lovely deep green and the chillies deep red with lots of firm tofu. The Mixed Green Veg with Garlic is delicious - I love lots of garlic, and this has plenty, but always erring on the side of 'just right', and the Veg Fried Rice is vegetably and tasty. (One more thing, they have this plum drink, I can't remember what it's called, but it's thick and smoky and sweet - a bit of an acquired taste, but if you love Lapsang Souchong tea, you'll love this.)(And another one more thing! Be careful if you're getting a doggy bag and the other dishes are meat - I've ended up with them all in the one container, so explain to the waitress that you want separate containers.)

Ky Chow is at 27-29 Gouger Street, Phone: 8221 5411 They're always incredibly busy, but you can usually get a table, the turnover is fast.

Okay, the not so good news, T Chow. Let me say first off, they were incredibly accommodating. We had a table of 10 people, two of us are vego, one who eats seafood but not other meats, and one mostly vego. We ordered a vegetarian and seafood banquet - this wasn't on the menu, so they made it up especially for us. The waiter came over and ran through what he could include, and it was a big selection. The fact that we had a vego and seafood banquet may have been part of the downfall here - the entrees were 'cabbage rolls', 'fish balls' and 'veg spring rolls'. The 'cabbage rolls' were prawn, which I found out after I bit into it (I feel so dirty!) and the spring rolls were okay (but again, I'm not a fan of deep fried, so this may account for my reaction). The mains were BBC (not as good as Ky Chow, the presentation seemed messier, and it just didn't seem as fresh and zingy), bamboo shoots with vegetables - a flat dish of vegetables topped with a gelatinous pale brown sauce, which was kind of foamy and wet loofah-like in the mouth, vegetarian fried rice (not bad), veg noodles (not excited by these, but they were okay) and what we collectively decided was called a veg, tofu and glass noodle hot pot - this unfortunately really lacked flavour, and the tofu was dry and chewy. I feel a little bad writing all this - it's my first non-complimentary review, and I'm going against general opinion here, one web post says "Adelaide's foodies claim that this Chinese eatery is the best with good reason". But this is the difference when you eat out as a vegetarian - the restaurant is famous for their duck, but their vego meals leave a bit to be desired. It wasn't inedible, don't get me wrong, and if you go there, the BBC is your best option. The meat and seafood eaters were impressed, so you can safely go there with friends and have something decent from the menu, just don't expect it to light your fire. (Or fill you up, I was starving by the time I got home! Plan on having a second supper.)

T Chow is in Chinatown at 68 Moonta St, Adelaide - (08) 8410 1413

Uncle Albert's Cafe, Norwood

Despite its name (which, I wrongly thought, promised a menu heavily centred on quiche lorraine and 'salad' with iceberg lettuce and partly green tomatoes kept in the fridge), this cafe has the best vegie burger outside of a vegetarian restaurant! (Nor does it feature quiche lorraine - the non-veg menu is really good, and I hear the chicken burger is excellent, should you enjoy dead animal flesh!) I found this place while on my way to Vego to Go in the Norwood Mall, which as it turns out is closed on a Sunday. The day was freezing, we were starving, saw the burger on the menu outside, and heaps of people warm and cosy inside, so went in. I'm glad we did. The burger has a crunchy, crusty, very chickpea and vegetable patty (not heavy on the flour, or the frozen peas, which is so often the case) with really fresh mixed salad leaves (no shredded ice berg in sight), tasty thick slices of a good ripe tomato, thickly grated carrot, home made mayonnaise and pesto on a white roll. As a rule, I'm not a fan of white bread, so my only change, if I had to make one, would be to wholemeal bread, but this white roll was so good, lovely soft and floury, I secretly loved it!

Their other vego options are a pumpkin cannelloni and a frittata. I went back here a couple of days ago, but the lure of the burger was too strong. So, I can't tell you how worthwhile these others are.

You can find Uncle Albert's in the Norwood Mall off The Parade. Ph: 08 8332 2565

Vietnam Restaurant

This is one of my favourite Adelaide restaurants, so I was keen to check out how they catered for vegetarians. There aren't a lot of vege options, but what they have is very, very good!

I had Vegetarian Rice Hot Pot. This was divine - warm, flavoursome, hearty (but I didn't ask them whether they used any non-vege stocks or sauces like fish sauce - sorry guys, lax standards, I couldn't bear it if I didn't get to eat it! So if you're going, and you're a stronger person than me, check these things out.) The only other vege option is a Vegetarian Salad, and on the night I was there they had an entree of salt and pepper eggplant - though I'm a bit wary of deep fried eggplant, it tends to get oily, so I didn't try this one so can't know for sure. You see what I mean about limited options! The Chinese menu has more vege options, so these might be worth checking out.

Hmm...I'm going to have to go back here, there's clearly more work to be done!

Vietnam is at 73 Addison Road, Pennington, ph: 8447 3395

Argo in Port Adelaide

I'm learning to drive, so was in Port Adelaide one Sunday with my lovely ex, who is still kindly teaching me. All those near misses and yelling makes you hungry, so we walked around until we found Argo on Commercial Road. This place was great. I had Pilafi, which is a cooked rice, Gigantes Fournou, giant beans in a tomato, capsicum, onion and herb sauce, and Kolokythokeftedes, zucchini rissoles with fetta cheese. The Pilafi was buttery and delicious, the beans had a divine depth of flavour and I was so excited to find legumes, and well cooked tasy legumes at that, on a menu. The rissoles were tasty, but they were breadcrumbed and deep fried, and I had been expecting a lighter and fresher dish - but that's just my personal taste, I'm not a fan of fried, so if you enjoy it, you'll love these. On the day I was there, the special was Bean Soup - more legumes! - but I didn't try this one. Let me know if you do, and if so, how it was, I'm guessing pretty good based on the rest of the food. Oh, and the serves are huge.

Argo is at 45 Commercial Road, Port Adelaide, ph: 8241 2223. I highly recommend it!

Goodlife Modern Organic Pizza

I had high hopes for this restaurant - it's organic, carbon neutral, and obviously cares about good food and the planet, so I assumed it would be vegetarian friendly. I was a huge fan before I re-vegetarianised. But, on the night I was there, I asked the waitress whether the cheese on the vegetarian pizzas contained animal rennet, and she told me it did. It took some time to establish this, the waitress didn't know what I was talking about. I know not all vegetarians get this fussy - let's face it, when you've got limited menu choices, some standards often have to be let go - but this one is important to me, because one of my chief concerns is that often vegetarian options aren't necessarily vegetarian, and, for me, pizza with animal rennet cheese comes under this category.

However, I rang the restaurant later on to check this - it just didn't gel with my assessment of the place, and this is my first blog, so I want to get it right, and another waitress tells me the cheese doesn't contain animal rennet. So perhaps its an issue of staff knowledge, and that can be really tricky when you're relying on them to know what they're talking about. Anyway, I'm hoping this second is correct. But it's probably worth checking this out again when you go - and let me know what answer you get. The veg pizzas have mozzarella on them, and it is possible, though a little difficult, to find animal rennet free mozzarella, so it's not outside the realms of possibility that it's animal rennet free. Or perhaps I'm just so in love with this restaurant I really want to believe!

Anyway, the night of the rennet/no rennet, I had the Swiss Brown Mushrooms Pizza, which has aioli instead of cheese, and which is really really (really really really) good. Thick-cut, deeply flavoursome mushrooms on a crisp, wheaty base, which, together with the garlicky silky, lemony aioli, is a taste sensation. Other options are the sides of ORGANIC ROAST VEGETABLES or HAHNDORF MIXED LETTUCE SALAD, though if everyone around you is enjoying fantastic pizzas, eating these can feel a bit sad and lonely.

The tapenade on the entree “TASTE SA” AN ENTRÉE STYLE STARTER PLATE has anchovies in it, and I don't know now whether the goats cheese has animal rennet in it. I assumed on the night I was there that it did, based on the waitress' information that all their cheese contains animal rennet, but now in light of this new information, who knows. Check this one out for yourself. If it does, you're left with the dukkah and bread, which is not bad.

I've had both of their other vegetarian pizzas, the Margarita and the Seasonal Roast Organic Vegetables on previous occasions before I re-veged and became a cheese Nazi! They're pretty good, though the Margarita is better - the vegies on the second just seem a bit disparate and never really come together into a coherent and deep flavour. I'm always looking for its essence, but not finding it. The mushroom remains my favourite for flavour and should be enjoyed by vegetarians everywhere. They do offer a vegan option of no cheese, so this could be a possibility as well.

If you're keen to try them out, here's their website: http://www.goodlifepizza.com/ They have restaurants in the city on Hutt Street, North Adelaide, and Glenelg.

A Quest Begins

The idea for this blog, which reviews vegetarian options in non-vegetarian restaurants, began when I re-vegetarianised after a 12 year hiatus and was suddenly in a land of sun-dried tomatos, single-menu choices and food that was called 'vegetarian' but wasn't. At the same time, I discovered some surprisingly good vegetarian options where I least expected. I want to share my restaurant experiences with other vegetarians out there a) so that you can benefit from my good dining experiences and avoid crap 'vegetarian' food and b) so that we can begin to use these experiences as one way of encouraging all restaurants that vegetarians are a large part of their market and should be well catered for with interesting and intelligent dishes that are actually vegetarian! The restaurants I go to aren't planned out in any way...they're just where I happen to have been and eaten. And currently they're all in Adelaide, because that's where I live, but should I travel, you'll be sure to get my reviews from there too. May all your vegie menus be good!