While every day is a vegetarian day here on where's the beef?, today marks the beginning of National Vegetarian Week! And one way to take advantage of Australia's great veg eating is to get your hands on a copy of...
image from aduki website
Yes, it's here! Following up from the enormously successful Melbourne Veg Food Guide, editor Lisa Dempster and publisher Aduki have expanded their scope and gone national with the Australian Veg Food Guide 2011. Inside you'll find 200 reviews and listings of Australia's best vegan, vegetarian and veg-friendly restaurants. The guide will be in stores on October 25 but you can pre-order it right now.
We've already purchased two copies and we want to give one of them away to you. We also have another fab Aduki publication, a copy of Leigh Drew's Vegan Indulgence, to give away.
image from aduki website
To enter the draw for the Aussie Veg Food Guide, tell us in a comment below about the best dessert you've eaten out in an Aussie restaurant.
To enter the draw for Vegan Indulgence, tell us in a comment below about the best dessert you've made at home. I will double your chance of winning if it's vegan and triple your chance if it's both vegan and soy-free. (I can do this because I AM THE MASTER OF MY RANDOM NUMBER GENERATOR and I have this thing about soy-based dairy substitutes.)
We are willing to post these prizes to any address world-wide (... that's recognised by Australia Post).
If there is not an email address clearly attached to your commenting profile, please drop us a note as you enter to identify yourself. We want to make sure that the actual winner claims the prize. We will not share your details with anyone and will delete them after the competition is concluded.
This competition closes at midnight on Saturday October 2. Oh, wait! Do we have two midnights on Saturday October 2, owing to daylight savings? Hmmm. I'll give you until 10am daylight savings time on Sunday October 3 and announce winners as soon as I've sorted my random number thingy out.
Happy National Vegetarian Week, y'all!
I'm not a dessert chick but there is one that has got me going for about the last 20 years - the tofu creme brulee at Shakahari. Being dairy-free I rarely explore the sweet end of the menu but this little gem is a winner. It does texture well, there's the soft goodness of the brulee itself balanced with the crunchy shards of caramelised pistachios. Then there is the balance of the only slightly sweet base with the supersweet syrup. And speaking of syrup, I can't help running my fingers through it if there is any skerrick of it left on the plate.
ReplyDeleteI. Want. Now!
I'm obviously! not entering, and I hope this doesn't muck up your random number generator but:
ReplyDeleteThe best home dessert I can think of at the moment is when my old flatmate made vegan lemon slice.... OM NOM NOM NOM. Man it was good. Yum.
easy, that would be vegan chocolate mouse :
ReplyDelete1 ripe avocado, 1tbsp cocoa powder, 1tbsp maple syrup or sugar or stevia or whatever sweeteners you have in hand, blend them all in food processor, and add some water to thin it out. chill in the fridge for 1 - 2 hrs.
vegan and soy free! :)
Oooh, dessert. I love dessert. The best dessert I have ever eaten out was either the Crema Catalan at the European (which is otherwise pretty poor for vegos) or a Pedro Ximenez and chocolate flan at restaurant 373 in Hobart.
ReplyDeleteBest vegan dessert I have ever made is pears poached in (vegan) red wine with spices and sugar served with homemade vegan chocolates filled with marzipan and orange.
I didn't even know that we have a National Vegetarian Week in Australia! Glad to know at the start of the week - it is usually the sort of thing I find out about afterwards.
ReplyDeleteAs for favourite desserts, I can't help but think chocolate pudding. All things are possible with this dessert - vegan, gluten free and soy free but the version I have most isn't vegan so I think you are better off doubling and tripling points of those who eat out much more than me - but will be interested to look out for this when it is in the shops
I loved the apple (nashi?) sorbet dessert at Izakaya Den. So delicious!!
ReplyDeleteFor the first part - the best dessert I've had at a restaurant was a tomato sorbet with baby coriander and goats cheese. Sounds like a palate cleanser but it really was a dessert, and magnificent!
ReplyDeleteAnd the best vegan and soy free dessert I've made? Probably my Indian Corn pudding, which is like a steamed polenta pudding with maple syrup at the bottom of the bowl, so that when you turn it out all the maple syrup crowns the top. It's vegan and soy free when I make it with nuttelex and oat/rice milk, and I usually make it gluten free too :)
We visited D'Arry's Verandah Restaurant at D"Arenberg Winery on the first day of their Spring menu. I felt a strong calling to try the Passionfruit Souffle despite derisive remarks about self control from those with me. Well, so sorry for them, with the first bite I was transported on wings of angels up into a, ecstatic state which only ended with the last morsel when I came down lightly to see envious faces hoping for the last spoonful. This dessert was the best dessert I have EVER had in my 70 years of eating. I wouldn't dare try to match it with a recipe of my own!
ReplyDeleteBest dessert out and about would have to be the (vegan) chocolate mousse at Coco Loco in High St Northcote.
ReplyDeleteTook my vegan sister there - she ordered and ate everything on the menu.
Best dessert I've eaten out is the cheesecake at East Brunswick Club. Cheesecake has always been my favourite and having a place that does a really good vegan one is very exciting (not sure which flavour is my favourite-- I like them all)
ReplyDeleteI think the best vegan dessert I have made is a "trio of sorbet" - when sorbet is right, it's creamy, smooth and refreshing!
ReplyDeleteMy favourite sorbets from what I've made would be cantelope & cointreau, gin & tonic and maybe grape with rosemary. Good mix of flavours and the colors would complement each other well.
There's a lot of desserts out there but the best dessert I've had recently was the chocolate and chilli pudding at Mamasita. Rich and chocolatey with the right amount of kick at the back. Absolutely perfect.
ReplyDeleteI'd have to agree with Another Outspoken Female about the creme brulee at Shakahari - best vegan dessert I've had out. But I've not pushed that envelope enough: I'm yet to test out any of the 5 star places for vegan desserts.
ReplyDeleteAs for vegan desserts I've made: simple lemon sorbert (substitute fruit of choice). My favourite recent one does contain soy - chocolate chilli pudding (Uses silken tofu). Tastes nothing like tofu though ;)
There are too many options to choose from, so I'm going to suggest my current obsession, the chocolate raspberry truffle cake from Mrs Marengo's in London. Vegan, soyfree and I'm pretty sure gluten free, it is incredibly rich and yet fruity enough that I could eat the whole cake in one sitting.
ReplyDeleteI'm trying very hard not to beg, but as a vegan expat from Melbourne living in London I know that I am going to have dreams about the melting moments photographed on the front of Vegan Indulgence. It has been way too long since I had one!
Wow, sorry, I managed to completely misread the question there. The best vegan dessert I have made at home would have to be Celine from Have Cake Will Travel's Peanut Butter and Jelly Pie, served with cocoa/cashew ice cream. No soy if you choose your yoghurt well, but in spite of the entirely unrefined ingredients it just feels so incredibly decadent. And if there is any solution to the eternal question of which is the better combo, peanut butter and jam or peanut butter and chocolate, it has to be all three together.
ReplyDeleteOne of my fave desserts to make are these truffles:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.deliciousmagazine.co.uk/articles/hear-me-raw
They are vegan, soy free and RAW! :D
Best I have eaten is probably the flourless chocolate cake at Vegie Bar (I think its vegan, I can't remember) or the peanut butter vegan cheesecake from the East Brunswick Pub (which also has delicious vegan parmas).
ReplyDeleteI have made this recently: http://www.veganbaking.net/vegan-recipes/brownies-and-bars/peanut-butter-maple-fudge.html
It was so tasty, but it also gives you instant diabetes, it has so much sugar in it! Definitely something you wouldn't want to eat often.
Oh my gosh, so excited for Veg Good Food Guide! (I actually just tried to pre-order but it didn't seem to work.. added to cart but cart stayed empty, I'm not sure if this has happened to anyone else?)
ReplyDeleteAnyway the best dessert I ever had out was actually at a restaurant where I used to work, it was a pistachio and rosewater creme brulee topped with a hefty amount of Persian fairy floss.. that stuff is magic!
Homemade- a few types of sliced up fruit with some big chunks of dark chocolate OR coconut sago pudding with fresh mango slices.
ReplyDeleteOut- Yong Green Food's raw chocolate cheesecake...or a looooong time ago, pre-vegan: chocolate 3 ways- dark choc sorbet, flourless chocolate cake and white choc mousse (from memory) at the now non-existent Watermark.
The best vegan dessert I have made at home is a traditional Chinese dessert known as "Tang Yuan". Mix some glutinous rice flour with water and shape it into a ball.. Then boil it quickly in brown sugar water. You can add peanut or red bean as filing to these little balls. More pictures here: http://www.malaysiabest.net/2008/12/14/how-to-make-tang-yuen-or-tang-yuan-for-winter-solstice-%E5%86%AC%E8%87%B3/
ReplyDeleteIt is really the best meaningful dessert which brings the family together
the best dessert i've ever eaten out was the choc peanut butter nougart cake at vegetarian orgasm...mmm how i miss that cake
ReplyDeleteas for the best soy free vegan dessert i've made at home...choc peanut butter oreo fudge...(soy free!) although it's more sweet-treatish than dessertish it's still AMAZING
shell x
Best vegan dessert I've had out was the (raw and soy free!) blueberry cheezcake from Yong Green's. Followed by a close second of the tofu caramel at shakahari. :)
ReplyDeleteAgh, missed the competition deadline, but so glad to hear there's a vegetarian guide coming our way soon! Thanks for the heads-up.
ReplyDelete