January 9, 2011: Monk Bodhi Dharma II

The visit of Melbourne ex-pat and vegan twitter fiend Not Josh to our fine city prompted K from In the Mood for Noodles to arrange a brunch veg*n twitter meet-up at Monk Bodhi Dharma. Luckily, only K & Toby, Cindy and I and Josh joined in - any more and we'd have been hard-pressed to squeeze into the tiny space that MBD occupies.

Having tried the much-raved-about French toast last time, Cindy opted for one of their other sweet options - the Dharma Banana ($9), warmed house-made banana bread, served with lemon ricotta. This was a reasonable version of banana bread but everything was very, very sweet, meaning this didn't quite live up to the standards of the French toast.

I couldn't resist the specials board, going for the Balinese soup, with sticky rice and chilli jam, sweetcorn and lemongrass ($14.50).

This was outstanding - especially with bonus chilli jam from Toby. The soup had a nice lemongrass flavour, some sweetness from the corn and a delicious oily slick of chilli all through it. The sticky rice was a nice addition - giving the dish enough substance to fill me up and providing a bit of textural variety.

Monk Bodhi Dharma have shot towards the top of my brekkie list - it's great to have a veg-place that focuses on brunch food and serves great coffees and teas. I'm pretty sure Josh went back to Vancouver wishing that MBD had a North American branch.

Read about our first visit to MBD here.

Since we visited in November, Monk Bodhi Dharma has been given the thumbs up by In the Mood for Noodles, Veg in the west, Tenth Day Roasters, Wandering Vegans, Nutmeg's Cafe, Zinnamon and A little red ribbon.