Mama Roots

Update 31/12/2014: Mama Roots has closed down. A branch of PJ's Mexican Kitchen is now trading at this location.

October 4, 2012

As we rode the 86 tram northwards on the weekend, my wandering eye was caught by a big sign on High Street promising a vegetarian and vegan cafe. On the way back we jumped off to investigate, finding that it was called Mama Roots and that it would open on Tuesday (the fact that it wasn't open yet gave us our chance to finally visit The Moor's Head). We gave them a couple of days to get themselves together and then headed up to investigate.

It's a simple and homely fit-out with exposed brick, some nice bright colours and simple wooden tables. There's probably room for about thirty people in the front room, although I think they may be able to squeeze a few more in the back. The menu plays things pretty safe: for mains there are lasagne, a stir fry, a beany tagine, risotto, a burger, polenta wedges and gnocchi. About half of these are vegan and some of the others can be prepared vegan if you give them a heads up. They've branched out a bit further with the entrees, including rice pancakes, tofu balls, a Swiss rosti bruschetta and more. All the entrées are vegan. They don't label things as gluten-free but the menu looks pretty promising for coeliacs - at least four of the entrees and four of the mains look potentially GF.

We settled in to debate our ordering plan, and were promptly served a small glass of tea - we've forgotten exactly what kind it was but it was sweet and delicious and a nice, simple way to start the meal off.

 

The drinks menu is limited so far - a range of soft drinks, a couple of juices and just this mulled wine for the boozehounds (never fear, you can BYO). At $6.50 this is pretty good value, a mix of orange flavours, wine and spices providing a heady hot drink.

We finally agreed to split an entrée and have a main each, hoping to leave enough room to sample one of the cakes. We both wanted to try the white lentil, sun-dried tomato, spinach and cumin doughnuts with coconut chutney crumbed in a physcillum husk ($6.90).

These were pretty great - dense doughnuts with a good balance of flavours and a lovely coconut chutney on top. The texture was maybe a smidgen dry - it would have been good to have something a bit more saucy to accompany them, but the taste couldn't be faulted.

I went for the intriguing tofu and tempeh burger served with sweet potato chips and green tomato chutney ($14.50) for my main. There's a typo on the menu listing this as vegan (which they were quick to tell anyone and everyone about) but the default bun is a non-vegan brioche (which can be replaced with a vegan version if required).

The burger turned out to be a patty made of a combined tofu and tempeh mush (for some reason I was imagining two separate patties). The texture reminded me a bit of our soy bombs but the flavour was a bit different (no peanut butter for starters). It was excellent though - nicely seasoned and complemented by the tomato chutney (which didn't look very green to me). 

Cindy ordered the pumpkin and fresh curry-leaf gnocchi, served with napoli sauce and parmesan cheese ($14.50).

This wasn't quite as successful - it tasted pretty good but the gnocchis themselves were dense and heavy, with varying degrees of chewiness. Not bad, but not amazing either. The combo of curry leaves and pumpkin was an interesting idea - I think there's a good dish hidden in here somewhere but the execution was below par.

By the time we'd made our way through all of this we were too far gone for dessert (they had three cakes on the board, at least one of which was vegan). Mama Roots is a great addition to High Street - it's got a lovely atmosphere, excellent and friendly service and a good selection of vegetarian and vegan food at pretty decent prices (we walked out having spent less than $50 including drinks). It's not going to change how you think about vegetarian food, but it is going to fill a niche in an area surprisingly lacking in vegetarian restaurants - there were plenty of excited locals coming in to check it out tonight, I'm sure most of them will return.

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Mama Roots

599 High Street, Northcote

9481 5558

starters/salads $6.50 - 9.50, mains $13.50 - 14.50, banquet $24.50

Accessibility: There's a small step up as you enter Mama Roots. The interior isn't too crowded, and there's full table service. We didn't suss out the bathrooms.