Heal.Thy Self Co

March 4, 2023

   

We had plans to meet west-side friends at Advi's Falafels for lunch, but they were unexpectedly closed. Our friends suggested we walk on to Heal.Thy Self Co, and it was an ideal backup. We learned that this cafe was previously all vegan, but after a change in management last year the menu has been reworked. Almost everything has a vegan version, with some eggs, dairy and meat being available as add-ons.

The pancakes and the breakfast panna cotta were both tempting, but my corn fritter success at Little Lotus inspired me to order them again ($23). These were worthy rivals, absolutely stuffed with corn kernels, accompanied by a sparse but fresh salsa, coconut yoghurt dip, and vegan feta.

   

Michael went for the tofu scramble on toast ($13.50) with a side of smokey tamari tempeh bacon ($4.50). This was a nice home-style rendition of this vegan breakfast, and a win not to have to cook it himself.

   

Our friends displayed superior ordering skills, having a savoury dish each and rounding out their meal with a shared kid's-size plate of vegan, gluten-free pancakes ($12). The taste I snuck was equal to any wheat-based version.

Heal.Thy Self Co is a bit distant for us to visit regularly, but it was lovely to spend an hour or two in their courtyard with friends. I'd be glad to try more of their menu when we're west-side again.

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Heal.Thy Self Co has already won praise from Mamma Knows West.

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Heal.Thy Self Co 

26 Ballarat St, Yarraville

9687 3330

food, drinks

https://healthyselfco.com.au/

Accessibility: Heal.Thy Self Co has a gently ramped entry and medium-spaced furniture. Furniture is a mix of high and low tables with backed chairs indoors and backless bench seats in the courtyard. We ordered at our table and paid at a high counter.

Vegan miso butter greens pasta

February 26, 2023

   

I'm always on the lookout for lazy pasta-based school night dinner options, so when Cindy suggested this Meera Sodha pasta for dinner I was immediately keen. It's a tiny bit more involved than the Ottolenghi one pot classic that I love, but it's still super simple - cook up some greens and blend them and you've got yourself a pasta sauce. It's a fun recipe too - unconventionally flavoured with miso and chilli oil, comforting and delicious. Definitely one to add to our weeknight rotation.

Vegan miso butter greens pasta

(via this recipe from Meera Sodha's Guardian column)

60g Nuttelex or other vegan butter

5 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed

1 teaspoon fennel seeds

1/2 teaspoon chilli flakes

1 head of broccoli, chopped

1 bunch of Tuscan kale/cavolo nero, stems removed and leaves chopped

2 teaspoons salt

2-3 tablespoons white miso

40ml olive oil

500g orecchiette

chilli oil

Melt the Nuttelex in a pan over medium heat and stir through the garlic, fennel and chilli, cooking for 3 minutes or so until the garlic is cooked.

Add the broccoli, kale, salt and a cup of water. Stir and cover, cooking over low heat for 10 minutes or so until the leaves have wilted and everything has softened up a bit. 

Let the pan cool a bit and then scrape everything into a food processor with the miso and olive oil and blend until smooth. You can add water here if you need to, but ours blended up nicely. 

Cook the pasta as per instructions, drain and then return to the pot along with the blended green sauce and a few tablespoons of the pasta cooking water. Heat the sauce through and then serve, topped with a generous drizzle of chilli oil.

More of Hobart 2023

February 23-26, 2023

   

Since our primary reason to be in Hobart was MONA FOMA, we relied on festival food trucks and supermarket snacks to cover several of our meals. Here are the main meals we fit around those festival times.

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Rude Boy was emphatically recommended by our friend Toby. It was also open late enough for us to grab dinner on our walk back from the cinema in North Hobart (where we saw the excellent Women Talking). Rude Boy is a loud and loudly decorated bar that's proud of its rum and fried chicken. The formula here is to order a plate or a burger and build up the components. I convinced Michael that a large plate ($33) would be enough to cover the two of us, and it definitely was! Our plate comprised fried mock meat in Old Bay seasoning, with rum BBQ sauce and a side of fries ($8). All of the seasonings and sauces were great, and the mock meat was of the dense and chewy kind.

   

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We also had multiple friends urging us to visit The Little Poet. It's a spacious Taiwanese patisserie with a very distinct atmosphere - decorated in layers of beige and white, with tinkling piano music, cushions, tasteful flower arrangements and... cute bubble tea plushies! The menu is all vegetarian with abundant vegan options and clearly marked gluten-free dishes. There's all manner of sweet and savoury, from dainty bites to hefty meals.

   

When we first visited for breakfast, Michael was aiming for the latter and ordered the Little Poet Big Breakfast ($24). The vegan egg was just tofu, but smothered in a nice hollandaise. The vegan sausage and walnut-based foie gras didn't make a strong impression either, and Michael's not keen on this many salad leaves at breakfast. The sum of this dish's parts was pretty good, though, with thick sourdough, tomato, mushrooms, and flawless avocado.

   

Meanwhile, I branched out into banana chocolate crepes with soy cream ($18). I don't come across crepes often and these were lovely, with that distinctive slightly elastic texture, and presumably coloured with butterfly pea (which Little Poet also offers in their iced lattes). The accompanying ramekin was stacked with perfectly ripe banana slices topped with a proper, cocoa-heavy chocolate sauce.

   

We returned for breakfast the next day, and I was ready for something savoury. The vegan version of the Taiwanese egg pancake roll ($7) suited me to a tee. The batter was just a bit thicker and more fried than the crepe; I was tired of mock meat and chose vegan cheese (+ $2.50) and mushrooms (+$3) from the nine fillings available and clumsily but happily dredged each piece through the garnishing soy and chilli sauces.

It's no coincidence that this allowed me room to try some sweets (pictured top)! The little bites of brownie and lemon-glazed cake ($3 each) were excellent, but the chocolate bear cookie ($5) was unbeatable for cuteness. We were too early for the full cake range to be on display yet, so here's hoping we make it back for morning tea one day.

   

After an ambivalent big breakfast, Michael was completely won over by the Taiwanese sesame paste cold noodle ($19). There was lots of variety in the noodles, veges and tofu strips and the sesame-peanut butter-soy sauce was a winner, and a refreshing change from his usual breakfast habits. It also didn't get in between Michael and a chocolate croissant (pictured top, $3.50).

While we could have happily returned to Little Lotus or Straight Up for seconds, or visited another cafe we've enjoyed in the past, I'm glad double-dipped on the variety of veg*n foods offered by Little Poet.

   

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The Sunday Farm Gate markets are typically our last food stop before departing Hobart and these days they're adjoined by Bury Me Standing bagels. The menu's got something for everyone gluten-tolerant, from (real meat) hot dogs (Shaunagh has alerted me that these are vegan!), to the classic cream cheese and a cashew-based vegan schmear. Though there are multiple bagel flavours on offer, deep down we're both everything bagel-ers. BMS were all out of regular cashew schmear so I fell back on classic cream cheese ($9.50), but there was jalapeno cashew schmear to spare so Michael had a pickle-filled Top Notch Bagel ($10.50). It's a very comforting way to start a Sunday and end a holiday.

   

Hobart 2023

 February 22-23, 2023

   

We made a happy return to Hobart in February, timed to coincide with MONA FOMA. It's been four years since we were last in town, the longest gap between visits over the 16 years that we've been Melbourne residents. This time around, we used the local buses to explore Mt Nelson Signal Station (where I photographed the above view of Hobart), the adjacent Truganini Reserve, and then Fern Tree and Silver Falls. We always find that there's enough to do and more than enough to eat. 

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We initially arrived in time for a late lunch at the vegetarian Little Lotus Cafe, and it was an auspicious start. There were friendly staff up front taking orders at the counter, and plenty of space in the cozily-lit back room for us to take our time over our meal. I carefully dismantled a stack of crackly-crusted sweet potato and corn fritters, thickly layers with cashew cheese, and crowned with house-made kimchi and green leaves ($20.50).

Michael's scrambled stunner ($19) was one of his favourite meals of the trip. The tofu scramble was teamed with broccolini, tomato chilli jam, rice paper 'bacon', pickled chilli and polenta croutons. Hobart was unusually hot, so we treated ourselves to iced drinks - a latte for Michael ($6) and a chai for me ($8.50). 

   

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We wandered the city for the afternoon, picked up a couple of second-hand bargains, and rested with a drink at Preachers. My feet had hit their limits so we postponed the few veg*n dinner spots on our wishlist and retraced our steps to Ti Ama, which Michael had previously visited on a work trip. Ti Ama is draped from end to end in millennial pink and dotted with disco balls, with their mirror-tiled pizza oven being the main attraction. Their omni menu has both traditional and changed-up antipasti, house-made pasta and pizza.   

   

I wasn't in the mood for pizza, and luckily this led me to an exceptional gnocchi ($28). It was marshmallow-soft, lightly pan-fried and folded through with summer beans and fresh basil. Underneath it was a deeply savoury Ligurian walnut sauce and ring of melted butter. (I'm belatedly noticing that a vegan version was also available.) Meanwhile, Michael worked his way through the vegan Bubby-G pizza ($26.50), which featured a smokey capsicum base, grilled eggplant, dukkah, chopped herbs and stripes of babaganoush. Props to Ti Ama not only for their vegan options, but for their mocktail list - I had a watermelon one ($14).

   

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Before our excursion to Mt Nelson and Truganini Reserve, we lined our stomachs with proper breakfasts at Straight Up. All vegetarian and gluten-free, Straight Up was probably my favourite cafe experience on our 2016 Hobart trip. I returned to their vegan and gluten-free waffle ($18.50) - the current version is orange and vanilla flavoured, topped with poached blueberries and a chocolate and almond crumb. I prefer not to have icecream on my breakfast sweets, but I'll make an exception for the house-made berry icecream at Straight Up, because it is spectacular.

Michael did well, if not quite as well, with the potato hash ($22.50). You can probably sense from the photo above that it was hearty but not crispy, but it was piled with a pleasant mix of roasted mushrooms, tomato and herb salsa, fried tempeh and harissa.

   

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With our first bus excursion done, we skipped across to long-time favourite Thai Veggie Hutt for lunch. (We first posted about it in 2012!) Their bain marie was bustling with city workers choosing one, two or three hot dishes with rice or noodles to takeaway. Michael joined in with them for a mixed box of goodies ($14.80), but I patiently waited for a cooked-to-order plate of spicy duck noodles ($17.80). They were well worth the extra minutes and dollars - the noodles were super tender, the duck pieces large and saucy, and interspersed with crunchy veges.

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That takes us to the half-way point of our current Hobart eating highlights! More mock meats and some brilliant baked goods are still to come.