Easy Vegan

October 15, 2023

   

A visit to IKEA is a good excuse for lunch in Richmond and we identified Easy Vegan as something new to us to try. It's a casual and comfortable family-run cafe serving Vietnamese-style dishes. Everything is obviously vegan, and the menu invites people with other dietary requirements to speak with the staff for extra info. There are almost three dozen dishes on offer, with most featuring mock meat but some sticking to tofu and vegetables.

   

We were served complimentary tea while we made some tough ordering decisions. Ultimately I went for the broken rice combo ($17) and a coconut drink ($7) and received a feast! The soup had the most deeply flavoured broth I recall tasting as a vegetarian. I was served lots of rice, pepper-crusted 'pork', a rich square of 'ham', fried 'egg', pickled carrot and daikon, fresh cucumber and tomato, and a generous bowl of dressing. Every bite was different, and every bite was a delight.

   

Michael chose the Beyond pho ($18), which featured more of that remarkable broth, Beyond brand mock meat, lots of noodles and all of the usual trimmings. He was so satisfied with this meal, he didn't even look toward my plate of fun for a taste.

Easy Vegan will be top of our dining list for all upcoming visits to Richmond, as there's so much more for us to try across their menu. It's conveniently just across the street from Minh Phat Supermarket, too! With a full and happy stomach, I kept my Minh Phat impulse buying in check this time - just a jar of kaya and a mock fish snuck home alongside a new wok.

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Easy Vegan

140 Victoria St, Richmond

0432 955 735

menu: one, two

facebook page

Accessibility: There is a small lip on the entry and a clear corridor through the centre of the restaurant. Furniture is solid, with low height tables and backed chairs. We ordered and paid at a low counter. We didn't visit the toilets.

Master Lanzhou Beef Noodle Bar II

October 14. 2023

   

It's time for another Lanzhou Noodle update! We made our first visit to the Chinatown outlet of Master Lanzhou Beef Noodle Bar between Wheeler Centre Spring Fling sessions with friends. We spent little time with the menu and went straight to our long-standing favourites from the other stores: a bowl of youpo noodles (~$15) and a cup of iced honey grapefruit tea (~$6) each.

Here are the differences we noticed between the Chinatown and Elizabeth St Noodle Bars:

• There's an option of paper menus and QR code-to-mobile phone-purchase, and we chose the latter.
• The upstairs seating at Chinatown is much more spacious and relaxed than any of the other bars we've visited.
• The kitchen is closed from view, so we miss the fun of witnessing the staff's expert noodle stretching.
• My noodles weren't quite as wide and consistent as I've previously encountered, but they arrived just as quickly.
• The toppings were a little sparser, especially the smoky chilli flakes.

Noodles and drinks have increased in price by a couple of dollars (inevitable in these economic times!) but these noodles are still solidly less than $20 and a firm CBD favourite for us. Time will tell whether we end up more loyal to the spicier, showier noodles of Elizabeth St or the relaxed atmosphere of Chinatown - I'll start a tally.

   

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You can also read about our visits to the now-closed Carlton outlet and the Elizabeth St Master Lanzhou.

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Master Lanzhou Beef Noodle Bar

244 Swanston St, Melbourne

9690 9998

youpo noodle ~$15
https://www.masterlanzhou.com.au/

Accessibility: Entry is flat and there is a clear corridor through the ground level, parting dense furniture. A second floor is accessed by stairs (we didn't notice a lift option) and has more spacious seating. We ordered and paid by phone at our table, and didn't visit the toilets.

Artichoke rolls

October 12, 2023

   

I'm predicting that this meal will be on repeat all summer! It's a simple, veg*n riff on the lobster rolls made across the north-east of the USA, contributed by Hetty Lui McKinnon to ABC Everyday. I've never tried or been particularly interested in eating lobster, but these lightly dressed artichoke hearts are right up my alley.

It's a recipe that's easy to shop for, fast to prepare, and just begging to be doubled. I ate my first roll for lunch, then went back to the supermarket in the afternoon for a second can of artichokes because I still had enough left over of all the other ingredients and I wanted to make sure that Michael could enjoy a couple of rolls too. My first batch of artichokes were a bit watery, so I was careful to squeeze some water out of the second batch and I've added that note to the recipe below.

McKinnon insists that the rolls should be toasted with margarine/butter. I went through the motions with my first one for the photo above (popping my roll under the grill instead of a frypan), expecting that I would skip the step with subsequent rolls. McKinnon is absolutely right - getting that bit of crispness and toastiness into an otherwise quite light and soft dish is worth the small extra effort. It's also a welcome bit of heat, given that the artichokes aren't cooked at all.

I feel compelled, then, to echo McKinnon's other suggestions. She reckons that you could mix some mashed chickpeas or dice avocado into the filling - both lovely ideas!

Artichoke rolls

(slightly adapted from a recipe by Hetty Lui McKinnon on ABC Everyday)

400g can artichoke hearts

1 stalk celery

1/2 cup mayonnaise (I tried Hellmann's vegan and like it a lot!)

1/4 cup dill, chopped

1-2 tablespoons chives, chopped

3/4 teaspoon paprika

1/4 teaspoon ground cayenne

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

salt and pepper

4 soft long buns

2 tablespoons margarine

1 lemon, cut in wedges to serve

potato chips, to serve (I chose salt & vinegar)

Drain and rinse the artichoke hearts. Slice them into quarters and set them aside.

Finely dice the celery and drop it into a small-medium bowl. Add the mayonnaise, dill, chives, paprika, cayenne, garlic, salt and pepper. Stir everything together until well mixed. Gently squeeze any excess water out of the artichokes and add them to the mayonnaise mixture, folding them through until evenly coated but still holding together. 

Slice the buns lengthways in half and lightly spread the cut surfaces with margarine. Place the rolls cut-side-up under a grill until lightly toasted and smelling good. When they're ready, spoon the artichoke mixture onto the buns. Serve them with lemon wedges and potato chips on the side.

Cauliflower baked with currants, capers & pine nuts

October 5, 2023

   

I often have extra time to cook on Thursdays and I used this one to tick off another Six Seasons recipe. The original version involves soaking a cod for 12-24 hours and poaching it in milk, but I settled for a few capers sprinkled over the feature ingredient: cauliflower.

We have plenty of excellent baked cauliflower recipes already, but the cream/milk layer in this one is a bit different for us. We enjoyed the almost-cheesy flavour it added, but it seemed to interfere with getting the cauliflower properly tender and golden. Never mind! A topping of currants, capers, pine nuts and breadcrumbs added sweetness, nuttiness and extra crunch.

Since we weren't interested in the cod, I served the cauliflower alongside haloumi with roasted rhubarb and tomatoes. They made an excellent pair! I grilled the leftovers at home for subsequent lunches, but I would've been content also to eat them at room temperature if I'd been packing them for a work day.

   

Cauliflower baked with currants, capers & pine nuts

(adapted from a recipe in Six Seasons by Joshua McFadden and Martha Holmberg)

1/4 cup currants

1 head cauliflower, cut into florets

200mL sour cream (or heavy cream or crème fraîche)

1/2 cup milk or water

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 teaspoon lemon zest

small handful parsley, roughly chopped

salt and pepper

1/4 cup capers

1/4 cup pine nuts

1/2 cup breadcrumbs 

Place the currants in a bowl and cover them with water, allowing them to soak for 30 minutes. Drain them.

Preheat an oven to 220°C. Place the cauliflower florets into a large, high-walled baking tray.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the sour cream and milk. Stir in the garlic, lemon zest and parsley, seasoning with salt and pepper. Pour the mixture across the cauliflower. Sprinkle over the currants, then the capers, then the pine nuts, then the breadcrumbs.

Bake until the cream is bubbling and the breadcrumbs have browned, 20-30 minutes.

New potato salad with soft-boiled eggs

September 17, 2023 

   

Due to the limited options near my workplace, I am rather fastidious about having food ready at home to pack for lunch. It was my motivation for shopping and preparing this salad on a Sunday morning, even though we had a big afternoon and dinner out planned.

It's a recipe from Six Seasons, a book that I'm strategically working through as the seasons permit. The new potatoes and sugar snap peas seemed right for spring, and the soft-boiled eggs promised the protein I'd need to call this a full meal. Otherwise I was pretty loose with the recipe and I suspect the lead author Josh McFadden was, too: his photograph showed cute little radish rounds that I couldn't see anywhere in the ingredients list. I liked the idea, though, and worked some sesame-soy pickled radishes into my version.

I took a lot of license with the other ingredients and proportions too: more potatoes, less lemon, no scallions, sardines, chilli flakes or mint (but a bit of leftover parsley). Perhaps it's barely the same recipe at all! At the very least, it preserves the trinity of potatoes, peas and eggs that I was originally attracted to.

McFadden recommends that soft-boiled eggs be eaten within 24 hours, so this four-serving size was just right for getting us through two meals before I moved onto other packed lunch plans.

New potato salad with soft-boiled eggs

(heavily adapted from a recipe in Six Seasons by Joshua McFadden and Martha Holmberg)

1/2 - 1 batch sesame-soy pickled radishes

~500g small new potatoes, scrubbed but not peeled

2-3 handfuls sugar snap peas, strings pulled off

zest and juice of 1 lemon

3 tablespoons parsley, roughly chopped

4 eggs, at room temperature

salt and pepper

Start with the radishes, slicing them up and getting them into their sugar-salt pickle mix.

Next, go for the potatoes. The aim is for large bite-sized chunks, so halve or third any potatoes that need it. Fill a large saucepan with water, add a generous dose of salt and the potatoes, and bring it all to the boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer and cook until the potatoes are tender but not falling apart, about 15 minutes.

While the potatoes are cooking, prepare the sugar snap peas, chopping any extra-large ones so that they're all on the generous end of bite-sized. Place them in a large bowl. Add the lemon juice and zest, parsley, and the potatoes when they're ready, stirring everything together. Add salt and pepper, to taste.

Time to soft-boil some eggs! Refill the saucepan with water and bring it to the boil. Gently lower in the eggs with a spoon, and boil them for 8 minutes. Get a bowl of ice water ready, and transfer the eggs into it when their time is up.

Finish off the radishes by squeezing off their pickling liquid and getting them dressed.

When the eggs are cool enough to handle, peel one for each person that's eating on the spot (I saved two eggs in their shells for our lunch the next day).

Scoop the potato-pea mixture into shallow bowls, add radish pickles and scrunched-up egg, and season with more salt and pepper to taste.

Potato salad with tamarind, coconut & cashews

September 3, 2023

   

Cindy picked this Meera Sodha recipe out for a friend's potluck picnic - it required just a few tweaks to tick everyone's dietary requirements (we cut the garlic and shallots out of the original), and it promised to be a full-flavoured variation on the bog standard picnic potato salad. I fumbled things a bit in the process - over-boiling my spuds, so the whole thing had less of a fancy potato salad vibe and more of a fancy mashed potato vibe. Luckily, it still tasted great - the curry leaves, tamarind, spices and coconut really elevating things and the cashews adding back some of the texture that I'd boiled away. I'll probably take another crack at this over this summer's picnic season, to see if I can come up with something more like the original photo. 

Potato salad with tamarind, coconut & cashews

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

1kg baby new potatoes

3 tablespoons coconut oil

1 teaspoon black mustard seeds

1 teaspoon cumin seeds

10-15 fresh curry leaves

5 large shallots, peeled and sliced finely (we omitted these for FODMAP reasons)

3 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed (and these)

1 tablespoon of minced ginger

2 green chillies, finely chopped

100g cashews

2-3 teaspoons tamarind paste

200ml coconut milk

salt to taste

Cut the spuds into bite-sized pieces (big ones I'd suggest, maybe just halved) and cook them in boiling water for about 10 minutes, until tender - I chopped mine quite small and so they were falling apart rather than tender by the time I rescued them from the pot. Drain them and put them aside to cool.

Heat the coconut oil in a large frying pan and add the mustard and cumin seeds along with the curry leaves. Once the seeds start to pop a bit, throw in the shallots and cook gently until they soften and start to brown - about 8 minutes. 

Add the garlic, ginger, chillies and cashews, and cook for a couple of minutes, stirring. Put the potatoes and salt in to the frying pan and cook on high for 5 minutes, turning the spuds once (you're trying to get them a bit crispy here, but mine were well and truly losing their structure at this point). 

Stir through the tamarind paste and coconut milk and cook for a few more minutes - the coconut milk is supposed to evaporate and leave everything with a kind of sticky glaze, but my spuds just drank it all up. Serve hot or at room temperature.

Fenton

August 27, 2023

   

Michael joined Tanaka Running Club a couple of months ago, which starts and finishes at Fenton on Rathdowne St. He said the menu looked pretty good, so we arranged for me to walk down (carrying a post-run jumper for him) for a Sunday brunch. Fenton's website shows their focus on sustainable Victorian produce and community contribution. The menu is majority vegetarian with a couple of vegan options marked (a spiced porridge and lunchtime salad), but less clarity for the gluten-free. There's many iterations of toast and eggs, with a couple of sweet options, with both typical and offbeat trimmings.

   

Michael often gravitates to a chilli scramble ($21), and this egg-based one was augmented with fermented chilli, pickled chilli, fried shallots and fresh herbs. Michael especially appreciated the acidic, pickley elements.

   

I looked beyond the Dutch Baby pancakes to the savoury French toast ($22), an excellent, not-too-eggy thick slice served with a generous wedge of avocado hidden by fresh kachumbari. This is pretty much my ideal savoury brunch food (raw onion notwithstanding!): a soft and carby base, something creamy, something fresh, in a medium-sized portion.

Service at Fenton was bright and capable. The menu has fairly typical pricing for a 2023 brunch, but the dishes had a little extra thought and quality than we usually encounter. We'll be back, for sure.

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Fenton

158 Rathdowne St, Carlton
9328 3401

menu

https://fenton-farmhouse.com/

Accessibility: Fenton has a flat entry and medium-to-densely packed tables and backed chairs, with a clear wide path to the counter. We ordered at our table and paid at a low counter. We didn't visit the toilets.