Good Measure

July 28, 2022

   

I did a leisurely circuit on foot through Carlton on Thursday to tick off some errands, and I timed my tasks to include lunch. Good Measure turned up in my online browsing the night before and when I approached at 1pm, I counted myself lucky to get a table. I assumed they'd be experiencing a lunch rush, but instead there seemed to be a post-lunch coffee peak around 20 minutes later.

Lunch options at Good Measure are limited but very good, just a couple of sandwich types in a glass cabinet. I was content with the salad and miso mayo one that the staff initially outlined, but I'm sure my eyes lit up when they switched to describing their ramen egg salad special (~$13). There are no noodles here; rather, their thick, hearty bread slices are stuffed with soft-boiled soy sauce-marinated eggs, celery, spring onion, radishes and mayonnaise. It's deeply savoury, it's possible to get it toasted, and it's compact and satisfying.

   

Good Measure also trades as a bar on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights. I hear their cheesecake is excellent too. That's three good reasons for me to tuck away Good Measure in my mind for whenever I'm in Carlton. 

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Good Measure has already received high praise from Passport Please.

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Good Measure

193 Lygon St, Carlton

veg sandwiches ~$13

instagram page

Accessibility: There is a small lip on the door and a wide passage through to the counter. Furniture is quite densely arranged around the edges; wiry standard-height and stool height chairs, both with small backs (see photos above). I ordered and paid at a high counter, then received food at my table. I didn't visit the toilets.

Bienenstich

July 17, 2022

   

Last weekend I put time into winter comfort cooking, baking an inessential bienenstich before moving on to a tray of pastitsio. There's a vegan bienenstich recipe on the blog already, but this time I revisited the full butter, milk and egg-laden version that I hand-copied into my recipe binder as a teenager. I couldn't remember the original source, but my mum showed me her identical handwritten copy by text message and confirmed that we're both using her mum's version.

I'm surprised that the recipe doesn't include yeast as the rising agent, both because it's common in bienenstich and because my grandmother used it well in other German-style cakes. Baking powder makes it all the quicker to mix up. It's a cake so simple that it doesn't even include vanilla, sandwiched with a thick custard cream, and topped with almonds set into toffee. It's that toasty topping that really makes the flavour memorable, and makes the cake messy to slice too! 

My method below is an expansion on the minimalist instruction in the version I inherited, which doesn't mention a cake tin or what happens to the filling after it's beaten. I can't blame the instructions for my one error - I didn't buy copha, thinking that I'd use a little coconut oil instead, and then forgot to put that in too. My filling did just fine without.

This is a cake that I'll remake only rarely (I estimate that it's more than 15 years since I last baked it!) but I'm glad to still have access to it, to my memory of it, and to be getting it onto the blog at long last.

Bienenstich 

(slightly adapted from my grandmother's recipe)

cake

2 eggs

1 cup sugar

60g butter, melted

1 cup flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 cup milk

topping

60g butter

1/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoon flour

1 tablespoon milk

1/4 cup flaked almonds (I will double this next time)

filling

1/4 cup sugar

1 tablespoon custard powder

1 cup milk

1/4 cup copha (or coconut oil, or skip altogether)

160g butter

Preheat an oven to 180°C. Line a round springform cake tin with baking paper and lightly spray it with oil.

Beat the eggs well in a medium-large bowl. Thoroughly beat in the sugar, then the melted butter. Sift in the flour and baking powder, and fold until combined. Stir in the milk. Pour the batter into the cake tin and bake for 30 minutes.

When the cake's been in the oven for 10-15 minutes, set a small saucepan over medium heat to prepare the topping. Place the butter, sugar, flour and milk in the saucepan and stir to combine; add the almonds. Bring the mixture to the boil and cook for 10-15 minutes; I found that the mixture thickened and pulled away from the edges of the saucepan in a big blob. When the cake has finished its 30 minute bake, retrieve it from the oven and pour this topping evenly over it. Turn the oven up to 200°C and bake the cake until the topping is golden and crisp (I gave mine about 10 minutes). Allow the cake to cool.

For the filling, place the sugar and custard powder in a small-medium saucepan over medium heat. Gradually whisk in the milk and cook, stirring regularly, until the mixture has thickened to a custard. Turn off the heat, stir in the copha if using, and allow the custard to cool. Beat the butter in a small bowl and gradually add in the custard until everything is well mixed.

Carefully slice the cake horizontally into two layers and place the base layer on a serving plate. Spread over the custard cream filling and then gently place the almond-toffee cake layer on top. Slice and serve.

Back in Brisbane

July 6-9, 2022

   

We're so very happy to be back in south-east Queensland for a holiday, spending time with family and friends. We've been celebrating milestones, playing games with the kids, browsing op-shops for bargains, and revelling in our mums' cooking. We booked ourselves a spot in South Brisbane for the last leg of our tour: it's right by the cultural centre, it's easy to get almost anywhere else from there via public transport, it's a short walk from our old neighbourhood of West End. And there's so much veg*n eating to be had! Here are the new-to-us places we loved best.

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Grassfed is a small shopfront in Fish Lane that serves all-vegan burgers, chips and soft-serve icecream. Everything is huge and over-the-top but we can happily report that it's big on quality too. Michael's fysh n chips burger (pictured above, right; $15.50) stacked beer-battered mock-fish fillets both inside and on top of the burger! My limited-time special chick'en katsu (pictured above, back centre; $14.90) was just as difficult to get my mouth around, with an ultra-crispy-crumbed mock-chicken patty, two hash browns (I pulled 'em out to eat separately) and a side of Japanese curry sauce for dipping and/or pouring. It was a mistake to order additional curly fries (above, left; $5.50 including aioli), although they were very good too. The seating is a bit of a squeeze, yet we witnessed the staff cheerfully helping a young family bring a pram in.

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El Planta is a nearby vegan Mexican restaurant with a more grown-up atmosphere. I appreciated that they offered specialty mocktails and house-made sodas alongside their alcoholic drinks, and I showed it by ordering one of each (a $12 pineapple margarita mocktail with a smoked salt rim, and the $5 cherry-hibiscus soda of the week). The menu changes often, and we loved everything we ate: cauliflower tacos with crispy kale and cashew cream ($15); beer-battered mock-fish tacos with a thick, dominating morita  ($17); fried Brussels sprouts with almond and habanero mole ($13); and the queso fundido (pictured above; $14), a shallow dip of queso cheeze with black beans, carne asada, chilli oil and spring onion scooped onto thick corn chips. Again, the staff were high energy and happy to help.

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Our friend Tash recommended Alphabet Café as one of the best local breakfasts, and sure enough we were smitten. It's tough to choose across a menu of breakfast tacos and waffles, mushrooms on polenta and a cabinet full of the most luscious looking baked goods and ready-to-toast sandwiches (vegan adaptations to the savoury porridge and sautéed mushrooms are clearly marked). The warmed pesto, pumpkin and parmesan scroll (pictured above, front centre) was perfectly balanced in flavour and texture, and my iced chai (pictured above, back right; $6.50) was gently brewed and not too sweet. Michael was just as enamoured of his savoury porridge (pictured above, back left; $24) which was pumpkin coloured, miso flavoured and topped with spinach, soy eggs, sweet potato, cauliflower, chilli oil, sesame and scallions. We snagged the last coffee cruller for breakfast-dessert.

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I've been following Botanical Lab's social media for some time, inspired by Susan's many positive posts. Sadly they were closed for several months after bad weather damaged their shop, and I felt very lucky that our visit coincided with their second week of reopening! Botanical Lab offers an overwhelming variety of cute, pastel sweets that I would associate with Japan and Taiwan: bubble teas, cream puffs, mochi, and soft-serve sundaes. There are a decent number of well-marked vegan options.  We were both impressed by the chewy-cakey taro-iced mochi donut (pictured above front). A huge portion of mango popping jelly and a lychee in Michael's iced tea slowed down his usually-speedy drinking in the best possible way (pictured above left; $7). I built a vegan-friendly sundae of Thai milk tea-style soft serve, brown sugar syrup and crunchy nut cereal (pictured above right; $6.80) - it was very cold and surprisingly refreshing, without the strong soy or coconut flavours that often bug me with mock dairy. It's possible to order even more decadently with mochi waffles, parfaits, and layered ombre teas. I can only dream of attending one of Botanical Lab's high tea events.

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Nonna's Nightmare is a vegan Italian restaurant that's willing to put pineapple on pizza and an eggplant parma in a burger. (In this way, it reminded me of dinner time at Sable.) We stuck with some of the more conventional, albeit veganised, main dishes. My plate of ravioli al tartufo (pictured above front; $28.50) was a study in deep umami: truffle mushroom, salted sage leaves, toasted pine nuts, and parmesan. Michael tried their current pizza special (pictured blurrily above back), a tomato base with roasted artichoke, bacon, black olives and a judicious, understated layer of mozzarella. While we cleared our plates with pleasure, we agreed that we didn't have the appetite for extras like the red wine arancini, crostini ai fichi, cannoli or (my usual weakness) tiramisu. Next time!

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Of course our primary purpose on this trip was to reconnect with people and places that are dear to us, and we've largely succeeded in that. Trying all these terrific restaurants was just a bonus! We both noticed how consistently sunny the staff were at every venue, and it was the easiest thing in the world to beam right back at them.

Sable II

Update 18/06/2023: Sable is now closed.

June 20, 2022

   

Days in the office are still a novelty for me, so when I planned my second one for the year I arranged to meet Michael afterwards for dinner at Sable. While Sable's lunch menu centres on bagels and biscuits, dinner is about salads, burgers and pasta. It remains 100% vegan and includes well-marked gluten-free options.

   

We skipped past the burgers and agreed to share a set of Italian-style dishes. We started with the unconventional lasagne croquettes ($17) - little blocks of mock-meat lasagne, crumbed and fried, served with pesto and cheese sauce. They're rich and appetising in this form, but I can't comprehend stuffing them into a bagel sandwich, which is a lunch time option.

   

Michael chose the special for one main - it featured the softest possible gnocchi on a bed of asparagus and celery puree, with cauliflower, mock-pork and shallots (pictured front left of photo). We slightly favoured it over the bold flavours of the penne alla vodka ($25, pictured centre right), with its tomato, pepperoni and roasted garlic cloves. We couldn't go past some garlic bread ($10, pictured top centre), which leaned towards limited, good quality slices rather than a Pizza Hut-style soft loaf. 

   

I felt compelled to try the tiramisu ($15) and was glad I did. It's not lightly whipped, rather a dense layering of cookies and something resembling their vegan cream cheese.

Sable flipped from a daytime to night-time atmosphere with ease, and the table service was excellent. We've had fun trying both versions, and emerged very full both times.

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You can read about our first visit to Sable here.

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Sable 

562-564 High St, Thornbury 

9480 3371 

dinner menu 

https://sable.org.au/ 

Accessibility: There's a step up on entry, a decent amount of space through the middle of the café, and densely packed tables. Tables are standard and tall heights, with a range of benches, backed chairs and tall, backless stools. We ordered and paid at the table. Toilets were ungendered cubicles of standard width, with flat access.