Don't tell the Office of Film and Literature Classification, but it turns out we've been publishing all this time without a rating! Thank goodness Sarah and Mellie so kindly stepped in to bestow us with an E for Excellent. It's particularly gratifying to receive this from a couple of cool cookin' Melbourne gals who've been blogging a while longer than Michael and I - I've been reading their edible exploits since we first moved to the food capital of Australia.

In turn, I want to pass on the blog love to Yeah, That "Vegan" Shit and Hezbollah Tofu. These folks are rebellious and funny, proof for all the interwebs that veganism is one part compassion, six parts delicious swashbuckling adventure and zero parts self denial.

If you've got even more blog-browsing time at your disposal, take a stroll through all the Melbourne-based food blogs I've linked in the sidebar. They are brimming with enthusiasm for everything edible this city has to offer, and they're a treasure trove of restaurant recommendations and rave-worthy recipes.

April 19, 2008: Friday Featre Food - Enlightenment Cuisine

Edit 25/04/2017: Enlightened Cuisine is now rebranded as Vegie Kitchen.

Not strictly Friday, and not pre-theatre. Instead, we wandered across to Enlightenment Cuisine in South Melbourne early on a Saturday evening following a matinée showing of Holding the Man at The Malthouse. Cindy had one of her semi-regular faux-meat cravings, and our previous trip to the incongruously located (across the street from Crown) Enlightenment Cuisine had been relatively successful. It all added up to good excuse to make our theatre-related dinner a slightly more expensive experience (although it turns out they're now offering a series of $9 'food on the run' meal combos straight from the lunch menu, so it needn't have been quite so expensive).

Cindy, bafflingly, is rarely able to expand her faux-meat enthusiasms from the sickly sweet Chinese treats she remembers from her childhood: usually honey chicken, sweet and sour pork or lemon chicken. This week it was lemon chicken - I always enjoy stealing one little chunk off her plate, but more than that would be too much for me - Cindy enjoyed it though, happily chowing down the sweet, batter-y goodness.

I decided to try another 'fish'-based treat - fish with black bean sauce (see top). It was the same kind of weird dry fish substitute that we'd had at Ten Ren's, but this time it was appropriately smothered in sauce - a vinegary, beany black bean syrup. It also came with a decent number of vegies stirred through, something lacking from the lemon chicken. I'm not as enamoured of the Chinese faux-meat experience as Cindy is, and at more than $15 a pop, this isn't the great-value city food that we can score from places like Nila or Lord of the Fries. Maybe next time we'll try the $9 specials and see how they measure up.

Read about our previous visit to Enlightened Cuisine here.

April 19, 2008: Ying Thai 2

I've visited Ying Thai 2 on several occasions, yet this is the first time it has appeared on this blog. The meals I've had there have been spontaneous outings with friends but not a camera, or on lazy nights with Michael when even photographing the food feels like too much work.

This occasion was instead a lazy Saturday lunch with a camera. I picked Ying Thai because I like their reduced-portion, reduced-cost lunch specials.

Although there are noodles and soups and stir-fries available, it's all about the curry really. Michael had the vegetable Kao Gang Dang (red curry, $8.90), with rice. He lapped it up as happily as he does most curries, remarking on the generous supply of tofu.

I ordered the vegetable Kao Gang Panang ($9.90), copping the extra $1 in cost for the luxury of roti instead of rice. I love dipping it in the spicy coconut milk broth, though it does get a bit oily and it's difficult to get through all the sauce in this way. It's best undertaken when you've convinced your eating companion to order rice and go halves! (See above.)

Ying Thai 2 is loud and a little obnoxious, all fluorescent colours and yelling over the noise and busy, somewhat inattentive staff. But it has reinvigorated my taste for Thai style curries, and I hear that it's actually quite authentic. We're lucky to have it in our neighbourhood.

Edit 16/06/08: We were back to take advantage of the lunch special last Saturday and discovered after ordering that the vegetable curries actually contain fish sauce. Damn! No more Kao Gang Panang for me.

Address: 110 Lygon St, Carlton
Phone: 9639 1697
Licensed and BYO wine
Price: veg lunch specials $7.90-9.90

April 13, 2008: Little pumpkin

This cute little fellow was a gift from my workmate Andy. (Refer to the accompanying biro in the photo to confirm his small stature.) I enjoy Andy's jokes and chuckles across the office wall so she doesn't need to buy my affection with vegetable offerings, but I was pleased to accept him all the same.

I was keen to stuff and bake the little pumpkin, but once I gently cut the top off I realised there wasn't actually much room for stuffing! Instead we just baked the segments, skin on, with olive oil, salt and pepper. It was deliciously soft and sweet.

On the side we had baby spinach leaves and emergency from-the-freezer square I-can't-believe-it's-not-meat pies topped with Chinese style barbeque sauce.

April 12, 2008: Mr Tulk III

Cindy and I had some serious camping gear shopping to sort out, on the last day of Kathmandu's Easter sale, and needed to find somewhere vaguely nearby to fill up on breakfast - you can't buy a tent on an empty stomach after all. We've not mastered the weekend breakfast in the city - a lot of the good places are set up to cater to the Monday to Friday office workers and take a well-earned break on the weekend. The Cheap Eats didn't offer us many new ideas, so we settled for a third trip to Mr Tulk. The trendy and welcoming interior has somehow tricked me into thinking that Tulk has a breakfast bounty to rival some of our local favourites. For some reason, however, it the menu didn't quite do it for me - none of the egg dishes caught my eye, so I settled for a simple avocado on toast. The avo was fresh and generously slathered on some plain toast - a small sliver of lime and a dash of salt and pepper completed the dish. It was excellent, and reasonably good value at $9.50.

Cindy opted for something from the cabinet: an almond croissant (at a slightly steep $4.50) and something from the menu: seasonal fruit salad with honey yoghurt ($9). The fruit salad fell well short of what you'd expect for almost $10 - some chunks of melon and a strawberry with a glob of yoghurt on top. The yoghurt was clearly top quality, but the fruit was a pretty dull selection, and not particularly fresh - a subpar performance. The croissant at least provided the quality to go with the price - buttery, nutty and rich - still probably slightly overpriced though.

So not a complete success - Mr Tulk is still a lovely place just to sit and sip a coffee on a Saturday morning, but the breakfast didn't quite hit the highs we've come to expect. Any tips for cheap, veg-friendly breakfast places in the CBD that open on the weekends would be greatly appreciated.

Read about our previous visits to Mr Tulk here and here.