Livin' Burrito Loca

December 31, 201: Livin' Burrito Loca disappeared at the end of last summer and is yet to pop up anywhere new.

February 2, 2012

Melbourne is in the grip of taco-fever - it's impossible to keep up with the flurry of hip, Mexican-inspired eateries popping up across the city, presumably inspired by Mamasita's incredible popularity. We've done a pretty poor job of keeping up with the trend, unable to go beyond Trippytaco's reliably awesome offerings.

Still, a pop-up taco place in an art space in the back-streets of Fitzroy is about the most ridiculously 'Melbourne' thing imaginable, so when we read about it, we felt duty bound to check it out. It's really a pretty rudimentary set-up: a food trailer and a makeshift bar plonked down in a garage that's been decorated with lots of coloured paper. It looks like the whole joint could be packed up and disappeared in about fifteen minutes.

The menu is similarly straightforward: there's a burrito ($10) or tacos ($6 each), with a black-bean based filling for us vegos and lots of fresh salad. There's also a couple of drinks to choose from: the milky aloe vera, lime and coconut and the fruitier lemon, mint and agave nectar ($4 each). Both come served in little plastic bags with optional slugs of booze (which presumably cost extra).

They're kind of fun and it's nice to have some interesting non-booze options, but the wacky serving style is actually a bit of a pain in the arse - simply putting them down on the table takes care and attention.

Onto the food! Both the tacos and the burrito were pretty good - made to order and filled with good quality ingredients. The salad is fresh, the black bean mix is tasty and the tortillas are delicious (particularly the blue corn ones that come with the tacos). They both come with cheese, guacamole, salsa and chipotle mayo. There's also hot sauce on the tables for people like me for whom the mayo isn't quite chipotle-enough.

The big downside? Price. At $10, this burrito is the same price as the tofu/bean option at Trippytaco and about half the size. Similary, Cindy's two tacos ($12) are about $3 more than the Trippytaco variety and considerably smaller. If this place was churning these out a bit cheaper I'd have no hesitation in recommending it, but at these prices you're not really getting great value for money. I guess you're paying for all the hipster points you're racking up. On the plus side, they do offer vegan and gluten-free options and the staff are pretty friendly.

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I'm surprised by how little blog attention this place has had so far - That Jess Ho checked it out and was pretty unimpressed.

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Livin' Burrito Loca
Cnr Gore & Webb Streets, Fitzroy (in the Odessa Creative Space) until the end of February
burritos $10, tacos $6

Accessibility: Ramp access and a relatively uncluttered interior make this pretty accessible. The food-cart counter is pretty high, but the staff are happy to wander down and take your order/money. I can't imagine where they hide the bathrooms.

The Vegie Bar VII

January 28, 2012

We don't get to the Vegie Bar often, though I've had a couple of meals there since our last post - I remember a terrible pizza and a better pie with chips and salad. Carla can't stop blogging about the raw options they've started offering in the past six months so on a hot lazy night we were compelled to stop by for a quick meal.

One thing hasn't changed about the Vegie Bar - it is loud and crowded. We were crammed onto the communal table and while the staff attending to us were friendly, we were not inclined to linger.

Eager for some hydration, Michael ordered a Vitality juice (apple, celery, ginger, cucumber; $5.50) and I tested the raw shake (cacao, agave, almond milk; $7.50). They arrived long before our food and we struggled to nurse them through. This, despite barely enjoying my shake - it was full of blended almond bits that caught in my throat and didn't taste much of cocoa at all. I wouldn't buy it again.

Once he saw the (HOT!) warning, Michael was all about the Sambal Noodles ($15), a wok-tossed mixture of mock duck, veges and noodles in hoisin sauce and sambal. They weren't as hot as he'd've liked, though Michael did like the duck - it's the kind of meal that we're known to make at home.

I gave the raw tacos ($12) a shot. The dehydrated 'shell' is tasty but not quite pliable enough to take in hand, and it'll disintegrate the millisecond it comes into contact with water. So I awkwardly shovelled it all down with knife and fork - the 'mince' was surprisingly spicy and hearty, cooled a little by the iceberg lettuce strips and the guacamole; and the flavour-charged condiments (pine-nut sour cream and coriander and mint relish)  almost stood up to the 'mince'. Klutzy consumption aside, I liked this - it was satisfying and reasonably priced.

Settling the bill took far too long - it doesn't seem efficient have departing customers queue with the new arrivals out the front - but this gave us time to gaze at the dessert display and pick two slices to take home. They were enormous, well priced, simple and sweet.

It's cool to see the Vegie Bar adding some interesting raw options to an already diverse vegetarian menu, even as their customer base seems to broaden well beyond the veg*n community. I just find the hustle a hassle.

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You can read about many of our previous visits to the Vegie Bar: one, two, three, four, five, six.

This restaurant gets a lot of blog attention. Carla's covered the raw menu as comprehensively as she can, and raw items also appear in posts on Wayfaring Chocolate, In The Mood For Noodles and The Healthy Party Girl. Other positive write-ups appear on veg*n blogs soya et chocolat, Vegematarian, Ruby's Vegan Blog, crosslegged on the front lawn, Melbourne Vegetarian Reviews, Nouveau Potato and Black Bunny Carousel (though they've sworn off the place for a while). The Vegie Bar served Steph a pretty meh pizza; it's happened to me too.

Accounts from more omnivorous bloggers tend to be positive (see Who Told You That?, justframeless, Naturopathic Eats, Almost Always Ravenous, Melbourne Foodie, Gastrology, Richard Elliot's Blog, We Rate It, Let Me Feed You, We Dare Food, Aggofato, The Food Complex, let's get fat together and angelkhong) though there've been a few mixed and negative experiences (on Miss Adriennely, mochii eats [twice] and Cherry The Chef).

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The Vegie Bar

380 Brunswick St, Fitzroy

9417 6935

veg meals $5-15

http://www.vegiebar.com.au/

Accessibility: The Vegie Bar has a flat, wide entry but pretty crowded tables. Orders are taken at the table and bills are to be paid at a high counter. We haven't visited the toilets.

Yim Yam

January 2016: Yim Yam closed their Collingwood branch in September 2015. They're still trading in Yarraville 

January 25, 2012

One my colleagues came into work recently raving about a new Thai place that had popped up on Smith Street called Yim Yam. Some quick research revealed that this is a new outlet of a small chain of Thai/Laotian restaurants with a highly regarded store in Yarraville. Once we scanned their online menu and noted all the little 'V's, Yim Yam went straight on our list of places to try.

We stopped in at about 8:30 on a Wednesday night to find it heaving with people and unreserved tables only available out in the courtyard. The menu is loaded up with vegetarian options and it was all we could do to stick to just 3 dishes. We started with the vegetarian Thai coconut pancakes filled with tofu, salad and two sweet sauces ($10.90 for two). While it was a little to heavy on the condiments, the pancakes were great and had us looking forward to what Yim Yam might bring next.

The first of our mains came with a ringing endorsement from Matt Preston - the menu boasts that the toasted rice and coconut salad ($14.90) is his favourite dish.

It's easy to see why - the combination of toasted rice chunks, shredded coconut, herbs, peanuts and lettuce gives you the a wonderful range of textures and flavours. The crispy rice in particular is wonderful - not as dry as I'd feared it would be, but still packing an impressive crunchiness. There's a bit of heat in this dish, courtesy of a sprinkling of dried chillies, as well as syrupy sweetness and a lime tang.

Our second main was one of their $9 Wednesday specials - a serve of the snakebean, basil and tao-hu stir-fry with rice.

The tao-hu is a kind of chewy tofu, and combined well with the fresh beans and bamboo shoots. The stiry-fry sauce packed a solid punch, with some Thai basil flavours peeking out from behind the chilli kick.

Yim Yam is a welcome addition to the Gertrude end of Smith Street - between it and the nearby Easy Tiger, this area has the cheap and fancy ends of the market sewn up. Yim Yam looks quite small from the front, but seems to have about four different seating areas (front room, courtyard, upstairs, downstairs). The staff have to work pretty hard, but things moved along fairly well despite the packed house. The menu states that they're happy to accommodate vegan and other dietary considerations (and it's possible that everything we ate was vegan). Given that they're open for weekday lunches as well as dinners, I'll almost certainly be back.

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Nobody seems to have reviewed the Collingwood outpost of Yim Yam yet, but there are plenty of positive write-ups of the Yarraville branch: Addictive and Consuming, eat, drink, stagger, Tune into Radio Carly, Footscray Food Blog, No Spring Chicken, Temasek and half-eaten.

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Yim Yam
76 Smith Street, Collingwood (also in Yarraville and Moonee Ponds)
9419 3985
veg dishes: $6.90 - $14.90
http://yimyam.com.au/

Accessibility: The front area has a flat entrance but is fairly crowded. Access to the courtyard and other rooms (plus the toilets) require you to negotiate at least a few steps. The toilets are spacious enough but not necessarily designed with accessibility issues in mind. Ordering takes place at the table, then payment is at a relatively high and crowded counter out the front.

White beans & cabbage

January 22, 2012

During those lovely days in Hobart, we had a commitment to attend to back home. Our previous vege delivery included an enormous cabbage - seriously, it was probably 2-3 litres capacity - and it was sitting in our crisper waiting to be eaten. We had ample time on Sunday afternoon to deal with it.

I was kinda bored with coleslaw, and spring rolls aren't the best work lunch leftovers. I wondered whether my newest cookbook included anything fun to do with cabbage, checked out the index, followed through to page 86 and realised I'd been over-thinking it. This lovely looking cabbage dish graces the cover of Super Natural Every Day!

It's the kind of dish Heidi does often and well - a bunch of fresh produce tossed together in a frypan, served up and sprinkled with a little something. In this case the produce is mainly cabbage, white beans and potatoes. I was a little wary of getting the potatoes completely cooked through purely by sautéing them for 8 minutes and was careful to cut them really small (cubes with no more than a 1cm side). This worked just fine. It's really important to wait out the frying as directed and build a golden crust on the potatoes and beans, 'cause this is where most of the fine flavour comes from. Of course a sprinkling of parmesan helps the flavour along too. As a vegan alternative, I'd suggest some extra salt, a bit of nooch or some of this stuff.

The recipe below is a double quantity on Heidi's version, since we had a lot of cabbage to get through. While her book predicts that this should serve eight, the two of us got a dinner and a lunch out of it each. We've got an appetite for cabbage that I never imagined.

White beans & cabbage
(adapted slightly from a recipe in Heidi Swanson's
Super Natural Every Day)

1/3 cup olive oil
230g potatoes, scrubbed but left unpeeled and sliced into tiny cubes
salt, to taste
2 x 400g cannellini beans
450g cabbage, finely shredded
a small handful of chives, roughly chopped
parmesan cheese, finely grated (optional)

Pour the oil into a very large frying pan over medium-high heat. Add the potatoes and a generous pinch of salt, tossing them to coat in the oil. Cover the frypan with a lid and give the potatoes 5-8 minutes to cook through, tossing them once or twice more along the way so that they don't burn but do develop a nice golden crust.

Add the beans to the pan and leave it uncovered, but go for the same cooking approach for a few minutes - leave the beans still to develop a golden edge, then toss it all around for a new crust on another side. Stir in the cabbage and chives, stirring and cooking until the cabbage just starts to soften. Serve it all up with a sprinkling of parmesan or some extra salt.

Pilgrim Coffee

January 19 & 22, 2012

I did a bit of coffee planning before we got to Hobart, discovering that we were going to be staying close by to two good options: Dr Coffee and Pilgrim. Dr Coffee served me a couple of excellent soy flat whites over the course of the week, but Pilgrim turned out to be the real star. Our penchant of holiday oversleeping meant that we were in need of speedy brekkies on two mornings, and Pilgrim's selection of pre-made goodies and top-notch coffee hit the mark perfectly.

On the Thursday morning we had just enough time to grab takeaway coffees and quick breakfasts to chomp down on our way to the MONA ferry. My half-sandwich of haloumi, caramelised onion and a free-range egg ($4) was outstanding - the sweet onion really standing out. It's a messy meal though - I wouldn't recommend eating and walking.

Cindy grabbed the bircher muesli with roast nectarine ($6.50), which was more transportable but maybe not quite as delicious. It was fine, but Cindy was hoping for more than just the sliver of nectarine on top.

We were back there before our flights on Sunday morning with a bit more time (props to Pilgrim for being one of a few Hobart cafes trading early on a Sunday), so we sat down this time. Like Garagistes, it's a very Melbourne-inspired fit-out: all post-industrial stylings and hip vibes.

I had another haloumi roll, but this time got greedy and combined it with a $5 bean burrito.

Once this comes out of the sandwich press it's less burrito and more a toastie. There's a good spread of hearty beans, a few slices of lightly melted cheese and a mild tomato-y salsa holding it all together. A fiver well spent.

Cindy had the roast pumpkin, haloumi and lemon zest foccacia ($9).

I snuck a quick bite of this and it was lovely, the lemon zest cutting through the sweet pumpkin and salty cheese. Good stuff.

I had a bunch of coffees from Pilgrim over the week - all were excellent. The staff were super friendly and it was a lovely, quiet space to hang out in while we waited for our flight back to Melbourne, where a place like this would be overrun with people at all hours. Hopefully the locals take a shine to this place and it thrives, 'cause we loved it.

That's the end of our Hobart posts. I can't emphasise enough what a great time we had - from the wonders of MONA and the excitement of FOMO, to the amazing tall eucalypt forests (featuring waterfalls and wild platypus!) and all of the glorious food we ate, everything about our five days in and around Hobart was spectacular. Same time next year?

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It seems that only Bri Eats has reviewed Pilgrim so far - other bloggers should swing by!

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Pilgrim Coffee

48 Argyle Street, Hobart
(03) 6234 0558
Brekkie treats: $4 - $9
https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Pilgrim-Coffee/151027994966336?sk=info

Accessibility: Pretty good - there's a flat entryway and the interior is relatively spacious. Ordering and payment happens at the counter, which varies in height. Strangely there are no toilets at all - the nearest are 'round the corner in the supermarket complex.