Tea Master II

July 9, 2013

Michael and I had a Tea Master Tuesday while swinging through Brisbane. It's the one day that sentimental fave Kuan-Yin is closed, and we can't help but compare the two venues. With their mock meat lunches, bubble teas and Wickham St addresses, they have an awful lot in common. Tea Master's just as good at a well-marked majority-vegan menu, and probably pips Kuan-Yin for non-mock options and its list of gluten-free dishes up at the counter.

After ordering rice plates on our first visit, we thought it time to test Tea Master's bento boxes. At $12.80 they're a smidge more expensive and a little more casually presented than Kuan-Yin's version. White rice is served loosely, the mixed veges are cooked together in a salty broth with a little sesame oil and the light pickle is bean sprouts. There's fruit to finish, but there's also (1) a cup of tea, and (2) pudding! Michael and I were served green tea jelly and coconut jelly, respectively, and seemingly at random.

As for the mock meat feature, I gave roasted eel a shot. It was like a denser, flatter mock chicken with a stripe of nori and crispy skin.

Michael's roasted duck was looser, sweeter and fattier. We both loved it!

The cup of tea and coconut jelly accompanying the meal set rendered my bubble tea (kiwi green with rainbow jelly) fairly redundant. The tea was a typically sweet sugar syrup and the jelly only weakly flavoured - no match for Kuan-Yin's counterparts.

For our purposes Tea Master plays second fiddle to Kuan-Yin, but really it's just disadvantaged by that proximity. I suspect that if I had Tea Master in my neighbourhood it'd be a favourite lunchtime hangout.

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You can read about our first visit to Tea Master here. Since then it has received positive write-ups on Soy Bien and Live Blissful.

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Tea Master
Shop 18, 115 Wickham St, Cathedral Village, Fortitude Valley
(07) 3257 0038
veg dishes $1.10-16.80

Accessibility: There is a ramp available for accessing this strip of cafes. Indoor and outdoor seating are both reasonably spaced. We ordered and paid at a high counter. We didn't see toilet access, and suspect there are shared ones for this retail area outside the restaurant.

Kuan-Yin Tea House III

06/05/2021: Kuan-Yin is now closed.

July 1, 2013

We went vego only in our last year or so of living in Brisbane. We'd spent almost a decade carelessly ordering the chicken at any old restaurant before seeking out all-veg venues like Squirrels, Pu Kwong and Kuan-Yin Tea House. Not discovering Kuan-Yin sooner was easily our biggest regret, and now I try to squeeze in lunch there every time I'm back in town.

Kuan-Yin has popped up in two of our highlights-of-Brisbane posts, but a good four years have passed and it really has earned a stand-alone review. It has a casual and friendly atmosphere and incredibly daggy fit-out; the fake wood-paneled walls are decorated with laminated photos of the food, and most of the chairs are flimsy fold-ups.

To their credit, the photos seem to be updated and I noticed a new menu on this visit. It's dominated by mock meats, including oddities like oyster omlette, takoyakii and calamari along with the more common sweet sour pork and spicy chicken. The mock-averse might find something to like amongst the entrees (dumplings, sweet potato wedges, phanton chips) and the soups. Vegan dishes are marked and are the clear majority; gluten-free options are unclear (although their dessert of the week was a flourless chocolate brownie!).

I really struggle to look past the bento ($10.50). My 'veg pepper salt fish rice' contained light and crispy-coated mock fish, salty miso beans, curry potatoes and carrots, a lightly dressed tomato wedge and a few shreds of pickled vegetables, steamed rice and some slightly tired fruit slices to finish up. There's just something about a variety-packed bento box! So fun, so satisfying.

Kuan-Yin is a tea house, so there are hot teas, milk teas, flavoured teas, frappes, juices and 'special drinks'. Some have fabulously special names, like the Pink Loving, Summer Hot, Black Mountain and Coconut Flirtation (I can personally recommend a Coconut Flirtation). There's a soy option for their milk teas too. The grapefruit green tea ($4.50) took me by surprise - it seemed to be made of actual juice, not flavoured sugar syrup! - and a scoop of lychee jelly ($0.50) offset its bitter pithiness perfectly.

I received quick and courteous service, and I would probably tolerate much worse before my affection and (somewhat misplaced) nostalgia for Kuan-Yin were damaged.

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We've previously posted about Kuan-Yin here and here. It's been blogged more recently and just as positively on Living du jour, Leong Ming En Food Photography, Soy Bien, Vegeterranean, The Urban Princess Blog and Live Blissful; only Edesian Feast is unimpressed.

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Kuan-Yin Tea House
198 Wickham St, Fortitude Valley Qld
(07) 3252 4557
veg snacks and meals $4.50-14.90
facebook page

Accessibility: Kuan-Yin has a wide, flat entrance and generally well spaced tables. I ordered at the table, helped myself to cutlery in the corner, paid at a low counter and didn't visit any toilets.

Chilli lime tamarind tofu

June 29, 2013

Our weekend plans went from wine-drinking and bird-watching in the country to doona-hiding and slackery as quickly as it took Cindy to develop flu-like symptoms. Her illness sapped her tasting powers, which meant that we needed something spicy to cut through. Luckily we had just the thing - this simple tofu recipe from the indolent cook.

The recipe had a lot going for it - it looked straightforward, it promised big flavours and it gave us another excuse to use some of the makrut lime leaves that we've got growing in the communal area of our apartment block. We stuck closely to the recipe, just doubling everything to make sure we had plenty to eat and then adding a side of sesame stir-fried green beans and some brown rice.

The tofu was everything promised, loaded up with incredible flavours. The chilli garnish gave the odd bite a really great kick but the whole thing was limey, spicy and sweet - I even got a bit of delicious charring onto the tofu (at the expense of our previously 'non-stick' fry pan). We've got so many rad tofu recipes these days, but this one has immediately jumped into our regular rotation - fantastic.

Chilli lime tamarind tofu

(from the indolent cook) 

500g firm tofu, cubed

4 small red chillies, cut into fine rings

6 makrut lime leaves, shredded

2 heaping teaspoons of tamarind paste

2 tablespoons tamari

1 teaspoon brown sugar

Oil, for frying

Combine the lime leaves, tamarind paste, tamari, sugar and almost all of the chilli (or all of it if you don't want any fresh chilli garnish) in a bowl and stir into a thick marinade. 

Tip in the tofu, toss it all together and leave for 15 minutes or so while your rice is cooking.

Heat some oil in a frying pan and, when it's nice and hot, throw in the tofu cubes (reserving most of the marinade). You want to get the tofu cubes fried up and a little charred - it adds a bit of smokiness to all the other flavours. 

Once the cubes are basically cooked, pour over the marinade and cook it off - it should leave a thick saucy residue. 

Serve on rice with a side of whatever easy veggie dish you can be bothered whipping up.

East Elevation III

Edit 02/01/2021: East Elevation is no longer trading as a cafe, but is available as a function venue.

June 27, 2013

We've had some excellent vegan-friendly meals at East Elevation this year, so we booked in as soon as we heard they were putting on a special five-course vegan degustation night. At $60 a head, they were clearly aiming at something fancier than their semi-regular ping-pong nights. After a bit of Facebook-wrangling, we wound up as part of a very enthusiastic group of 13, all excited to see what delights East Elevation would serve up. As we've said every time we've written about this place - it's a lovely, lovely space, with beautiful high ceilings and an effortlessly stylish fit-out. Things were particularly beautiful for this dinner, with loads of candles casting a romantic glow over everything.

Things got off to a promising start - they'd prepared a special vegan drinks list (a half dozen wines plus a few beers and ciders) and they dished up a special pre-dinner course to "say hello". We got one of these little plates between two people, with the mix of artichoke hearts, dijon and dill starting things out very promisingly.

The first of the proper courses was a coconut and cauliflower soup with almond and cacao nibs.

This was superb - creamy and rich with the nibs giving a bit of crunch to break up the smoothness. I quickly ditched my spoon and drank it down like a delicious soupy cocktail.

Course #2 was a silken tofu and caramelised onion tart with shaved fennel and lemon vincotto.

Some very unscientific post-meal polling had this dish come up as the table's favourite of the night. It's easy to see why - the pastry was great, the creamy tofu filling delicious and the sweet caramelised onions like buried treasure. The whole dish was a great combination of sweetness (the vincotto and the onions), tanginess (the fennel and the lemon) and savoury (tofu, pastry). Hopefully something like this will sneak onto the East Elevation lunch menu.

Next up was my favourite dish of the night: foraged mushrooms with white polenta and NSW black truffle.

It's possible I'm just a sucker for the gimmick of this dish - it all came out sealed in a wire bail jar and, when you popped the lid, you got an intoxicating hit of earthy, truffle-y aroma bursting out into your face. Yum. The dish itself was just as good as it smelled, the soft white polenta soaking up all the fantastic mushroom juices. 

Our final savoury dish was chipotle tempeh with vanilla parsnip cream, burnt orange cavolo nero and carob syrup.

I'm such a big tempeh fan that I was always going to enjoy this, but again the East Elevation kitchen took things to brilliant new levels. The parsnip cream walked a fine line between savoury and dessert, while the smoky chipotle marinade on the tempeh was spicy with just a hint of sweetness. Throw in the citrussy greens and you've got another fantastic set of flavours.

The meal was capped off with a single dessert course: chestnut cake, quince and chocolate ganache.

This was the only slight disappointment of the night - the ganache was outstanding (chocolate is clearly going to be a strongpoint here), but the chestnut cake didn't really work for me. The texture was a bit rubbery and the flavour was overwhelmed by the quince and chocolate.

This was an exceptional, exceptional meal - $60 for five courses of vegan food seemed like a bit of a risk when we booked in, but this turned out to be among the best value degustations we've been to. Each of the savoury courses was a highlight - there were interesting ingredients (including protein, yay!), smart flavour combos and an overwhelming sense that the dishes had been devised as vegan, rather than being recreations of non-vegan dishes with things removed. We had a fantastic night, meeting some lovely new people as well as eating outstandingly well.

It's not entirely clear how often East Elevation will be repeating their supper club or whether it will consistently cater for vegans. Fingers crossed they realise how responsive vegans are to places that serve them great food and schedule a regular veg degustation. We'll keep you posted!

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East Elevation
351 Lygon Street, Brunswick East
9380 4915

special supper club set menu: $60
facebook page

Accessibility: Excellent. A ramp on entry, lots of space and unisex toilets (including one with wheelchair access). Things are a bit dim in the evenings. On this occasion there was a set menu and full table service (with option bill-splitting at a low-ish counter).

The Sporting Club III

Update 31/12/2014: The Sporting Club has renamed itself The Charles Weston Hotel. Very little seems to have changed otherwise.

June 23, 2013

We're increasingly going with repeat visits when we catch up with our pub-club posse - after ticking off thirty-two different pubs it's getting harder to keep things fresh. We'd heard rumours of a new menu at The Sporting Club, which was close enough to a new pub for us, so we headed off to check it out on Sunday night. It's a lovely pub - a cosy front bar, plenty of dining space and (when the weather's warmer) a few little outdoor spaces.

The menu is more veggie friendly than ever before - the majority of the starters are vego and there are seven different main meals to choose from, including wild mushroom parpadelle ($14), eggplant kasundi curry ($17) and a crumbed haloumi burger ($16).

We turned up early and munched our way through a serve of their decent shoestring fries with aioli and tomato sauce ($7) while waiting for the whole gang to turn up. This left Cindy unable to face the idea of a main-sized meal and, so she headed into the starters section of the menu, opting for the veggie chilli and cornbread ($9).

This was an incredibly generous $9 serve of chilli, although it felt a bit like they could have upped the cornbread a little to go along with it. The chilli was tasty enough - spicier than expected and with some nice smokiness, filled with a good mix of beans and veggies and a sour-cream/coriander garnish. The cornbread was a thin and crispy version not ideal for soaking up the sauces, but pretty great on its own.

I decided to sample the one explicitly vegan (and gluten-free!) main on the menu: sweet potato shepherd's pie with pea puree and iceberg lettuce ($16).

This was better than a vego shepherd's pie had any right to be - the filling was a simple but comforting stew of lentils, veggies and an oniony-gravy, while the topping combined fluffy sweet potato and the mushy peas perfectly. I need to eat more mushy peas I think - I always forget how great they are. The side salad didn't really rock my world - I've become a bit of a snob about iceberg lettuce it seems.

I was chockers after my pie, but Cindy miraculously rediscovered her hunger when she realised she had a shot at dessert. They've only got one option - sticky date pudding with caramel and vanilla pod sauce and ice cream ($7).

I'm not a huge fan of sticky date pudding, but Cindy seemed pretty happy with the Sporting Club's version - the pool of sauce and the big dollop of ice cream obviously helped seal the deal.

With each visit to The Sporting Club I've grown more and more enamoured of it. The menu is getting increasingly veg-tastic and the food is of a pretty high standard - everybody at our table of 12 was impressed. The staff are friendly if a little harried - there were problems with the interface between the bar and the kitchen on Sunday night, but they served up some free drinks for those of us who wound up with overlong delays on their meals. It's not quite my favourite pub in Melbourne, but it just might sneak into the top 5 (current rankings: Fox, Gasometer, Napier, Rainbow, Sporting Club).

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Read about our previous trips to The Sporting Club here and here.

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Sporting Club Hotel
27 Weston Street, Brunswick
9380 8777
veg snacks and mains $5-$21
http://www.sportingclub.net.au

Accessibility: The Sporting Club has a flat standard-width entry and plenty of space inside. Ordering and payment takes place at the bar, which in our experience can be very loud. The toilets were easy to get to but were just ordinary sized cubicles for men and women.