Coffee: My Drug of Choice II

It's been more than one year since I blogged about coffee. Melbournians now have many more specialty cafes to choose from. 

St Ali has opened Sensory Lab in the heart of the city and Outpost on the wrong side of the river, both are open SEVEN days a week.   Seven Seeds also opened De Clieu on Gertrude St.  According to the review on The Age, they even have a gluten-free vegan option. 

Melbourne's best coffee chain Cafenatics also opened a specialty coffee joint called Eclipse in the city.  It is ONLY TWO MINUTES walk from my work.  I can now sleep in for  20 minutes because I don't need to detour to Brother Baba Budan on the way to work anymore.  They normally have three different types of beans in their grinders: different single origin coffee, guest blend and the house blend. They make great coffee most of the time and knock my socks off every now and then.  I had a Bonsoy long mac made with Market Lane Seasonal Blend there and it was the best espresso coffee I've ever had.  They also serve pour-over and cold drip coffee .  I tried one when they were testing the recipe and it was pretty awesome. 

(I normally use my Keepcup, don't hate me, Captain Planet.)

Eclipse

60/470 Flinders Ln, Melbourne

Awesome people at Eclipse told me they also have a little sister called Little Wish (See The Real Melbourne's review here).  What they offer are pretty much the same as the sister cafe but they have an awesome looking SLAYER espresso machine!

I had a very delicious Santa Babara and Kenya Gethumbwini (both single origin beans are from Market Lane) on pour-over there.

Little Wish 
530 Little Collins St, Melbourne
(It is very hard to find as they don't have any signs at all. Entry via Exchange Tower main entrance, walk pass all the fast food joints and news agency, look right.)

For the "Latte-Sipping Carbon-Neutral Bleeding Hearts", the one-year-old lacto vegetarian cafe Monk Bodhi Dharma in Balaclava is the best choice. They serve top-notch coffee and amaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazing vegan-friendly gluten-free food. (We blogged about it twice before our blog turned gluten-free and once afterward)  

I highly recommend their delicate hand crafted pour-over coffee. The beautiful aromas and flavours are very complex and change when it cooled down. The best pour-over I've ever had.

nice soy long mac

fantastic single origin pour over 

Monk Bodhi Dharma

202 Carlisle Street,Balaclava
Ph 9534 7250
 

Back to the northside, you can't really go past Proud Mary for some mind blowing specialty coffee action.  I have tried their flawless Soy Latte, syphon and cold drip. The cafe is pretty big but it is pretty hard to get a table as they are full of Hipsters and 4WDers from other side of the river.  

If you like a good syphon and cold drip, try them at Proud Mary.

Soy Latte

Syphon

Proud Mary

172 Oxford Street, Collingwood
Ph: 9417 593

Padre Coffee's East Brunswick Project is just a short bike ride from our house.  They are also one of the early proud owners of the Slayer espresso machine.  

 

yummy and pretty soy latte and soy hot choc

 nice soy long mac

The Brunswick East Project

438 Lygon St,Brunswick East
Ph: 03 9939 8422  

I really need to wrap it up here or I will never finish this post.  I might do another blog post about the Fantastic Market Lane after I try out the coffee from Cup Of Turth, Dancing Goat and Dead Man Espresso and other Melbourne specialty cafes.

On My Walkman  

Tron: Legacy OST - Daft Punk

Veg Out Time and Vegan Android Apps? Vegan Mofo Day 23

I'm not a huge fan of chapel st but I went there on the weekend to check out Chapel St Bazaar which is a huge vintage store which is mostly overpriced but has some decent stuff. While in the area we couldn't resist going to veg out time. It's cheapish and quick and always delivers decent Asian food. We always get the brown rice plus two dishes for $8.90 but I kind of regret not ordering the Pad Thai off the menu because it looks awesome.  Also they have g/f options.

I got the pumpkin curry and Penang tofu. The pumpkin curry was so creamy and went well with the roasted pumpkin which was just a tad spicy (too spicy for Toby but perfect for me). The Penang tofu was great, I always wonder how they get their tofu to soak up so much of the liquid, our dishes at home are never as good.

Toby got the tom yum tofu and the eggplant sweet potato Masada. The tom yum tofu was awesome (I stole a bit) but I didn't get to try the eggplant sweet potato Masada but I had ordered and loved last time and Toby said that it was nice and mild. 

 

I couldn't find other blog mentions of veg out time in google (including our own post), so please let me know if you have blogged about it and I'll add your link.

Veg Out Time-South Yarra
366 Chapel Street, South Yarra
(03) 9827 7570
Open Daily 11:30am-10pm

These are the first food photos I took with my new toy: HTC Desire HD

I'm not usually a phone person but love my new phone because it means I can have access to my personal email, facebook, twitter at work and use sporty pal to map my runs. Also, tonight I stood in the supermarket and googled what ice cream to make next (you'll see the result soon). I think I've been enjoying it so much because for once I did some research before buying a phone, I was initially going to get an iphone4 but figured out this is better!  Plus it has a massive 4.3 inch screen and a 8 megapixel camera which I think takes awesome photos for a phone.  These photos and the Johnston st fiesta ones were taken with my phone. Ok, enough going on about my phone. My point or rather my question to you is what vegan android apps have you used and do you recommend?

Veg Out Time

The other day, I was with K shopping in South Yarra. I felt kind of funny in the Republic of Orange-coloured People but was happy to see an old friend on Chapel street: Veg Out Time.

We both missed the food as we haven't been back since Vegan Fitness Week. We could both enjoy their cheap, fast, yummy, vegan and gluten-free food.

You can get half a plate of brown/white rice with two dishes from the Bain-Marie for $9 or three dishes for $10.

I had Yellow Tofu, Mapo Tofu and stir-fried Chinese greens with garlic. They were all full of flavour and, relatively, healthy. Yellow Tofu is my all time favourite. It is basically a very mild Malaysian style curry with mushroom and tofu. I order it every single time I go there.


K ordered Eggplant Masala and some sort of other curry. I tasted them both and thought they are both yum but a little bit too spicy for me.


Vegan options are clearly marked but you would need to ask them what is gluten-free.

If you don't like Bain-Marie food, you can also order fried noodles/rice dishes from the menu.

Veg Out Time
8/63 Fitzroy St, St Kilda
(03) 9534 0077
Open Daily 12pm-10pm

366 Chapel Street, South Yarra
(03) 9827 7570
Open Daily 11:30am-10pm

On the Stereo:
Good Morning Spider by Sparklehorse