Shakahari 3

Last week we went to Shakahari to celebrate my graduation and discovered that the menu has changed again since I last blogged about it only a few months ago. They still have an incredibly large number of g/f dishes, I think all six of their entrees and half of their mains are g/f. I was relieved to discover that they had kept a few of their classic dishes too like the avocado magic, satay legend and the croquettes. I managed to try everyone's dishes as well as order my own.

Toby and I shared the quinoa gnocchi (g/f), which doesn't look or taste much like gnocchi but was still delicious. The favour and texture reminded me a little of chinese style turnip cakes.

I couldn't resist ordering the croquettes de chine which are sadly not g/f but contain mashed potatoes, yam, macadamia nuts, pickled tunips with are served with kimchee, greens and an amazing tangy ginger sauce, these are still my favourite! My teenage sister enjoyed her share of this too I think even more than her own dish.

My mother ordered the satay legend, skewers with tofu, veg and seitan, served with rice greens, and pickles. She polished the plate and said that she loved it.

Toby ordered the laksa which comes with crispy tofu and tempeh. He requested for them to make it mild and I didn't get to try much of this but he said that it was rich in coconut flavour and that he really enjoyed the protein filled dish. It's a pricey laksa though at $19.50 but at least you can guarantee that's it vegan.

My teenage sister ordered the g/f pasta, which come with a pesto sauce, soy cheese and plenty of mushrooms. She ate it all except for the mushrooms, because she hates them. I enjoyed my tasting of this and thought the pasta was awesome for g/f pasta.

And we were intrigued by the soy almond panacotta dessert.  This was served with almond toffee, strawberries and a sweet orange coulis. I loved it but worried when I shared some with my sister that the soy flavour would be too much for her but she said that 'it tasted like real panacotta but a little less creamy'. I've never had real panacotta before so had nothing to compare it to but thought it was similar to the old tofu caramel in it's creamy smooth texture and loved the flavour combination.

 

It was a great success, everyone loved their meals and it's not everyday that I can manage to get a teenage omni to enjoy an upmarket vegetarian restaurant which doesn't offer chips.

I'm so hungree blogged about it recently, you can also read reviews based on their menu a few months ago here and here or our first review here.

Shakahari

201-203 Faraday St

Carlton
9347 3843 

New Veg Cafe:Veggie Kitchen

On Sat night, Toby, Cindy and Michael and I all dined at the new Taiwanese style vegetarian restaurant 'Veggie Kitchen'. Now first up I should apologise to fellow coelics this does contain what I suspect to be a fair bit of gluten. However, they have announced on their facebook page that they have gluten free options. It's in a premise that used to be a Chinese restaurant which is handy:


We quickly decided to give the banquet a try for $28 since it contained almost all of the items on the menu. First up we were served sprout apple soy milk and 'lettuce delight'. The lettuce delight surpised me because I thought it looked like san choi bao but it tasted quite different. There was no sauce and the filling was dry but I enjoyed it, it contained enoki mushrooms and I forget what else. The soymilk tasted a little bit too much like tofu for my liking, but reminded me of authentic Asian style soymilk that I got in HongKong.

Next up we were served a spring roll, seaweed hand roll and on top of the cucumber was Konjac (Toby had to google the Chinese word to figure out what the English word was). The spring roll pastry was delicate and abolsutely delicious, and I enjoyed the 'ham' style mockmeat in the hand roll.
For mains we were given five elements veggie pot, which tasted like a healthy stew which Toby said had gingko nuts in it. I liked the mysterious mockmeat on top which appeared to be made with tofu sheet, seaweed and tofu.
Also braised tofu, baked pumpkin, Tawainesse stuffed capscium and vegetable cutlet. The baked pumpkin normally has cheese on it but they made it vegan by replacing the cheese with soy sauce. The stuffed capsicum had us perplexed about what was in it, which we all swore was some type of legume but were told it was enoki mushrooms. The vegetable cutlet was the one dish that I didn't enjoy because it was particularly 'fishy' and I don't like mock fish but Toby loved it.And red rice marinated wheat meat on 'forbidden rice'. I really enjoyed this crispy mockmeat. And the red rice brought back memories of all those cheap buddist vegetarian places that Toby used to take me to in HongKong. Most places should have red or brown rice!
And finally dessert, we got the option of tofu pudding with red bean paste or strawberry jelly. Cindy had the genius idea of ordering two of each so that we could taste both. I really enjoyed the tofu pudding which reminded me a lot of red bean soup except it was cold and had silken tofu in it. The strawberry jelly was extremely thick and Toby guessed that it might also be made with Konjac.


I was quite full by the end and handed Toby a small amount of leftovers for him to finish. I thought the banquet was great value for money and it felt a lot healthier compared to the regular Chinese vegetarian places yet still tasty. The service was great, with the staff announcing that everything was made on site including the tofu and even advising us of the supposed health benefits for some of the dishes. Toby and I will definitely be back.

Although, it will be interested to see what I can eat when I go back to being gluten free.

Veggie Kitchen
159 St Georges Rd
Northcote
9489 2120