Merri Table and Bar

Merri Table and Bar is a relatively new restaurant at ceres (Centre for Education and Research in Environmental Strategies) which is pronounce. It's mostly vegetarian, there was only one or two meat dish on the menu when we visited. The cusine is middle eastern, but quite upmarket with an emphasis on sharing several small dishes. It's really quite unlike the ceres cafe and market which has quite a hippie feel to it.

I wish I would have taken my camera to take some pictures of the interior which is gorgerous and the restaurant is surrounded by trees which almost had us convinced that we were in the country. Instead I needed to rely on my phone camera, so I apologise  for the dodgy photos.

Toby and I actually tried to visit a fortnight ago with Cindy and Michael but was turned away on a Saturday night since it was booked out. This time we booked, which seemed un-necessary this time because there was only 2 other customers in the restaurant. We were running late as usual, so by the time we arrived our friends Brunswick Bec and Troy had already sussed out what was vegan and gluten free options. Thankfully all of the vegan items could be made gluten free when requested and there was only a few items on the savoury menu which couldn't be made vegan.

I was also impressed to see that they had even had listed which wines were vegan, low preservative, organic and biodynamic. You can check out their current menu here. We ordered a bottle of Karina Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc to share which was great, although neither of us are wine buffs so can't really comment beyond that.

While we were pondering what to order when they brought us some complimentary fresh figs served with pickles, tomato and thin beetroot. The combination was lovely and reminded me that I should eat more fresh figs!

We had the seasonal vegetables dips and instead of the usual bread just had corn chips. The two vegan dips they provided were hummus which was served with pickles. 

The other dip was smoked pumpkin. Everyone loved this, it was super smokey almost like baba ganoush but with pumpkin.

I was intrigued by the sound of the silverbeet and quinoa sarma with roasted ketchup which was basically tangy quinoa served inside rolled sillverbeet and served with roasted tomatoes. Tasty and such a great idea, Bec and Troy agreed that this was their second favourite dish of the night.

The vegetables fritters are normally served with an almond mayo but our vegan version were served with what I suspect to be tahini. The fritters change based what's in season and this time it was broccoli covered in a chickpea batter. They were crunchy and were the overall standout dish of the night. Next time, we must order two serves.

The smashed carrots with almond and mint were incredibly tender.

The orange fennel salad was simple but delicious.

Toby was very happy when the protein filled M'jaddarah arrived. This dish consisted of rice and lentils miced together with a range of spices and served with chickpea vermicelli and cooked onions on top. It was also served with falafel and a tomato sauce. We ordered 2 serves of this to share and it's not surprising that this was his favourite dish. The falafel seemed quite different to normal falafel but we couldn't pinpoint what was different.

I couldn't resist trying the cauliflower kisir which really did resemble tabbouli, I'm not sure I would have guessed that it was was cauliflower if it wasn't told. It was served with mint and I think dill.

We all had a serve each of the one vegan dessert: firin sutlac or turkish rice pudding. This had a strong cinnamon flavour and contained lime zest and was outstanding.

Our bill for the four of us was around $140 including a bottle of wine. So it was not a cheap night out but the food was really simple yet beautiful, service was great and the place had such a lovely feel to it that we didn't mind at all. Plus they had plenty of gluten free vegan options  and lots of bicycle racks.  The age and Brian from Fitzroyalty both gave it good reviews.You should check out Brian's reviews for some better pictures and I promise next time I will take my camera. Be sure to advise them that you want vegan or gluten free options so they can make the necessary adjustments!

Merri Table and Bar
Corner of Stewart and Robert St
East Brunswick

Tartex

Sometimes the simplest things are the best. This breakfast/snack is so simple that I questioned blogging it but I've lost my blogging mojo lately so it's either this or nothing at the moment.

I'm fond of tartex, as you may remember from my greasy crazy fried tartex experiment. If your not familiar tartex it's a brand of vegetarian pate from Germany, they have a wide range of flavours too! I remember when we were leaving Germany we had some in our hand luggage and a security man stopped us and said that we shouldn't have it since it was over the liquid limit but they would let it go since they also loved tartex. I even saw it sold in a large chemist!

So this simple lazy pairing involved tomatoes from our friend Troy's graden which were friggin out of the world. Seriously who knew that such tiny tomatoes could be bursting with so much flavour? 

And some shittake asia tartex, which is out favourite flavour so far. Anikee (from radical grocery) swears the pesto flavour is the best but we haven't tried it yet. And a tiny bit of shaved cheddar cheezly all served on some g/f toast. Seriously this was perfect!

What is your favourite tartex flavour?

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

Gluten Free Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies

The desserts on Elana's Pantry look amazing but the idea of importing some sort of special blanched almond flour just seemed a little too extreme even for me. So I was grateful when Toby come across blanched almond meal in Brunswick IGA. It wasn't cheap, it cost a little over $11 for 500 grams. I was a little worried though, I didn't want to buy some super expensive almond meal which didn't work in her recipes. Particularly because she says that you need to use certain brands of blanched almond flour since others don't work with her recipes.

I used lindt dark chocolate and cut it into tiny chunks and made her famous cookies.

Gluten Free Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies from Elana's Pantry

2 ½ cups blanched almond flour

½ teaspoon celtic sea salt (i used regular sea salt)
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ cup grapeseed oil
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
½ cup agave nectar
1 cup dark chocolate chips 73% cacao

1. Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl
2. Stir together wet ingredients in a smaller bowl
3. Mix wet ingredients into dry
4. Form ½ inch balls and press onto a parchment lined baking sheet
5. Bake at 350° for 7-10 minutes
6. Cool and serve

Makes 24 cookies

I put them in the oven for a few minutes more than the recipes asked for but they were still quite soft so I was a little skeptical but after cooling for what seemed like forever they eventually firmed up and had a soft but wonderful texture kind of like mrs field cookies. Although, I made one mistake with this recipe and used dark agave. I thought that dark agave and regular agave were interchangeable in recipes but it turns out that dark agave has quite a strong flavour unlike it's neutral counterpart. So while these cookeis were delicious the dark agave really overpowered the other flavours.

To make up for the strong flavour I made some ice cream sandwiches to take to a friends house. I actually made ice cream to put inside but couldn't find the crucial part of our ice cream maker so had to settle for so good chocolate ice cream inside. I think the chocolate ice cream was a bit too much and I'm not really sure if our friends enjoyed them.

But I have high hopes for the recipe with regular agave and plan to make them properly very soon because the texture is so bloody awesome for a gf baked good and I can tell that they will taste great without the strong agave flavour.

In the meantime, does anyone have any suggestions for dark agave recipes?

Beetroot Pepperoni and Pizza Base Comparison

As soon as we received beetroot in our food co op box last week, I thought here is my chance to make the beetroot pepperoni, I've been intrigued by the idea since I saw it on diet dessert and dogs.

Beetroot Pepperoni from diet dessert and dogs

3-4 very small fresh beets, peeled and sliced extremely thin

1 Tbsp (15 ml) extra virgin olive oil, preferably organic

2 Tbsp (30 ml) Bragg’s liquid aminos OR tamari OR soy sauce

1/2 cup (120 ml) vegetable broth

1/4-1/2 tsp (1-2.5 ml) liquid smoke, to your taste*

1 tsp (5 ml) apple cider vinegar

2-3 drops plain stevia liquid or 1/4 tsp (1 ml) sugar

1/4 tsp (1 ml) garlic powder

1/4 tsp (1 ml) onion powder

1/4 tsp (1 ml) ground mustard

1/4 tsp (1 ml) fennel (ground is preferred)

1/8 tsp (.5 ml) sage

1/4 tsp (1 ml) smoked or regular paprika

Preheat oven to 325F (170 C).

Place everything except the beets in the bottom of a 9-inch (22.5 cm) square glass pan or a casserole dish and combine well.  Add the beet slices and toss to coat them all; spread them out as well as you can (overlapping slices is okay). 

Bake the slices, uncovered, for about 20 minutes, then remove from the oven and flip them over and around to re-coat them with marinade and switch the bottom slices to the top and top to the bottom as much as possible. Continue to bake and stir them up every 10-15 minutes until they have absorbed most of the marinade, are very soft, and begin to curl and crisp at the edges. Remove from oven and set aside until you need them for the pizza.

It was a bit time consuming to make, cooking for at least 60 minutes in total before it was ready and didn't taste exactly taste like pepperoni but had a lovely salty/smokey flavour.

We used half of it on our cream cheese pasta leftovers and then I had to make pizza. We both preferred it on pizza as it become slightly crispy. I purchased two ready made crusts to make the pizza. The Dovedail rice chia pizza bases from the health food store and the simply wise pizza crust from coles. The dovedail package contained 2 bases and the simply wise packet contained 3.

Here is the simply wise ones, which are smaller than the dovedail ones. I put the same topping on each pizza- Leggo's pizza sauce, cheddar cheezly, beetroot pepperoni slices, smoked tofu, pineapple pieces and capsicum. The toppings were a surprisingly good combination. The instructions said to bake the bases for 7-10 minutes but I ended up baking them for about 20 minutes.  These pizza bases are made from mostly rice flour, tapioca and potato starch. They also contain herbs in the actual base which we couldn't really taste.




They are thinner and kind of crunchy and Toby I agreed that we preferred this option as he said 'it's not bad for gluten free pizza'. Although it still kind of still felt like it was slightly under cooked in the middle.




I've used the same size plate so you can see the slightly bigger size difference with the dovedail bases. There are not as many ingredients in these as they mostly consist of rice flour and chia seeds so they appear to be the healthier option.






And here's an inside shot. The instructions didn't say how long to cook for, but I cooked these for about 20 minutes. These were fine, but in comparison they were quite doughy and kind of felt like we eating pizza on top of warm bread.



The simply wize bases were $6.45 from coles and I think the dovedail bases were a similar price if not slightly more.  While the dovedail bases were slightly larger in circumference and thicker there was only 2, so the 3 simply wize ones work out to be better value.  In our mind the simply wize were superior in terms of texture and they are also more convenient too since most coles seem to stock them in the health food section. We will definitely make them again. I'm embarrassed to say that we ate all 5 pizzas on Friday night but were extremely full. I think that 3 would be fine served with some salad and/or garlic bread for 2 regular eaters. Since Toby doesn't count :P

Cream Cheese Pasta

I generally find the recipes that Toby makes for weeknight dinners. The theme tends to be quick and easy. Actually the theme for most of our meals is quick and easy. This dish fits the bill nicely.


Cream Cheese Pasta it's actually a variation of Pasta with Cream Sauce and Spinach from vegan food.

          1/3 container Tofutti  "Better Than Cream Cheese"
          1 cup vegetable stock
          1 garlic clove, crushed
          1 cup rocket (or argula)
          1 large broccoli
          1 can of beans
          G/f pasta
          Vegetable oil
          Salt and pepper 

METHOD
Saute garlic and broccoli in a little oil.  Add stock cube and cup of water. Add the Tofutti cream cheese and white beans. Let simmer till kinda thick (10 minutes maybe). Add rocket in last minute of cooking. Dump everything on top of the pasta you cooked and mix it up. If you wanted to make it tastier you could add some fresh herbs.





It was delicious, creamy and relatively healthy. Maybe not as nice as amazing as the vegan yum yum Alfredo but cheaper and with less dishes and ingredients. I think this could be a great dish to make when traveling.

Lord of the Fries Gluten Free Burger

Disclaimer: we recently received a lord of the fries VIP card which entitles us to one free small fries once a month for a year (except for March and November for some reason). However, I swear that this review is not influenced by that, particularly since I'm not even reviewing the fries.




It fills me a crazy amount of happiness that I can get vegan and gluten free onion rings, 'chicken' nuggets, burgers and fries in the CBD. Even more so because their LOTF city stores are in convenient locations and are open super late. Lord of the fries is particularly good at midnight when you want greasy food. Actually just quickly on the subject of fries, did you know that most fries are not gluten free? It's because they are generally cooked in the same oil as battered items or are frozen ones which have added wheat. So so so stupid!


It took me a while to try the gluten free burger because it wasn't available for a while while they changed buns but it's back and i've had it twice. Here is the large original burger. The g/f bun only comes in large and mega.




Now first of all, the bun isn't as good as the gluteny bun but I never really expect gluten free bread to be as good. It's got that weird gluten free texture which is almost cake like and kind of falls a part a little. It also seems bigger than the regular bun so both times I have ended up with a tiny but of bun leftover. But I actually don't care because it's a vegan and gluten free burger!!!! Also taste wise it's actually alright, it's just the texture that's weird. The patty and fillings are still the same, so that's the important thing.

We went on Saturday night to the Elizabeth st store and it felt so satisfying to have a burger while Toby ate his regular burger and my brother and his girlfriend had their McDonald's burgers. Yes, I know they are gross! It's just the feeling of not missing out, that's really nice.

I couldn't resist sharing some onion rings with Toby which still rock my socks:



It was really convienent dinner before my first soccer game at aami park otherwise known as bubble dome which is actually kind of cool looking, check out the pretty sky:



Lord of the fries has recently been reviewed by chit chat chomp,  vegan snorkeler and easy as vegan pie.

Lord of the Fries
Corner of Elizabeth and Flinders St
Melbourne

P.S: Does anyone know why the northland store closed down?