Suzy Spoons, Newtown

Suzy Spoons is a new vegetarian "butchers" and cafe that has opened up in Newtown.

Now the words "vegetarian butchers" will have some rabid omnivores scratching their head in confusion and dedicaetd vegetarians (and flexitarians like me) clapping their hands in delight.

Suzy Spoons makes various vegetarian meat substitutes like fakin' bacon, sausages and chicken schnitzels that give vegetarians, and others not wanting to eat meat all the time, some options other than salads and vegetable stacks. For someone like me who likes to eat meat free quite often but finds it quite hard to put together a lot of meals without meat these products are really useful. They are also really tasty.

As well as making all of their products on site, Suzy Spoons has a cafe area where you can pop in for a bite to eat.  There are a range of lunch options on offer - salads, burgers and sandwiches.

I'm still feeling like a bit of a fatty boombah after my Grand Eating Tour of Europe, and now Christmas, so I'm really pleased to see a bunch of salads on offer.  The salads come in three different sizes and I've chosen the small salad - with a slice of bread (or four) on the side which they are happy to accommodate even though it's not a menu option. I MUST have carbs at lunch. MUST.

I'm keen to try the salad that comes with a smokey rasher of fakin' bacon, lentils, kippfler potatoes, walnuts, baby spinach and basil dressing as I'm still wanting to find a bacon substitute that doesn't taste like old socks. This salad great - very fresh + light and the fakin' bacon was really smokey, had a nice flavour and a good crunchy texture. I'd happily add this to pastas or salads at home.

My lunch buddy, Miss Chicken, is also in a salad kind of mood and orders the tempeh, chickpeas, roast veggies, cous cous and mixed lettuce in a vinaigrette dressing salad. I love tempeh - fermented chickpeas that are made into a sort of "meatloaf" and the tempeh here is GREAT. I really love that the salads here are quite substantial - there's more to them then just lettuce and tomato.

Suzy Spoons is at 22 - 24 King Street, Newtown.

Lord of the Fries, CBD

Hallelujah! Lord of the Fries has finally opened up in Sydney and if this isn't proof that dreams can come true then I don't know what is.

LOTF have swung open their doors on George Street, just near the cinemas.  They opened about three seconds before we headed off to Europe so I had to wait about six weeks to finally get my Sydney LOTF fix. It was a torturous wait. On Saturday I happy danced into their store and had to refrain myself from odering EVERYTHING!

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Whilst LOTF does loads of things like vegetarian hot dogs, vegetarian burgers and chicken nuggets (yes EVERYTHING here is vegetarian) it's really their glorious fries I have a love affair with. Why? Because they're AWESOME!

LOTF has a bunch of different sauces and toppings to cover their crunchy, hand cut fries but I cannot CANNOT go past the French Canadian - piping hot vegetarian gravy smothered over super melty shredded cheese. SO. GOOD! I noticed that there's a range of fries on offer now - regular cut, fat cut and sweet potato. I think next time I'll go for the sweet potato fries with Belgian sauce (aka mayo)!

This LOTF is literally a hole in the wall so you'll have to go find a spot somewhere to perch and eat your mound of yummy, crunchy fries. I headed over to World Square and found a seat in the courtyard.

Lord of the Fries is at 537 George Street, Sydney. 

Yulli's, Surry Hills

During #meatFreeWeek back in March a bunch of hungry food bloggers gathered to feast at Yulli's - a popular vegetarian restaurant in Surry Hills.  The restaurant was PACKED and I'm guessing that not everyone crossing the threshold was veggo (half our group were meat eaters).  The food is so wonderful here that even diehard omnivores seem to flock to Yulli's.

Although the food is wonderful, the seating here is not the best.  Awkward tables and (for me) uncomfortable stools -- but I guess that's a good way to keep turn over high. Get in...eat your fill..and make room for the next lot of hungry diners. Being a...not small person...I'm always nervous of these little itty bitty stools...what if I eat one too many dumplings and break my seat?

We decide to go for the banquet - a steal at $35 - as it means someone else has made the difficult ordering decisions for us. Big thanks to Tara for letting me use her food photos for this post - can you believe I was TOO far from the food to be paparazzi.

Our feast kicks of with three scrumptious entrees. First we have a row of plump, savoury steamed leek + ginger dumplings with fresh plum sauce and my all time favourite cheese - pan-fried Haloumi. We're served a really interesting twist on Thai money bags that are filled with sweet tasting Edamame and Coconut.  I'm so impressed that fellow blogger Martyna went home and replicated these her own unique that very same weekend!

The second course has a plate of super crispy salt and pepper tofu with green papaya salad.  A lot of people are down on tofu but I'm not sure why? I love the silky texture of tofu especially when it has a nice, crunchy batter. The papaya salad is tart, fresh and + sour and totally counterbalances any "fried-food guilt" associated with the tofu.  A plate of crunchy Falafel accompanies the tofu - and it's lovely and crisp on the outside and fluffy on the inside with that wonderful nutty flavour that makes falafel so appealing.

I absolutely LOVED the porcini mushroom and haloumi pizza - the saltiness of halmoui is totally addictive to me. I couldn't detect much porcini, but there were olives and plenty of squeaky haloumi - perfection. The pizza was accompanied by a refreshingly light pear and orange salad that was studded with pieces of sweet pineapple.  The final main dish was a really great eggplant involtini - this dish was so filling and substantial that I think any die hard carnivore would struggle to believe it was 100% meat free.

The dessert platter was a delicious sight - a few little morsels of sweet things is the perfect way to end a perfect dinner - white Belgian chocolate caramel slice, chocolate fudge brownie and a little square of baked New York cheesecake with rhubarb sauce.

Yulli's is at 417 Crown Street, Surry Hills.  Phone them on 9319 6609.

Vego Cooking Class (and Giveaway) - Hopewood Health Retreat, Wallacia

Miss Piggy attend the Hopewood Health Retreat cooking class as a guest of Hopewood. THANKS!

Part of my becoming an “ethical carnivore” is about wanting to eat less meat.  I want to plan my part in reducing the demands on the meat production industry (it’s this HUGE demand after all that’s led to factory farming in the first place), and also because we really shouldn’t be eating meat every single day - it's not so good for your insides.

I want to be able to cook more vegetarian meals at home, but I really REALLY struggle in cooking a meal that doesn’t have meat as the main star.  My mind draws a mental blank at a dinner that doesn’t involve meat. I find this kind of astounding really considering I was a vegetarian for quite a number of years in my early 20s. I mean what did I eat???  I was FAT(ter) back then so I was obvious eating something.

So with all of that in mind I was STOKED when VegeTARAian and I were invited to attend a Vegetarian cooking class at Hopepood Health Retreat, in the rural residential suburb of Wallacia. Where’s Wallacia I hear you ask? Why it’s in Western Sydney of course...where ALL the good stuff is.

Hopewood has been operating as health retreat for 52 years in a gorgeous old art-deco building that was formerly a guest house.  The focus here is on rejuvenating body, mind and soul. It’s not  a flash resort where you’ll find the Kardashians hiding out and “detoxing”...it’s where regular people go to restore some equilibrium in their lives and just “get away from it all”.  You can come for a day and partake in all the activities, stay overnight...or for as long as you want really. It’s such a tranquil place I imagine the guests find it hard to leave.

I had monstrous amounts of envy over Hopewoods kitchen garden!

The cooking class is run by Hopewood’s head chef, John Estival – who is one of the nicest guys you’re ever going to meet.

John isn’t a vegetarian, but he took on the gig at Hopewood as it was a professional challenge, and he is clearly very passionate about food, health and nutrition. John really drilled into us the importance of eating food that is in season.  Apples that have been stored in Colesworth freezer for 10 months have no nutritional value to us...we may as well be eating dirt. His food message is similar to that of Michael Pollan – eat fresh food, avoid processed foods, don’t eat too much meat, eat mostly greens. Throughout the class he was constantly giving us tips on how to best retrain the nutritional value in our food – DON’T PEEL THE SKIN OFF YOUR FRUIT and VEGIES PEOPLE, it’s where all the good stuff is.

The cooking class was part demonstration, part hands on - a style that I've come to like as I've realised half the fun of learning to cook is getting your hands dirty (after washing them first of course). We start off by making a batch of Coconut + Tahini Balls which we'll eat with dessert later in the night. These type of things are a good option for when then 3pm munchies hit at work - better than chocolate or a packet of chips, and just as tasty.

We each take part in preparing our entree of Stuffed Mushrooms with a Feta, Spinach + Nut filling.  I make Stuffed Mushies at home fairly regularly (with bacon of course *tut tut*) but John suggests using the filling to stuff zucchinis, tomatoes and even capsicums.  As you all know from my constant Zucchini Tweets - I'm growing a monster crop of (five) zucchinis on my balcony so I'm glad to have another idea of what to do with them.

The main meal was a delicious Vegetable + Lentil Curry crammed to the hilt with fresh spices, carrots, potatoes and celeriac (that weird blobby vegetable that smells like celery but which I had NO idea what to do with). I've always been daunted by curry recipes that list a million different fresh spices that you need to grate, chop, grind, blend, whoosh, whiz and smash - but honestly it just didn't seem to be all that hard and the results were well worth the bit of extra effort.

And what meal would be complete without dessert - especially a dessert that involves ice-cream?  This was no ordinary ice-cream mind you, it contained no eggs and no diary - just frozen strawberries + bananas that are blended together with a splash of coconut milk, honey and vanilla extract. So simple - so TASTY!

And now (drum roll please) it's time for a giveaway - the second ever on my blog. I came away from the Hopewood cooking class with an extra copy of the hopewood@home cookbook that I'd like to give to one of my readers.  To enter simply leave a comment below telling me what your favourite vegetarian dish is to cook. The winner will be the person with who I think the tastiest sounding dish. I'll probably be bugging you all to send me your recipes too! I'll pick a winner 2 weeks after this publication date of this post.

Hopewood Health Retreat is at 103 Greendale Road, Wallacia.  Phone them on (02) 4773 8401.

Green Gourmet, Newtown

Today I decide that I’m going to take action and satisfy my craving for Chinese Green Beans with Pork Mince.

Lately I’ve been desperate for these tasty morsels but they never seem to be on offer when I go out for yum cha or dumplings.  Sad.

I’ve actually found a recipe off the internet and have considered making them for myself...but that’s not really how I roll (mainly as I’m lazy, but mostly as I’m serious when I say I really cannot cook).

                                 

I shoot a quick email off to Miss Chicken and confirm she is going to be my tummy’s partner in crime today.

We decide to head down to Asian King in Newtown as I’ve spied my crave-worthy dish on the menu.  Miss Chicken is happy with this as they do a $6.90 lunch time special. All sorted.

As I zoom down King Street I spy Miss Chicken loitering outside Green Gourmet. She informs me that Asian King don’t seem to have their lunch special on offer today. This is bad news as it’s the day before payday for both of us.

After a quick pow-wow we decide to give the vegan’s favourite, Green Gourmet, a whirl.

Vegan's Paradise

I’ve walked past this place a million times over the last 10 years and have always been curious about it, but haven’t really felt the need to give it a try. I tried to convince the boy to come here with me a few weeks ago but he refused to drive half way across Sydney for a meal that doesn’t involve meat. Fair enough.

Miss Chicken has done a little bit of re-con work before I arrive and points out to me that Green Gourmet does indeed have green beans…just not with pork mince.  They seem to like to do things that ‘taste like meat, but are not meat’, so perhaps my beans will have some sort of meat imposter. That’s enough to make me happy.  

Lunch is a self-serve buffet and the price is worked out by heavy your plate is. Love it!  This would be total devastation for my Dad’s wallet as he seems to think a buffet is an ‘all you can carry’ affair. Lucky for me I have a bit more restraint, a smaller stomach and less muscles to carry a bulging plate.

All you can carry

I grab my plate and start piling (with restraint of course) food on to my plate.  I  really have no idea what any of the dishes are as there’s no signs explaining things for a vegan newbie like me. 

The buffet has lots of vegies, rice, dumplings, things with tofu, things without tofu, and fried tempera things. I take a little bit of everything so I can have the true Green Gourmet experience.  

The lovely chappie at the register weighs my lunch and it comes to a modest $7.90. I’m chuffed with this as it means I’ve come in at under 700g limit for a medium meal (which is really a small meal).  I feel like I’m back at Weight Watchers after a good weigh in!

The weigh in

The food is tasty and I don’t notice the absence of meat at all.  

My loot from the buffet

There’s some sort of meat fake-out in the dumpling and if I wasn’t told I’d assume it was a meat filled dumpling (wish I’d gotten two of them actually).  Many of the dishes have meaty mushrooms or tofu and all have plenty of vegetables. There’s something spicy on my plate and I think it might be the Pad Thai look a like.  

Miss Chicken's buffet haul

My green beans without pork mince are really good! The beans have the dry fried texture I’m after and the little black beans accompanying them are tasty.  Wish I’d gotten more those too actually.

I do think the food could be a little hotter, but Miss Chicken thinks that perhaps the temperature of their food could be part of the Green Gourmet’s food philosophy, such as not cooking with garlic or onion and they aren’t good for our bodies.  Or perhaps their Bain-Marie is on the blink.

This food feels healthy and Miss Chicken and I congratulate ourselves on our expedition to vegan-ville.  Yes yes, I know deep- fried eggplant and tempura beans aren’t health food, but they are vegan food and that cannot be bad for you!

Green Gourmet is at 113-117 King Street, Newtown and is open 7 days for lunch and dinner.