Veggie Bites

Ahhh, breakfast! I love going out for breakfast/brunch – I would do it every weekend if I could! There are 2 other cafés very close to Café Essen – Milk & Honey and Gus’s – both of which we have been to as well. For breakfast, a vegetarian can pretty much eat anywhere, as long as they eat eggs and dairy products, so it really comes down to preference for types of dishes that are served. The food at Café Essen is pretty good – this time I had the Mediterranean Omelette which was quite nice but is one of the only dishes that isn’t poached or scrambled eggs smothered in hollandaise. Don’t get me wrong, a good hollandaise is great for breakfast, but sometimes you want something different! I also had a hot chocolate and to be honest, I have had much better… I think that if you can’t get into the other 2 cafés for breakfast, then Café Essen isn’t a horrible choice, but certainly isn’t top of my list!

This is a café just outside (well, and inside) Woden Plaza. We have looked at the menu here a few times but nothing has really tempted us to go in… however this time we did. There are a few veggie options, but they are not particularly exciting – veggie club sandwich, nachos, and quiche or frittata if you are lucky… I ordered the pumpkin, spinach and parmesan frittata and was a little disappointed that it was pretty much just a quiche, Martin had the club sandwich and thought it was ok. It was ok, and is probably better than most food court food!

I have eaten at the Dickson restaurant a couple of times now, and have also eaten at the Manuka version. They have a pretty good variety of vegetarian pasta, risotto and pizza dishes. The veggie dishes are interspersed with the meat dishes but they are clearly identified on the menu – which makes for a nice change! We ate here with friends who are not vegetarian, but we all ended up ordering veggie meals after an interesting discussion about baby cows (ie veal). I had the ravioli con spinach, Martin had the veggie risotto, and our friends ordered gnocchi napolitana (which looked great, and I was disappointed that I hadn’t ordered this dish!) and gnocchi gorgonzola (which looked yummy, but I am not a fan of blue cheese!). We also had garlic bread and pesto bread – which are not so much breads as they are small pizzas with garlic and pesto toppings. It was all good, but the servings here are huge – there was no way I could finish my ravioli, especially after all that ‘bread’! I had promised myself that these reviews would only be about the food, but every time I have been here the service has been a little snooty, so I feel the need to comment. I don’t think this is the best Italian restaurant in Canberra, but it is pretty good.

A large group of us went to dinner here, so it was good because I got to try quite a few dishes – some that I would definitely not have normally ordered. There is quite a good variety of vegetarian entrées (although mostly deep fried) such as curry puffs (no peas – yay!) and spring rolls, which we had, as well as some others, which we didn’t have and I can’t remember! There is quite a selection of veggie main meals and they were also happy to do a veggie version of pad thai – and I must say it is one of the better ones that I have had (I love pad thai!). Also on the table were a red veggie curry, a papaya salad and the vegetarian laab (usually made with chicken, but the veggie version is made with tofu). The curry and the laab were great, the papaya salad didn’t taste like papaya at all (so I quite liked it!) and was kind of spicy. I have had a veggie laab from another Thai restaurant in Canberra, but they chop the tofu into small pieces and deep fry it, so it is kind of rubbery and a bit weird to eat. The tofu in this laab was not deep fried first and it had just the right amount of chilli for me (which is a lot – I like my food spicy!). Since we are still looking for a new favourite Thai restaurant, we will go back and try it again – it is certainly high on the list of contenders!

We always end up here for lunch when I have a hairdresser’s appointment, which must mean the food is pretty good. But it happens to be one of the only places open Saturdays at lunchtime that we know has a decent variety of veggie food. Now my standard favourite here is spaghetti aglio olio (spaghetti with olive oil and chilli), however, it looks like they have removed it from the menu (maybe I was the only person who ever ordered it and once every 6 or so weeks is just not enough to keep it on the menu!). I am very sad about this as even though there are a few other vegetarian pasta options none of them really appeal to me. So this time we had pizza, and there are quite a few vegetarian toppings to chose from – this time we went for half vegetarian and half asparagus. We have had pizza before and they are a fairly cheesy affair, but the base is good… I was pretty disappointed this time though, as I would have expected that the asparagus would have been fresh, not from a tin (especially when that topping is slightly more expensive that the others). Maybe, when I have my next haircut, it is time to check out something different in Kingston!

A lunch experience this time (actually on 9 October 2004), and I was happy to see that there are ‘meals’ available on the specials boards and are available for lunch and dinner. We had the roasted yam salad and tofu burger and while both were good, I have to say the whole experience was a little un-inspiring! The salad was a little oily and the burger bun was enormous (more bread than any one person could actually eat I’m sure)! Nevertheless, we returned the next day with my parents, again for lunch. They were as impressed with the new pizzas as were we on our first return visit (FYI – they are called Medieval and Green Kai!) and seemed impressed with the pumpkin risotto, which Martin thought was a little dry! I stuck to an old favourite – nachos and discovered that although it was similar, it wasn’t quite the same as it used to be – and that had nothing to do with the really small servings of sour cream and guacamole on top! While I don’t expect things to be exactly the same as before, I would have thought that if they are advertised on the menu as ‘Bernadette’s famous nachos’, then people will expect them to be the same! Actually, what I would prefer is if they remove those references and add their own personal touch to the dishes! Anyway, we will continue to go back, the food is still good and it will be interesting to see if it is personalised by the new owners/chefs…

We often eat here if we are in the middle of Canberra – I love their food. This time it was lunch with friends after the End the Lies Rally… well we left the rally a little early, but sat outside so we could still hear what was going on… On a sunny day it is fantastic to sit outside at this restaurant and have the great food and watch the world pass by! I always order the same dish here – penne arabiatta – it is not as hot as some other arabiattas I have had, but it is really, really good! They do have a good variety of other veggie pasta dishes, as well as some frittata and omelette type things. Every time I decide to try something different, Martin always wants to order the same dish I want to try, so I stick with my favourite and just taste his – so far it has all been good. They also do a really good hot chocolate and the deserts are yummy (although we don’t eat them often!). Definitely one of my favourite places…

This is the second time we have eaten here – since they opened they have been extremely busy and it was hard to get in! However, it is well worth booking a table a few days in advance if you want to eat here – the food is great! The first time we came here was with friends who didn’t mind going vegetarian for the night… and since you are able to order dishes as mains or sides, we decided to go for it and order all the vegetarian dishes (about as sides and try everything. This was great as it let us sample a bit of everything. This time, it was just the two of us and we decided to have a vegetarian platter and leave it up to the chef… a fantastic idea as I have now decided that the spicy lentil dish is one of my favourites and I would not have ordered this straight from the menu (I guess some of the descriptions of the food are not quite as good as the actual food!). The platter also came with samples of two salads, lots of bread, and rice if we wanted it. We also ordered veggie samosa’s as an entrée – a huge amount of food really, but we managed to eat it all! As I said the spicy lentil dish is one of my favourites, as well as the pumpkin curry and vegetable curry, the chickpea cutlets are a little weird – it took a while to convince us that they were actually veggie when they arrived! We also got some take-away from here the following week – I think this will become one of our favourite restaurants!