Veggie Bites

My parents claimed that this was really good Indian food and that they had been meaning to take us there for some time. I admit that I was a little dubious about the really good food claim, but they were right – oh boy, they were right! In fact they were so right, we got home delivery from here again a few nights later when visiting some friends. We started off with the complimentary pappadums that came with an amazing yoghurt sauce, luckily my Dad knows the owner’s father who came to chat with us and also got us a second serve of the pappadums! The yoghurt sauce was so good that we asked for the recipe and were told the basic ingredients, but not the quantities as that was the secret! Oh well, I’ll just have to try and make it up! We skipped entrees when we ate in, but tried the samosa’s when we got delivery, they were ok, I could do without them and just eat the mains! For our mains we had Malai Kofta, Palak Paneer, Dahl and Navratan Korma, my parents also ordered a chicken dish. Rice comes with the mains, and we also went for the cucumber yoghurt and a variety of plain, garlic and cheese naans. When we ordered delivery, we opted to chose a potato curry as well as Malai Kofta and Dahl. The food was fantastic, subtly spiced yet absolutely full of flavour. Sadly however, the Malai Kofta and the Navratan Korma both came with peas in them and of course I had to pick them out. The Malai Kofta were quite big and come as a serve of 2, although they are definitely big enough to share between 4, and there was plenty of sauce. In fact I spent the last bit of the meal dipping my naan into the left over sauce until it was all gone! There was literally nothing left in the bowls or on our plates at the end of the meal and when they were cleared the owner joked that he wouldn’t have to wash them! We were offered dessert, however, there was no possible way that we could have fitted it in, even though Martin was eye-ing the Gulab Jamun before we had even considered mains! I am sad that this place is not closer to home… although, it is probably a good thing as we would end up eating there far too often!

This was a lunch experince and it was ok – we all managed to eat three courses, so it couldn’t have been too horrible! There are really only 2 vegetarian dishes on the menu plus one on the specials list – I guess that is quite advanced for a bar and grill! However, they were also happy to adapt other things on the menu. We started with some garlic bread which is the flat pizza type – not my favourite type, but it was better than some others I have had. For mains, I ordered the primevera risotto for Martin, which he said was nice but a little oily. I ordered the fajita’s which originally came with chicken and steak, however they were happy to adapt it and it came with a mushroom, onion and capsicm mix instead. When the waiter delivered it, he commented that he wasn’t sure if I wanted cheese or not, so they had put it in a separate little bowl, however the sour cream was in the same bowl as the salsa and the guacamole – so they really only get half points for trying! We finished with some cheesecake (me) and a banana split (Martin). All in all, it was pretty good, but I certainly wouldn’t eat there all the time!

This was a late-ish dinner after an incredibly long day and all we wanted was good, quick food and to fall into bed. And this place was able to satisfy both requirements! I ordered spaghetti arabiatta, and when I ordered I was asked if I wanted it hot or mild, I ordered it hot (at which point Martin called me a freak!) and was glad I did – it was certainly not overly hot by my standards! It was incredibly tasty and the serving was quite huge – it’s a good thing I was really hungry! Martin ordered the eggplant pasta which was chunks of eggplant in a tomato based sauce and he said it was also pretty good. We also shared a Greek salad which was really nice, although towards the end it got a little oily! My parents shared a pizza and when it came out (it was the first of the meals to be delivered to the table) I was a little disappointed that I hadn’t considered ordering a pizza. It just looked so very, very yummy! However, once my pasta arrived I was more than happy to eat it! There is a good range of veggie dishes to choose from – pizza and pasta, although next time, I think I will go for the pizza to see if it tastes as good as it looked! Unless of course, I simply can’t resist the arabiatta again!

I have said before that I love going to Tilley’s – the food is good, the atmosphere is good, the cheesecake is divine! It was a last minute decision to go here for lunch with a friend, but I am glad that we did! It is great to sit around and chat over some good food and some good cake! This time I had veggie nachos and my friend had soup (pumpkin I think). The nachos are huge – but I was determined to finish as much as I could because they are so nice! After this, my friend was keen on dessert and it didn’t matter how good the cheesecake was going to be, there was just no way I could fit it in, so I decided to just have a hot chocolate. That was of course until my friend returned with a flourless chocolate cake and 2 spoons! It was pretty good, but it was slightly too nutty for my taste… and I would definitely prefer their cheesecake (mmm in fact I want some right now just thinking about it!). The hot chocolates were great though! All in all, a good lunch with a great friend!

This was a large-ish group dinner, and since we were in a group, I didn’t really expect to be overly impressed by the service, however I have to say the service, like the food, was exceptional! We all decided to just order our own meals, instead of sharing and it must have been slightly chaotic for the waitress taking the order, however she was patient, well informed and happy! Martin and I decided to share our entrees with each other, so we had the vegan satay sticks (our usual) and the veggie spring rolls. Both were great – I might have a hard time deciding which to order in the future! For mains, Martin stuck to his old favourite, vegan mee goreng, and I decided to have the gado gado and the spring onion roti which were so very good. There was an interesting variety of dishes (mainly meat ones) ordered by the group and I certainly didn’t hear any complaints about the food (or anything else for that matter!). Most of us finished with a hot chocolate, which I don’t think I have had from here before, but believe me, I will again in the future – it was as good as the rest of the meal! So, all in all a great experience in a great restaurant – you know we’ll be going back!

Well, I think this will be my last review of Bernadette’s – which is sad really. As I have previously said, Bernadette’s used to be our favourite restaurant and we ate there so often before it changed hands that we were at ‘regulars’ status, and got a few special treats – like being allowed to order and take home desserts that you couldn’t usually get take away! Anyway, the experiences have been mixed since the new owners took over, and last time I was pretty impressed with the new menu and the pizza that I ordered. So impressed in fact, that I decided to order it again. However, the whole experience this time was very, very poor – food, service, everything! To start with, they were busy – really busy for a late Saturday lunch, and there were only 3 staff working and that included 2 chefs. So, it took a long time to get menus, then a long time to order and then a long time for our drinks, we had to ask for water after we were told it was coming and it took a really long time for our food! We ordered a mixed bread basket, a tandoori pizza and Caribbean tofu strips. I ask you – how hard can it be to stick some bread in the oven and get it out to people so they are not sitting there starving while waiting for the rest of their food?? Instead we sat and waited while the chefs were intent on getting out the main meals to the table of 9 sitting behind us. Which is fair – they were there first, but our bread arrived after our other meals were brought out! I think the total waiting time for our food was about 30-45 minutes, and when it arrived it was pretty disappointing… The Caribbean tofu was about 6 small strips of tofu on some rocket with a largish dollop of humous, my tandoori pizza was simply tofu, a pappadum and the fruit chutney – it was missing the cucumber, tomato and coriander salsa and the yoghurt listed on the menu, and which made it really tasty the last time I ate it. We considered complaining, but decided it wasn’t worth it. We also considered ignoring the bread, but Martin decided that he would actually need it to fill him up, so we asked where it was and we were told it was coming… it finally arrived and I have to say it was the highlight of the meal! I only ate half my pizza and donated the other half to Martin to stop him from starving to death and had a few pieces of bread instead. I doubt that we were the only ones who were disappointed with eating there – there was another couple who arrived after us who had to ask for menus and then wave down the waitress so that they could order… amazingly (since they ordered after us) their meals arrived before ours! To top it all off, there was a man sitting to our left who was there when we arrived, he was working very hard with quite a few piles of papers – his meal arrived just before we left, and it certainly didn’t look like anything off the menu – and we didn’t see him order it. In fact (and I could very well be mistaken since I couldn’t see properly) it looked like a big chunk of meat with mushrooms on top. As I said – I could be mistaken… however, given my disappointment with this experience, I don’t think I’ll take the chance!