Veggie Bites

This may well become one of my favourite Indian restaurants. We have eaten here once before and was impressed then, just as we were impressed again this time! Although, we ended up with so much food, that we could hardly move ourselves quickly enough to get across to the theatre to see ‘The Tempest’ (which was awesome!). We started with Aloo papdi chaat (spiced potato and spinach fritters tossed with yoghurt and tamarind chutney and spiked with chaat masala) and Paneer amritsari (cheese marinated in ginger and garlic paste and the chef’s secret herbs and spices). The potato dish was amazing – we have had it before and I will have it again! The paneer one was nice, but not quite what I expected. I think I would rather order a paneer main and have a different entree. That being said, we decided that since we had had a paneer entree that we would not have a paneer main, so we had Aloo kaali mirch (potatoes with curry leaves, spices and peppercorns), dal fry and Milaoni sabzi (veggies in a cashew gravy), along with a mixed raita and a couple of garlic naans. Apart from the dal, these are dishes that we have not had before and they were pretty good, although the flavourings were something that we were not quite used to – but it is good to taste new things. The dal and veggies were great, but personally the potatoes were almost a little too peppery for my tastes. We ate as much as we could, but we certainly did not finish everything! This is great food and they have a fantastic selection of veggie dishes, so I think we will head back here again soon!

This is one of those places that serves what I call ‘psycho-chicken’ (quest que cest fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa far – better sung to the tune of that Talking Heads song Psycho Killer – although I am not sure that it this stuff actually is far better)! Psycho-chicken, also known as soy meat, is not really my thing, but Martin talked me into going here under the guise of supporting the vegetarian restaurants in Canberra. Although as I pointed out to him, this place bills itself as ‘authentic vegetarian Vietnamese cuisine’, and I am not 100% convinced that soy meat is authentic! Anyway… We started with some cold fresh rolls – which are normally one of my favourite things, but these ones did come with a slice of some kind of soy meat in them which kind of ruined it for me. Apart from that, they were delicious, and I love these with the peanut/satay sauce instead of sweet chilli sauce – I must remember that for those times that I make these at home! For our mains we went with tofu with lemongrass and a combination veggies with crispy noodles. The tofu with lemongrass was billed as hot and spicy on the menu and it was reasonably so. Not that it mattered because it was absolutely divine – I could have eaten a truckload of this! The tofu was deep fried, so it was light and crispy and it was smothered in chopped up lemon grass and chilli and other spices and was served with fried onions and red capsicum on a bed of cabbage (I think). Yum! The combination veggies came with combination fake meat on a giant bed of crispy noodles, swimming in sauce. I told Martin that he would have a lot of fake meat to eat, but I did actually try some of it. As I said before, it is not my thing, but there was one type that I probably could tolerate – the question is – which meat was it supposed to be? I’m not sure I could be bothered trying a variety of dishes to figure it out! Needless to say, I avoided most of the fake meat, but the veggies and noodles were ok. I am not sure whether or not to recommend this place. The non-fake meat dishes are good, and the fake meat dishes are also good, if you like that sort of thing. The fake stuff kind of tastes like chicken, but I think that is about it. The texture, however, is fairly accurate, and having been vegetarian for more than 10 years, it is something I can live without it!

My parents are a bit excited that there is finally a Turkish restaurant near them – it means that don’t have to go all the way across Sydney for Turkish food. Martin disappeared early to finalise arrangements for his gig, so it was just the three of us for lunch. We ordered the Meze plate and the spring rolls and zucchini balls to share as an entree. The Meze plate said it came with three dips, but it also had some feta, a spring roll, a dolmade, some couscous salady stuff and a stuffed gherkin and bread. It was pretty good – the carrot dip was not the best that I have ever had, but the capsicum one and the humous were great. I am definitely not a fan of dolmades and I was also able to leave the stuffed gherkin. The spring rolls and zucchini balls were also pretty good, although the balls were more like fritters. I have to say that I am not sure that I have ever had (or even seen) Turkish spring rolls before, but I can live with that! For our mains we ordered a spinach and cheese pide and a super vegetarian pide. Pides come with a small amount of three different dips and salad. The pides were very hot and quite nice – I definitely preferred the spinach and cheese one to the super vegetarian. Overall, the food was pretty good. Unfortunately for them, I think that Martin and I had the best Turkish food we have had for a very long time a couple of weeks ago (see the review for Turkish Delight), so I had a very high standard for comparison!