Veggie Bites

Date: 24 October 2009

This is the cafe at the National Library. I have been here a few times for afternoon tea, but never had a meal here. So, when we were going to be here for another reason, around lunch time, we decided to try it out. They don’t have a hiuge variety of meals, but there was a decent choice. I had the spinach and feta fritata which came with salad. Martin opted for lemon souffle pancakes. The fritata was delicious and Martin said his pancakes were very good as well. We didn’t get the chance for dessert – a shame since everything I have had on previous visits for afternoon tea has been great! The only annoying thing is if it is full, it is very noisy and you can wait a while to order, however, the food arrived very quickly, so I guess that kind of cancels out the wait to order!

Date: 4 October 2009

Well, having said we don’t get to eat out much any more, it is kind of ironic that the first two reviews are from consecutive days!

Cream is a relatively new place in the centre of Canberra and we have checked out their menu a couple of times and decided not to go in as, at the time, the menu had a ‘v’ (which they said meant vegetarian) next to a number of meat dishes! Their menu seems to have been edited and it seems that ‘v’ now means able to be adapted to vegetarian rather than actually vegetarian! We have eaten here twice now – both times for brunch/lunch which basically means we ate breakfast! I have had the blini (done vegetarian of course!) with a chai latte, and the eggs benedict with spinach and a side of kipfler potatoes and mushrooms with a hot chocolate. Both meals were delicious. The blini wasn’t huge, but was fine for me. The eggs benedict was some of the better ones I have had – the eggs were poached beautifully, which for me means the white was not very runny at all! The hot chocolate was divine! It was made with actual melted chocolate in the bottom of lovely hot frothy milk – oh, heaven!! The downside to this place is that it is very, very noisy… Oh well, maybe in summer we can sit outside – but summer might mean it is too warm for a hot chocolate!

We were going to try a new cafe in Civic called Cream, but a quick perusal of the menu indicated that they have very little idea of what a vegetarian dish actually is. Their menu has little ‘v’s on it, indicating vegetarian meals – but they were listed next to lamb and seafood dishes! Anyway, we decided that was a little too dodgy for us! So we ended up here for lunch. It has been ages since we ate here, and despite it being lunch time, we both ended up ordering breakfast! I love restaurant breakfasts – I could eat them all the time (and then I would be really fat!!). I had the eggs benedict with spinach and a side of tomatoes and potatoes. Martin had scrambled eggs with a side of mushrooms, tomatoes and potatoes. We also both had fresh juices, Martin had a hot stuff and I had a citrus splice. The food and drinks were great, however, it seemed to take forever for the food to arrive. While it is good, it is probably not my first choice of place to eat in Civic!

A lovely friend of mine took me out for a belated birthday lunch. We decided this would be a great place where we could sit and chat overlooking the lake. Well, it would have been if it hadn’t rained the whole time we were there! Yes, I know, rain is a good thing! I ended up ordering a roasted veggie salad and some garlic bread, and I also shared some wedges. The salad was ok, the roasted veggies were mainly eggplant which was a bit too much for me. The garlic bread was average and the wedges were ok. So all in all, an average meal – certainly nothing spectacular!

This feels like it was an eternity ago, but I can still remember it – just! This was lunch with a ‘new’ friend and we spent a lot of time chatting. We both ended up having the zucchini balls which were delicious and came with a yummy tzaziki sauce and lots of salad. There were quite a few veggie options on the menu, so I would like to go back again and try something else as well.

We were shopping and we were hungry, this was a last minute decision and we only just got in before kitchen closed – but we didn’t realise that until we went to pay. There are not a lot of veggie options on the menu, so we both opted for the vegetarian breakfast – which came with mushrooms, spinach, hash browns, tomatoes, eggs and toast. It was pretty good. Martin had a fresh OJ and I had a caramel milkshake which was a little disappointing as it wasn’t as caramelly as I would have liked… Oh well, been there, done that!

We looked at a couple of places for lunch before heading back to this one – let me just say this – there are not good options for vegetarians in Hokitika! Now I will probably get a stack of emails saying that there are – but we certainly couldn’t find them! I ordered the Wild Westcoast breakfast (despite the fact that it was lunch time!) without the bacon and sausage – which left hash browns, tomatoes, mushrooms, eggs and toast, the girl who served us was kind enough to ask if I would like extra of something, or if I would like her to make it cheaper – I opted for cheaper – I was amazed as that was the first time anyone had asked me that! Martin ordered the maple hotcake without bacon – his was just the same price! He was a little disappointed because it was smaller than he expected, so he tried to convince me to give him some of my hash browns – at first I decided not a chance (being a potato head and all that), but then I felt sorry for him and gave him some. The food was pretty good, but there were not a lot of vegetarian choices. It is not that I wouldn’t go back here in particular, just that I wouldn’t bother with Hokitika in general (well except for the amazing glass shop!).

This was a tiny little place in a pretty small town, and we stopped here because it was the first place we saw and we weren’t sure there would be anything else. They didn’t have a lot of veggie options on the menu, and we were not very hungry anyway. We both had a cheese, tomato and pineapple toasted sandwich and a hot chocolate. To their credit, it was quick, well made and hot – just what we wanted on a cold rainy, day!

This was pretty much the first place we saw after parking the car, and we were hungry so we decided to eat here! I had an omelette with onion, tomato and cheese, and without ham! I also had a side of hash browns – these were your normal run of the mill hash browns, which was a little disappointing after the last few times I ordered hash browns at other places! The omelette was pretty good and it all came with a couple of pieces of toast – one grainy and one white. Martin ordered scrambled eggs, muesli and we both had an orange juice. There were no complaints from him, but there was certainly nothing that made these meals stand out from any others that we had – in fact, they would probably have been some of the more average meals we ate. And lastly – the orange juice was horrible!

We went to Milford Sound to do a cruise to see all the sights. The lonely planet guide said there wasn’t much here, but I assumed there would be more than one single building that did food and information! It was a cafeteria type thing and they truly have a captive market – three hours drive from the nearest possibility of other food! All that considered, they did actually have a couple of veggie choices. You order your hot food by the plate size and a medium plate (NZ$14) gives you one main and two sides. We both chose the veg pasta – which was just penne with a basic tomato sauce, I chose roasted potatoes and coleslaw and Martin had chips and garden salad. All in all, it wasn’t too bad.