From the Vegicurean's Kitchen: French Lentil Salad with Beetroot and Feta

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I'm excited to present the first of many posts I hope to do about my own cooking. While I mostly do dining reviews on this blog, I will share insights from my kitchen and share some great vegetarian recipes which I've found.

Lentils are wonderfully nutritious and I've always known that it's a good idea to get more into my diet, especially as a vegetarian. However, I've only rarely found recipes which make lentils appealing enough to my, admittedly, somewhat snobby taste buds ;-) I was therefore delighted to stumble upon this recipe for a lentil salad with beetroot and feta cheese on the back of a packet of McKenzie's brand French lentils given to me by a friend...

Lake House Restaurant, Daylesford

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Alla Wolf-Tasker's Lake House is undoubtedly one of Australia's most renowned country restaurants. It's a long drive from home for me, but every so often I'll make the effort to have a meal there. My recommendation for a brilliant day out is to start with a good relaxing soak at the nearby Hepburn Springs spas, followed by a late lunch here at the Lake House - which is exactly what my friend and our mums recently did. Call it a girls' day out!

The dining room itself is gorgeous, decked out in lush white and purple fittings and overlooking Lake Daylesford. The occasional kookaburra pays a visit to the white verandah outside. It is pure zen gourmet indulgence...



Lake House's menu changes very regularly, approximately every half-season, to keep absolutely in line with seasonal ingredients. My latest trip last September coincided with the transition from winter into spring, and ingredients such as truffles, pumpkin, asparagus, beets and pear were being showcased in the dishes accordingly. For the meateaters, there was beef, duck, pork and also seafood options.

Our whole party took the the three-course lunch for $99 per person, but diners can also choose a two-course or a multi-course tasting menu option. Whichever you choose, the Lake House has deliberately kept the menu appealing to a wide range of taste buds, from vegetarians to seafood-lovers to those who like the "heavier" meats.

Koko @ Crown Towers

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Today I'm journeying back in time to April this year, when I last dined at Japanese restaurant Koko, which has been a fixture at Crown Casino since the complex opened. It does both teppanyaki and a la carte dining, but I haven't tried the teppanyaki option, so my review will be based solely on my a la carte experiences.

The dining room is surely one of the most serene and beautifully designed in Melbourne, with its great view over the Yarra into the city, and of course...that large pond in the middle of the restaurant! My friend and I were lucky enough this time to get one of the tables for two which face the river, which you must step on one stepping stone in the pond to reach. For a moment I regretted my choice of footwear (my favourite 4-inch heeled Proenza Schouler designer boots!), but fortunately I didn't end up stacking into the pond ;-)

I commenced with a strawberry mocktail which was thoroughly impressive. I watched the waiter bring a box of fresh strawberries to the bar, where my drink was made to order. I then sat back and sipped as I enjoyed the view...

Perusing the menu, I realised that there were no vegetarian mains at all and I was told that it wasn't possible for me to take advantage of their lunch multi-course special since there were no vegetarian choices there either. As such, while my friend was able to take that lunch deal, I resorted to ordering three different vegetarian entrees to make up my meal...

Tuck Shop Take Away, Caulfield North

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Today I was in the mood for some lunchtime vegicurean exploration, so I made a trip to Caulfield North to test out this cute new eatery which a friend had told me about the day before. I did some pre-dining research, and learned that this is a new project started by husband-wife dream team Clinton and Katrina, who have honed their craft with the likes of Heston Blumenthal (The Fat Duck), Ben Shewry (Attica) and Shannon Bennett (Vue de Monde).

Tuck Shop is the epitome of what I view as one of this year's culinary trends: childhood food made good (remember that LuxBite lolly bag cake on Masterchef!). It reminds me of one of my fondest memories of New York, Momofuku Milk Bar. Americans reminisce over their milk bar snacks...we Aussies reminisce over our good old school tuckshops. I've long craved for a place in the same vein as Momofuku in Melbourne, and at last I've found it.

The eatery commands a prime position at the corner of Glen Eira Rd and Hawthorn Rd. It's a lovely spot to enjoy a bite while sitting at the window, watching the world go by, with Glen Eira Town Hall in the background. This was my view from the window seat:

The menu is approximately 50% savoury and 50% sweet. When I visited today, there were about four vegetarian options among the savoury items: a gourmet veggie burger, hand-cut chips, creamed corn-caramelised onion jaffles, and baked bean-double cheese jaffles. For such a small tuckshop-type place, that's plenty enough to keep vegos satisfied. Bring a meateating friend along to enjoy their regular burgers, which are already getting plenty of buzz around town!

I went for the creamed corn and caramelised onion jaffles as my savoury choice. Freshly pressed with a hint of melted cheese inside, these were very, very tasty and the flavour combination was excellent - "classic with a gourmet twist".

I'll confess that the vast majority of my visit was spent sinfully devouring sweet temptations. With my jaffles, I enjoyed an absolutely divine salted caramel milkshake. Yes, you heard that right! Other flavours on the milkshake menu include Nutella, Redskin and peanut butter, so it's safe to say I'll be coming back for some more taste-testing!

My second round of ordering consisted of a nutella soft-serve plus a redskin tart. Yum!!

There were several other sweet items which I didn't get around to trying: sweet jaffles, holey donuts, redskin-chocolate brownies, and huge choc-potato chip cookies. I'm also keen to try a few more of their constantly rotating soft serve flavours. Next time ;-) Side note: I'm an ex-Caulfield Grammar student - at the other campus out east, but I was often at the Glen Eira Rd campus for activities - and I'm unspeakably jealous of this generation of Grammarians who now have a "second tuckshop" just down the road in the form of Tuck Shop Take Away!

A lovely quirky little lunch or snack spot which is reasonably priced for the quality you get. The only thing is that the shop is really small and it's pretty hard to get a seat, so you'll just have to be a bit patient if you come in wanting to stick around and taste test instead of taking away (...like me!). Overall, a highly recommended spot for both vegetarians and omnivores with a sweet tooth, which manages to successfully mix childhood nostalgia with gourmet grown-up cooking.

UPDATE Wednesday 18/9: I went back with a friend today on a food run after a long day and finally came with enough appetite to try the veggie burger plus a few other things, so I thought I'd add these comments to my original review. Tired and hungry while waiting for our burgers, we started with dessert, opting for their brand-new concoction, the toffee apple crumble. Big thumbs up - I loved the interaction between the apple pie crumble, ganache icing, apple cream cheese and the sponge cake.

Then, along came our "mains", and we both thought the high-quality, mildly sweet brioche buns matched up so well with the savoury patties. The fries were also beautifully done, with a texture which is soft but lightly crispy on the outside. Alongside our mains, I tried the peanut butter milkshake while my friend followed my recommendation to try the salted caramel; both of us agreed that although both were great, the salted caramel is the better of the two from a milkshake perspective. Finally, I finished our sneaky little food run with a very, very more-ish Redskin-chocolate brownie to take away...well, truth be told, it only got as far as my car before we just had to devour it. By the way, we got the owners' tick of approval for splitting our dessert-eating between before and after mains ;-)

 

Rating: A+

Vegetarian Friendliness: 8.5/10

Price Range: $

 

Tuck Shop Take Away

273 Hawthorn Rd.

Caulfield North, VIC

Australia
 

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Hanabishi Japanese Restaurant, Melbourne CBD

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Could this be one of Melbourne's most underrated Japanese restaurants? In the media and blogosphere, it is often overshadowed by the likes of Kenzan and Shoya, but having dined at the celebrated Kenzan, I must say that I actually prefer Hanabishi. It's definitely one of the best Japanese places I've tried in Melbourne...and one of the most vegetarian-friendly I've ever encountered both here and overseas. This Japanese restaurant has a separate, double-sided vegetarian menu! Score.

My friend and I are big fans of the fresh elegance of Japanese brews, so we started with a Kirin each. These were served with an appetiser: for me, the vegetarian, this consisted of edamame beans.

 We then ordered up a storm of mindblowingly good Japanese food. My friend enjoyed meaty dishes of crab, abalone, and a chef's choice sushi/sashimi platter, all of which she said were wonderfully fresh and pure-tasting. Meanwhile, I savoured the rare joy of being able to choose from a broad range of options in a Japanese restaurant...

Agedashi tofu, a staple dish. This was served at the perfect temperature, which was a relief when I have so often yelped in pain from biting into overheated agedashi tofu at Japanese restaurants! The broth and crunchiness-level of the tofu balanced appropriately.

Sushi - of course. There were a few options, but I was in the mood for the vegetable California roll (avocado/cucumber). Again, I can't fault what they served up, as the ingredients were ultra fresh and the sushi rolled nicely.

 Next up, "Vegetable Ten Zaru Soba". Cold soba has been one of my Japanese addictions since childhood! This version came with vegetable tempura and the usual dashi dipping sauce. One of the better versions of veggie tempura I've tasted, this was done to crisp perfection and the choice of vegetables very appropriate for tempura cooking. (At other places, I've had tempura which is served too soggy, and it only becomes soggier when you dip it into the sauce!)

 And so we come to dessert. This photo says it all - behold, our stunning nine-piece, house-made Hanabishi dessert tasting plate, each and every piece of it absolutely outstanding:

 My friend, an avid coffee fiend, particularly loved the coffee pannacotta. We both agreed that the ice cream was a real highlight; it was just "any" ice cream, it was house-made using Pacojet micro-pureeing and the texture was sensationally delicate.

An absolutely golden find for Japanese-loving vegetarians which will keep your meat-eating companions equally happy. Both vegetarians and vegans will be happy here, as they have noted on the vegetarian menu that they can also easily accommodate non-dairy. They also have a separate gluten-free menu. Smiling yet unobtrusive and unpretentious service is an added bonus. Yes, it's fairly pricey, but boy is it worth every penny. A full 10 out of 10 to Hanabishi for the stunning food and the true love they have shown to vegetarians! I shall be back!

Rating: A+

Vegetarian Friendliness: 10/10
Price Range: $$$

 

Hanabishi

187 King St.

Melbourne VIC 3000

Australia

 

(Ph): 9670 1167

(W): www.hanabishi.com.au
 

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Budapest Restaurant & Palinka Bar, Elsternwick

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Ah, Budapest! What memories...right up there as one of my top 10 favourite cities in the world, a restaurant named in its honour and serving up Hungarian cuisine was sure to grab my attention. I've now dined here twice. And you know you've come to the right place when the whole table behind you is speaking Hungarian...

As an entrée before my review, let me share one of my many travel photos of Budapest the magnificent city, in all its free-spirited glory:

Anyway, on to Budapest the restaurant and what it has in store for vegicureans. Huge portions, for one, are not just reserved for meat-eaters at this place! And the good news is, they've taken specific care to include vegetarian options in most sections of the menu. By the way, please excuse the photos - the restaurant lighting made it really tough to get better photos.

We started with a round of drinks: apple pálinka for my friends, and imported Hungarian peach juice for me. Good peach juice is one thing I really miss about Europe!

Knowing that the portions are as big as they are, we passed on entrees and went straight for the mains. My friends chose schnitzels, while I ordered the same thing I got the first time I ate here: crumbed camembert cheese served with peasant potatoes, csiki sauce and braised red cabbage. The deal is that you can add an extra side to any main for $4, so I added nokedli (Hungarian dumplings) with paprika sauce, although as you can see in my second photo, they forgot to give me the paprika sauce until I reminded them. Again, my main dish did not fail to please; it is absolutely true to the various versions of this dish which I've enjoyed on my travels around central Europe. And, our whole table agreed that the peasant potatoes were absolutely delicious; so much better than your average boring mash!

Thoroughly bursting at the seams after mains, we nonetheless couldn't resist a sneaky (well, not so sneaky...check out the size of this thing!!) sweet finish to the meal. My friend and I split a Rákóczi cream cheese crepe served with vanilla ice cream. It was very tasty, with a perfect hint of zinginess to the cream cheese, but alas, due to the sheer size of it, we couldn't finish it! If anything, I thought there was a LOT of cream in proportion to the actual crepe, but it was definitely a very tasty dish overall.

Well done to Budapest for looking after us veggie heads despite the fact that Hungarian cuisine is traditionally very meaty. Service was a bit slow and forgetful compared to my first visit (e.g. the waitress gave us a bottle of water but forgot about water glasses until we asked after a long while, and they had to be reminded about my friends' juice order), but the staff are perfectly pleasant and friendly. Prices are a little on the above-average end, but still decent value considering the large servings. Good selection of imported tipples, the highlights being naturally the Hungarian pálinka and tokaji which are not so readily available in other restaurants.

Rating: A

Vegetarian Friendliness: 9/10
Price Range: $$

Budapest Restaurant & Palinka Bar

273 Glen Huntly Rd

Elsternwick VIC 3185

Australia

(Ph): 9530 0849

(W): www.budapest.com.au
 

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