VVOC.org

246 Friedrichstrasse, Berlin

Don’t be alarmed at the signs outside promising Pasta and Pizza, for this is a proper Middle Eastern restaurant with a variety of vegetarian dishes. Order falafel and a plate arrives with six pieces of freshly cooked falafel on a sliver of pita bread, hummus (what I would call mayonnaise), potato chips, rice, and two large bread rolls…more carbohydrate, anyone? But the side dishes include a wonderful puree of capsicum, onion and tomatoes, full of flavour without being hot and decorated with sprigs of broad leaf parsley; its moisture goes well with the slightly dry main course. The drinks menu ranges as widely as it usually does in Berlin, with the addition of bottled water from Turkey! While not being up-market, this is the most formal of the Turkish restaurants reviewed in this series, and like the others it makes vegetarian food available in an environment which veggies won’t always find particularly friendly.

Apologies to Turkish readers; I have spelt the name of this restaurant using the letter i, not being able to generate the similar Turkish letter without the dot.

The nearest U-Bahn is Hallesches Tor.

44 Taunsstrasse, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

Among the variety of Turkish restaurants in Germany serving vegetarian food, this establishment, while unpretentious, is a step above Habibis, reviewed recently; you order your meal at a counter and find a table, to which it will be brought. The vegetarian range is very good. They do a hearty lentil soup (linsesuppe) that hits the spot on a cold day; beautifully red and bursting with flavour, it comes with a large piece of Turkish bread, a wedge of lemon, and a chilli. There are fresh salads with plenty of greens, with or without cheese, and enormous plates of potato chips (pommes frites) with sauce. Of the range of drinks in the fridge the fizzy apple juice has a strong taste that goes well with this food. While the staff prefer to speak German or Turkish they are friendly and easy to communicate with.

Only one thing holds me back from giving this restaurant top marks. It’s located close to the main station, and the lights are neither green nor orange in this district. Ignore the sleaze.

24 Goltzstrasse, Berlin

Germany has become the largest foreign market for Turkish Airlines, and the change in population of which this is a symptom has had excellent results for vegetarians. Different types of places serving Turkish food have sprung up, the most basic of which is exemplified by Habibi. You walk in off the street and join a queue at the counter; when your turn comes say you want falafel, and when asked ‘Komplett?’ say ‘Ja!’ Your falafel, warm and of generous proportion, will come in a triangular piece of flat bread with tomato, cucumber, onions, a large pickle and sauce. Vegans should know that whereas Arabs use tahini for this purpose, Turkish sauces are based on yoghurt.  You hold the bread in a piece of grease proof paper, which you throw into the bin by the door as you walk out if you decide to stay in the cafe rather than munch your falafel as you walk down the street.  There are countless places like this in Germany, some of them outdoor stalls, all of them providing tasty and nutritious falafel. Amazingly, the one served at Habibi will set you back just €2.50!

The nearest U-Bahn is Nollendorfplatz.

19 Wienerstrasse, Berlin

Located in  part of eastern Berlin that looks as though it has seen better days, this entirely vegetarian restaurant is run by people who give an air of being very committed. What better place to veg out on some junk food? The Hot Chili Burger comes on a roll of brown bread, the patty has a fine taste and texture, and comes with lettuce, tomato and a sauce of just the right heat. It is smaller than the serve of potato chips (pommes frites) I had assumed would be a side dish, which are accompanied by a moderately hot dip. The restaurant also offers many dishes that imitate meat. and while I can’t vouch for the organic beer available from the fridge the the fresh orange juice is of the blood red variety and its intense taste is excellent, going well with strongly flavoured food. This is a worthy restaurant, popular among vegetarians, that deserves support. But it occurs to me that there may be other ways forward for vegetarian food in this part of the world.

The nearest U-Bahn station is Goerlitzer Bahnhof.

Sihlstrasse 28, Zurich, Switzerland

What could a self-service vegetarian restaurant in the land that invented muesli be like? Well, you pick up a tray and wander around trying to choose between dishes of hummus, mung beans, quorn, paneer curry, asparagus in sesame oil, beetroot, cucumber, potatoes, wasabi beans in their pods, carrots, mushrooms and several dozen others, both hot and cold, before taking your tray to a cashier who charges according to weight. Every one of the dishes I tried was fresh, attractively presented and extremely tasty. The restaurant also offers freshly squeezed juices, among them an apple juice bursting with flavour; other juices were of tropical fruits, which must have accumulated a fair few air miles on their way to Switzerland. At lunchtime the place is full of a mixed crowd of students and workers in suits for whom it is obviously a favourite. And despite the restaurant having been founded in 1898, at about the time that Bircher-Benner was perfecting his muesli, there’s not a bowl of moistened oats to be seen.

ANU Arts Centre, University Ave, Canberra ACT

This is a slightly up-market restaurant tucked into a beautiful corner of a lovely campus, next to some of the largest willows I’ve ever seen. The menu offers a wide range of  main meals that are specially marked as vegetarian, and gelati and sorbets. But it also states that special diets are catered for, so I put them to the test and asked for a vegan meal. The challenge was superbly met! A dish emerged of penne in a rich tomato sauce containing aubergine, zucchini and black olives, its intense taste nicely complimenting the pasta. Sitting beside it was a side salad of crisp small leaves, cucumber and tomato, a fine contrast with the main dish in texture, taste, colour and, come to think of it, nutrition. An old friend suggested this would be a good place for catching up over lunch, and as is usually the case the recommendation of a local was spot on. Viva Italia!

135 Melbourne St, South Brisbane Qld

This is a well-established restaurant in an inner suburban area that has been changing character, so that it now finds itself on the fringe of a tourist area. But there’s no reason why locals can’t enjoy it, and we began our meal with a plate of nicely cooked onion bhaji pakoras, before passing on to a satisfying vegetable dahl and an alu palak of spinach and potato. Perhaps it was exposure to Popeye the Sailor Man that led to my love of spinach, but I’m always happy to sit down to a dish of this vegetable, and usually appreciate the way it has been cooked, as I certainly did at the Palace. This dish is also available as paneer palak, and there is no shortage of paneer (cheese) dishes on the menu. An Indian salad comes as a tricoleur of cucumber, tomato and red onion that are laid out to form stripes, a beautifully fresh and moist accompaniment to the main dishes which has a strong enough taste to be able to hold its own against their spices, and the pan fried alu paratha, utterly non-greasy, is a winner. It being lunch time we didn’t linger, but walked into the street in very good cheer.

454 Brunswick St, Fortitude Valley, Qld

While its management is Nepalese, this restaurant offers Tibetan as well as Nepalese food that seems made for vegetarians. The food is hearty in the extreme and very satisfying. We began with Mount Everest Soup, consisting of dumplings, vegetables and long strips of firm tofu in a mixture that recalled the Thai Tom Yum, and Nepalese samosas, perhaps a tad drier than their Indian cousins, that were served with cutney. For a main meal you can’t go past the good old Dhaal Bhat of lentils in a thin gruel, potatoes and carrot cooked in a sauce, and rice accompanied by some cabbage on the side; the serve in so generous it comes on its own tray. We enjoyed a vegetable dish, Kauli ko Taraki, that contains cauliflower, potatoes, green peas and tomatoes, and a Tofu Curry, in which large pieces of soft tofu came in a broth that seemed to be made of milk and lemon juice.  There is a variety of breads, among them the strongly flavoured chilli bread. This is a cuisine for healthy appetites rather than picky eaters, and they do it well at the Tibetan Kitchen.

4/21 Nash St, Paddington Qld

This newly opened restaurant offers many dishes that vegans and vegetarians will enjoy. There are spring rolls that come with sweet chilli sauce, and more interestingly ‘transparent tofu rolls’ that contain plenty of mint with hoisin sauce for dipping; this is a strongly tasting concoction based on soy sauce, and the version served at Mints contains little pieces of peanut. For our main course we enjoyed tofu lemon grass and chilli (there is a wide range of tofu dishes), mixed vegetables with cashews (again, vegetables are cooked in a variety of ways) and a bowl of kailan, one of the Asian leafy green vegetables that is served with lashings of finely chopped garlic. It’s always reassuring when in an ethnic restaurant to see members of its community eating there, and the large number of Vietnamese diners who were obviously enjoying the food as much as we did was heartening. May Mint’s enjoy great success!

5/225 Hawken Drive, St Lucia Qld

This is an small, informal restaurant with a lot to offer vegetarians. The VVOC team of inspectors tackled a range of burgers, and all were impressed. The BBQ Tofu Burger was described as ‘Yummy! Delicious crispy bread (in this case gluten free), tasty soy mayonnaise, and the tofu grilled to perfection.’  The lentil-based Bliss Burger was rated ‘Delicious with lovely fresh salad on yummy panini; enjoyed that it had plenty of dressing.’ The Satay Bliss Burger was found so good our taster had to order a second, describing it as ‘very yummy!’ So much yumminess at one table. People who don’t like burgers are bound to enjoy other dishes from a very international menu, among them a very acceptable humus; there are excellent smoothies and, something unexpected, superbly rich coffee. The VVOC crew, well some of them, are used to excellent food at home, but all were bowled over by this restaurant. It has our strongest recommendation, and we’d like to thank the staff who looked after us so well.