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G316 Level 3, Wintergarden, Queen St Mall, Brisbane Qld

Japanese cuisine, in which fish can end up in just about anything, can be hard for vegetarians, and the format of taking likely-looking dishes from a moving sushi train is one that easily lends itself to mistakes…how could you have told that a dish of rice had finely chopped fish throughout it? Fortunately at the Hanaichi you can order the same dishes from a menu and ensure that they’re OK. We enjoyed three in particular: avocado rolls wrapped in seaweed, a seaweed salad, and vegetable tempura in which each of the individual parcels had a nice mix of taste and texture.  This is a popular restaurant, and while vegetarians may feel that they are eating side dishes rather than main meals, the freshness of the food and the stylishness of the Japanese aesthetic make it a great place for a light meal. The green Japanese tea is recommended!

The complex where this restaurant is located is being redeveloped; there’s a circuitous entrance via the mall.

124 Boundary St, West End, Qld

There’s a counter-cultural buzz and a youngish crowd at this informal  restaurant, where the menu is entirely vegan. They do a range of hot dishes that come with rice, of which we thoroughly enjoyed the ‘Thai yellow’ of carrots and other vegetables in a gentle sauce based on coconut milk and the potato and pea masala; not quite so pleasing was a slightly dull dahl, which we felt could have benefited from a few more shakes of the spice jar. There is also a range of salads, including a most attractive one of red cabbage, superior packaged and freshly squeezed juices, and cakes. Its inner suburban location makes the Forest handy to other places you might like to visit. A few steps towards the traffic lights is the Green Grocer; the Greek grocer, on the other hand, is a short stroll by the road running to the right at the lights.

198 Wickham St, Fortitude Valley Qld

What a pleasure to dine at an entirely vegetarian and substantially vegan Chinese restaurant! The wife of a friend read about it in an airline in-flight magazine, but I imagine that the people who find their way to the neighbourhood in which it’s located are more likely to be locals than visitors. We enjoyed bowls of miso tofu soup, mild and appetizing, and sour spicy soup, packed with mushrooms, sprouts, greens, strips of soft tofu and baby corn; this soup is a real winner. For main meals there are hearty dishes of fried dumplings that take the form of oddly shaped parcels and thick noodles.  Fans of imitation meat dishes are also catered for, making this an excellent place to take very timid non-vegetarian friends as well as a wonderful venue for committed veggies. The repertoire of Chinese cooks seems endless.

Today’s meeting was hosted by John.  We shared a lovely lunch of Winter Soup and some hearty dips with bread including home made hommus and carrot dip, followed by some fresh fruit.

1. Helen has successfully set up some new links with other vegetarian groups and will continue to look for more.

2. We talked about our current members Jacki andMelissa who are overseas and congratulate them on the good work they did while in Africa. We look forward to seeing them home again safely. We hope to hear about how Jacki and Melissa catered for their vegetarian diets both while on the ship and while travelling.

3. Tasks from previous meeting to be carried over includes updating WordPress, tidying up graphics and collating information about online traffic.

4. Next meeting will be the 1st of october 2011 at Vasilios and Helen’s house.