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Shop 21-23, Arcade basement level,197-201 Beaudesert Rd, Morooka Qld

What a delight to encounter Eritrean cuisine! At its centre stands enjera, a flat, soft bread made from a mixture of grains to which sour dough gives a distinctive taste. It comes to the table with the main dishes sitting upon it. We ordered the five  vegetarian ones on the menu, these being tsebhi kantisha (mushroom stew), tsebi dubo (a pumpkin dish), tsebhi brusn (a beautifully colored red lentil stew with spices), the very pleasing alicha (vegetable stew) and shiro, a chickpea dish with stuffed green chillies (the chickpeas are ground so finely that they are not identifiable as such). As time passes the stews and moist curries are absorbed by the bread, and diners seem inevitably to move towards using the dampened enjera to scoop up the food. It’s a fun way of eating a hearty cuisine of robust rather than delicate flavours. The dark coffee, strong yet mild, comes in a smart black pot and is drunk out of small cups without handles. This restaurant is operated by the Eritrean Australian Women and Family Support Network, and has Coptic Orthodox connections. It is strongly recommended!

Adelaide St, Brisbane (next to Escape Travel)

It was the queue in the street outside this hole-in-the-wall take away joint, so obscurely located that it doesn’t seem to have a street number, that alerted a friend to its existence. How true is the judgment of the people! The vegetarian sushi is a delight, the strips of avocado, carrot, cucumber, daikon and lettuce bright and colorful to the eye and extraordinarily fresh, their crunchiness beautifully complementing the rice. Addition of the wasabi and soy sauce you pick up on the way out would simply get in the way of the purity of their fresh taste. But the condiments work well with dishes where ingredients have been cooked, such as the sushi in which very tasty seaweed, beautifully dark and green, comes wrapped in tofu, and that made of mushrooms in tofu. The food here is simply fantastic, and you’ll forget all about your short wait in a queue.

5/5 Nash St, Rosalie Village, Paddington Qld

At the recommendation of an old friend two of us sat down at this suburban restaurant for a quiet lunch. There’s no shortage of interesting things to choose from, as the menu lists nine veggie main dishes. We chose the chilli lemongrass tofu, a colorful mixture of tofu, cashews, carrot, capsicum, broccoli, green beans, baby corn, celery and fresh basil, and the vegetarian pad thai, in which the noodles come with vegetables and crumbled nuts (cashews and peanuts);  the egg is said to be very complementary in taste and texture. Again, the dish is accompanied by basil, which gives it a freshness not always found in east Asian cooking. We also sampled the vegetarian tofu soup, which was better that it often is, although I always have to remind myself that this is a kind of fusion dish that does not reflect the authentic traditions of the cuisine in which it is now placed. But why be a purist? There’s no reason why styles of cooking can’t develop, and the possibilities of veggie and vegan cuisine are truly endless.

Level 1, 500 George, St, Sydney NSW

Wherever you go, it’s the same Wagamama experience: the long benches, high level of ambient noise, waiters who jot down your order on a paper place mat and return to make another mark after they’ve asked how you’re enjoying yourself , and a  resolutely modern menu are universal. At this outlet in downtown Sydney the raw salad is a winner, its spinach leaves and mesculin with slices of cucumber, carrot and red onion coming with a non-assertive dressing and virtually bursting with health…for those wanting a hit of sodium, the miso soup is recommended. The spicy yasai itame offers tofu, zucchini and broccoli on a bed of rice with plenty of chilli and ginger and a wedge of lime to give it even  more lift, while the ramen soup with tofu and vegetables comes in a very big bowl. Most of the vegetarian dishes are vegan, except for the desserts, these being dairy-based and so fine for vegetarians but not vegans. The food is contemporary and never quite what one could imagine eating at home, and you may leave having paid a little more than you expected…but hey, the experience.

9/25 Junction Rd, Morningside Qld

There’s something to be said for sometimes overriding your instinct to order old favourites and asking for a mixed plate, and the components of the Vegetarian Platter at the Baalbak certainly make for a more varied meal than one you would have chosen for yourself. On the might we visited it contained hommos (how many ways are there of transliterating this word?), tabouli (opinions around the table were divided as to whether it could have used more lemon), a moussaka in which the flavours of the potatoes, aubergine, tomato and herbs mingled superbly, a mujadara of lentils and onions, a loubya bi zayt of green beans with tomatoes (more peppery than it sometimes is) and a solitary piece of falafel. We also enjoyed vine leaves and a delicious bowl of fattouch, with beautifully contrasting flavours and textures. The menu, which currently includes a number of Western dishes, is likely to change before long, and it will be interesting to see in what direction the competent cooks at the Baalbak take it.

1/59 Hardgrave Rd, West End Qld

This restaurant bills itself as ‘Tibetan, Nepalese, Sherpa’, but after an introductory plate of spring rolls the food we enjoyed was from the subcontinental side of the menu. We chose two types of dahl, one plain (with ginger, garlic, tomatoes and onions) and the other of fresh spinach plus all-of-the-above. It’s a good dahl, thick almost to the consistency of porridge, straightforward rather than delicate in its flavour, and generously served in deep bowls. As main dishes we went for Aloo Chanako, a dry chickpea and potato curry with ginger and garlic, and the sweetish Pharsi Ko Tarkari of pumpkin with mustard seeds, chillis and onions. Both dishes came with lashings of fresh coriander which complemented them well. As the restaurant says, this is food from the top of the world, and there’s a hearty, sustaining, keep-out-the-cold feeling about it one imagines being very appropriate to the Himalayas. But this doesn’t keep it from being a most welcome meal on a winter’s night in a much more temperate part of the world!

Shop 2E/, 197 Church Rd, Taigum Qld

It’s amazing how thoroughly the potato, only introduced to India towards the end of the eighteenth century by the British (the benefits of Empire!), has been assimilated into the cuisine of the Subcontinent, and when the VVOC inspection team, lovers of that vegetable, visited the Deep Curry House it ordered both aloo saag and aloo ghobi (the latter is not on the menu, but the cook kindly prepared it on request.) The dishes were excellent, the spinach beautifully smooth and the cauliflower oddly crunchy in a very satisfying way. We also enjoyed the vegetable curry and the channa masala of chickpeas and spices (and more potatoes!) The rice that accompanied the dishes was itself tasty, being flavoured with cardamon, cumin seeds and cloves. Our enthusiasm for these dishes was the more significant because we had already tucked away with great appreciation serves of samosas, pakoras and onion bhaajis. An excellent meal, one enjoyed to the accompaniment of an interesting commentary from our friendly waitress.

88 Vulture St, West End Qld

In what might be politely called the triumph of hope over experience, but would be more realistically be thought of as the triumph of laziness, I’ve sometimes picked up from the supermarket ready-made servings of Lebanese food, always to regret it on getting home: despite being packaged in a manner apparently designed to appeal to those who identify with hippy values, it’s pumped full of preservatives and somehow lifeless.  The take-aways at the popular King Ahiram, on the other hand, are freshly made and very much the real thing. The baba ghanoush is beautifully rich, and the assault on the taste buds of the earthy coloured hummus  is powerful (I recommend a drizzle of olive oil over it.) There are slightly tart pies of spinach and dark lentils, and large cabbage rolls…think vine leaves where the leaves have been replaced by cabbage. While you can eat in the King Ahiram, most of its business is take away, and food of this kind is perfect for taking home and enjoying (there will be no need for repenting) at your leisure.

Shop 140, Sunnybank Plaza, Mains Rd, Sunnybank Qld

It may be a good idea to skip a preceding meal before tackling the vegetarian spring roll with vermicelli rice and salad served at the Vietnam Corner, for the portions are large. The dish offers a nice balance of colours, textures (the rolls come chopped into bite-sized pieces) and flavours. This is particularly true of the salad component, which comprises sprouts, lettuce, cucumber, carrot, chopped peanuts and, most importantly, the mint that gives the dish a wonderfully light feel; it comes with a bowl of viscous soy sauce to pour over it. The wide range of drinks on the menu includes one that always strikes me as a half a meal in its own right, the coconut and red bean frappe, in which a glass comes with layers of small red beans, coconut milk and ice, and a very necessary long spoon. But you’d never think you were dining with the Devil here, where an air of happy conviviality hangs over the diners.

172 Hardgrave Rd, West End

Most of the restaurants reviewed on this site are orientated towards a particular national cuisine, so it’s good to find an inner suburban cafe with no particular leaning beyond that of being modern. Vegans will gravitate towards the red lentil and vegetable pie, in which the ingredients come mixed together in a parcel, with a side salad of tomato, cucumber and onion and a red spicy dip with a sweet undertaste (orange?) For vegetarians the Spanish omelette which comes with a solid piece of bread is strongly recommended, all its ingredients being beautifully fresh. For others there is a wide selection of dishes. The frappes, available in such combinations as raspberry and apple and lemon, orange and mint, are excellent. I guess ‘contemporary Western’ would be as good a description of the cafe’s cuisine as any, so that for people who may be disconcerted by an non-Western menu, and reports suggest that such folk may still be found even in these multicultural times, the range of dishes here will be most welcome, while for those of us happy to eat ethnic it provides a welcome reminder of how satisfying mainstream Western cuisine can be.