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8/259-269 Unley Rd, Malvern Village, Malvern SA

This smart restaurant, which occupies two floors, is highly recommended by people in the know, and it’s easy to see why. For starters we enjoyed the vegetable samosas, fat and full of potatoes, green peas and a good spice mix. Our main meals included the Peshawi Aloo, in which the potatoes come with onion, tomatoes and a what is clearly a generous helping of spices, and Egg Plant; on the day we were there it was beautifully soft and red…there is always something immensely satisfying about fried aubergine, and the cooks here handle it superbly. Sometimes it seems a good idea to eat something fresh to balance the flavours of an Indian meal, and we went for the Katchumber Salad of tomatoes, onions, cucumber and capsicum, which turned out to be oddly sweet, apparently a consequence of its being flavoured with both vinegar and lemon. While this restaurant may look like a standard suburban Indian dive, in reality it serves very fine food indeed.

15 Tribune St, South Bank, Brisbane Qld

I think I’m getting the hang of Turkish restaurants: while there’s always plenty of very satisfying bread, you should nibble it slowly so as to leave plenty of room for other things. The Mado offers artichokes as a starter, soft with lots of lemon, and the more substantial white bean salad, which comes on a bed of lettuce with parsley and red onion; this is a heavy dish for a starter, and perhaps could have used a little more dressing.  For a main course you can’t go past the oven cooked vegetables which are served in a litle pot, straight from the oven. The dish of potatoes, green capsicum and mushrooms is not heavily spiced, and the mixture of natural tastes works well. It comes with bread, rice (does it really need both these accompaniments?) and a welcome salad. This is a flavoursome and simple cuisine; people after something a little more spicy should go on Friday or Saturday, when a belly dancer performs.

Shop 5, Harries Rd, Coorparoo, Qld

The menu at this comfortable restaurant allows a good range of vegetarian dishes to be sampled. For starters you can try the fattoush, an old Middle Eastern favourite of greens, cucumber, tomato, parsley and toasted bread (ours came without bread, but the staff brought another bowl.) There is a wonderfully tasty dish of aubergine and tomato served with thin Persian bread, or you could try the falafel and hummus that come as part of non-vegetarian platters. The main meals include Addas Polo, made up of rice with almonds, dates, sultanas and brown lentils; it’s obviously bursting with goodness, but some may find the taste a little bland. Quite the opposite is the intensely sweet Faloodeh, in which strips of vermicelli come with lots of rose water and some lemon sorbet. Strong coffee, which they do well here, goes well with such a dessert! There are all kinds of veggie possibilities in Persian food, which can be enjoyably sampled at this appropriately if unimaginatively named establishment.

My apologies for skipping November and December 2010 – Please don’t take the lack of a campaign posting to mean that I can’t find a good one to mention…  There are so many groups out there campaigning on a variety of issues which are important to vegetarians and vegans.  Let’s start 2011 by highlighting a campaign which has a very simple message:

Meatless Mondays Australia  – Check out their website at http://meatlessmondays-australia.com/ 
The Australian arm of Meatless Mondays is one of ten around the globe,  including in USA, Canada and Britain.  Aiming to promote the benefits on both the environment and on health, Meatless Mondays is encouraging people to at least eat meatless one day of the week.  Reducing meat consumption by 15%, ie one day of the week, lessens the risk of chronic preventable illness and helps slow climate change.  The website has some easy to read facts on the state of Australian’s health and our environment.  The site also has some great vegetarian and vegan recipes, highlighting how delicious vegie food can be.

How can we support them?  Spread the Meatless Mondays message – the more people who take part, the greater the difference that can be made.  So get your family, friends, school, workplace, organisation, cafe, restaurant, shop, EVERYONE, involved.  The website has downloadable posters, flyers and pamphlets.

58 Serangoon Rd, Singapore

It may have been hunger that drove me into the first restaurant in Serangoon Rd visible from the end of Buffalo St, and I wondered whether I’d made a mistake, for it has a western, bourgeois feel. But Ananda Bhavan is the real thing, with an alcove for washing hands, and its ambience is a reminder that globalization need not be sinister, but can represent non-Western people adopting western ways so as to integrate them into their own systems. They do a wonderful range of thosai (dosas), which come either with or without ghee, simply excellent, and there is a range of fruit drinks,among them the beautifully coloured watermelon.  

There are so many possibilities for vegetarian eating as you stroll along Serangoon Rd! Among the new looking places are a pure vegetarian halal restaurant, and place called Big Bites that seems to be modelled on Western fast food outlets…the former would certainly be interesting to try. And the surrounding streets, such as Racecourse Rd, are full of eateries. Little India is a wonderful section of a country where the food is simply fantastic.

This will be the last restaurant review posted in 2010. I’m grateful to the friends who’ve joined me at the table, and all those who have commented on the reviews. A happy and blessed celebration of the Nativity to all readers of this site! To finish for the year, here’s a short poem by Les Murray, entitled ‘In a Time of Cuisine’.

A fact the gourmet

euphemism can’t silence:

vegetarians eat sex,

carnivores eat violence.

12-14 Buffalo St, Singapore (Little India MTR)

This vegetarian restaurant, the offshoot of a famous establishment just around the corner in Serangoon Rd, offers a range of light meals which, despite the unexpected appearance on the menu of mini chocolate dosas, described as a kids’ special, is basically traditional. The long dosas come with small dishes of dahl, a coconut paste and a tomato and chilli paste, which compliment them perfectly. They are also available with various fillings, but you don’t really need to order one, as the waiters prowl about asking diners whether they’d like refills of the accompaniments.  There is a range of fruit drinks available, and you end up with a satisfying and very cheap meal which, if you’re as lucky as I was, you will enjoy in charming company. Little India is the headquarters of the Indian community in Singapore, and should be on any visitor’s list of places to check out.

541 Orchard Rd (#05-01/2 Liat Towers; enter by the side street), Singapore

As you study the menu at this stylish restaurant, munching the bowl of plump peanuts that have appeared on the table, it becomes clear that its cooks are keen to try new ideas. Slices of eggplant, stuffed with tofu, come stewed in a mixture of bamboo shoots, mushrooms and both red and green chillis; the dish is nicely textured, very tasty and well complemented by the four small buns that accompany it. The almond jelly recommended by the waiter isn’t as successful; while fine in itself, it comes with an avocado puree of a slightly unsettling colour, two berries and a sprig of mint, creating a mix of flavours that don’t really cohere. The freshly pressed juices are excellent. This restaurant is certainly worth a visit if you are keen to try new things, but you should be aware that you’ll pay twice as much for a meal as you would at the restaurant reviewed most recently.

 100 Eu Tong Sen St (#03-16, Pearl’s Centre), Singapore

When you see that sign on the wall, ‘Please no meat or alcoholics’, you realise that the people who run this restaurant are serious about what they do. Some of the enticing dishes on the menu are familiar, such as the bean curd with eight wonders, although the implication that green peas are wonderful might be pitching it a bit high; the soft tofu is nicely complemented by the wonders, among which are several types of mushroom. New to me were the preserved dough with green chilli (what I would call capsicum), which comes in a black bean sauce, and the seaweed ginger broth, the seaweed dark and soft yet chewy and the ginger in long strips; more mushrooms are included. The restaurant has a gentle air and is popular with families. You eat off  plastic, but the cooking has integrity, the menu, entirely vegetarian and almost completely vegan, is amazingly long, and the goodwill of the friendly staff makes exploring it a sheer delight.

133 New Bridge Rd (#B1-02, Chinatown Point, Podium A), Singapore

This Indian vegetarian restaurant has moved to Chinatown, and to get there you pass a row of decidedly non-veggie fast food outlets, but when you take the escalator down you know you’ve come to the right place. It is famous for its buffet lunch: you pick up a metal tray and load it with your choice of sambal (thin, salty, spicy and in in a word excellent!), rice, dahl made from brown lentils, several vegetable curries, water melon and dairy-based sweets. To drink there is lassi, either sweet or salty; the wonderful juices they used to offer seem to be a thing of the past, along with the elegant decor and sari- clad waitresses. When the time comes to go you pay whatever you think the meal was worth, all proceeds going to the charitable organization that runs the restaurant. Deservedly popular with both Singaporeans and tourists, the Annalakshmi takes food seriously, and I remain grateful to the person who first took me there, years ago.

196 Caledonian Rd, Islington, London N1, UK

While this small restaurant has a smart appearance, it is typical of central London: seating and a bar are at street level, and  there is a kitchen downstairs.  The menu is intriguing, but a good choice is a mixed plate that will give you a variety of tastes, the Yestome Beye-Aynetu (pardon me while I check the spelling…) It comes on a silver dish covered with pieces of the soft sourdough bread, injera, which overhangs the edges of the platter. On top of the bread are generous portions of six fairly dry dishes; three of them vegetable (green beans and carrot, cabbage, and my favourite, spinach) and the other three pulses (orange lentils, brown lentils and split peas with green chillis…the last obviously has a strong taste. but it’s not overwhelming.) It’s a hearty, tasty, filling and I would say nutritious cuisine that works well as finger food. Nestled in a part of London that seems to be changing its character (there’s a vegan shop further down the street!) this restaurant is most definitely worth the short walk it will take you to get there.