Sunday, May 24, 2009

intruder

Okay, this isn't really about food. Because neither am I, any more. I'm widening.. er, broadening my horizons...

I love this blog. I wish it were mine. This is blog envy. Am I over a food blog phase?

Am I over a phase in my life where food was The main good thing, the only flame?
Where I had forgotten how to procrastinate, my other favourite thing?

Certainly I still enjoy reading food blogs. I just enjoy other things a lot too.

Such as Gotye. His album is going around and around in my head lately.

I'm feeling pride in my city, my country. Melbourne's cultural hipness and hapness. Fond disdain for the wankery around the arts, which is arrogant of me at 21. Self awareness of privilege too.

Thing is, I'm too lazy to take photos of food all the time. But a food blog without photos just isn't the same to read. And I have this other blog which I could switch back over to, and try to recover. Or should I just keep going at EGWC and write about a variety of things? I'll write the same old crap wherever I'm posting.

Enough of this, silly. Semantics time.

PS We had roast lamb today, with all the goods as done in our family. And steamed a plum pudding I made the other day, and ate it with custard, and of course cream.
I also may have made ginger nuts and digestive biscuits.. thankyou Matthew Evans, writing just for me, the weekend cook (I do miss the old title though. Anyone can cook).
Oh, and carrot and zucchini fritter/patty things, with cumin. They were good.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

delicious ginger

This morning I went to a new place at uni whose sign for spicy, gingery chai I have been eyeing for the last couple of weeks. There was a smiling, charismatic person there with a laptop whom I sat next to with my laptop.

He had sitting in front of him a dirty mug and three-quarters of a muffin, and as we sat there tapping the people from behind the counter came over and took away his dirty mug, and smiling, he yelled something out to them as they returned to the coffee machine.

'Here's your change, man.' The coffee student held out more than two dollars, but had to convince him to take it, in the end winning on the grounds that the girl had charged him double for the previous thing.

I worked for a while, and he had gone, but the laptop was still there on the sunken seat. Then he came back, moved it and sat down again. I smiled, without looking up from my (very rudimentary) essay.

He had brought with him a clean mug and a steaming pot, and apologised he was going to stink the place out with ginger. I told him I was having the ginger chai, and it would do me good anyway with sinus issues.
And he poured it, and it smelled so good. It was ginger and lemongrass.
With honey, it's amazing, he told me.

My spicy chai was $4.50 with soy.

It was worth it.

Friday, May 1, 2009

Las Vegan Bakery

Just went there for lunch today.

OH MY WORD it was delicious.

No, I'm not vegan, but I have increasing numbers of friends who are.

My sister went with a vegan friend of hers and told me more than once about the tofu and tempeh with satay sauce, bean shoots and salad ($8.50), which I dutifully ordered, eyeing the rest of the menu with equal longing. I wasn't sure what to expect, having had tempeh only once before at Vegie Bar (I LOVE Vegie Bar, but don't get tempeh there, at least not with the House Salad. It's as dry and boring as 7:30 on a Sunday night with no food in the house). But S1 had said this would be nothing like that.

She Was Right.

My local lunchmate ordered the Rice Balls (also $8.50), also with satay sauce, bean shoots and salad. A girl at the next table had this - I asked about it and she said it was her favourite! - and it was inevitable that one of us was going to order it.
Not everything on the menu has bean shoots, or salad, or satay sauce - in fact, some things have none of them! - but I was exceptionally glad to have all of the above.
The salad was just good old salad, but with little semi-dried olives and this fantastic dressing. I can't quite describe it. Think it had garlic?
The rice balls, 2 plump mounds of rice with a little bit of corn and stuff, encased in a sticky, sweetish batter and deep fried, were gorgeously ugly.
The satay sauce is evil, it's so good.
But I was happy with my tofu, hard on the outside, soft in the middle, and meltingly good tempeh.

The place is really cute. Run, it seems, by this funny straight-faced man.. he was serving and this helpful woman was out the back cooking (to get to the toilet you have to go through the kitchen and they tell you how to use the basin with the foot pedal). I shall check out what has been written about them when I have more time coz I want the story.

Everything is a similarly cheap price. Nothing under $5 except a muffin ($2, today only, according to the sign... they ran out while we were there. They looked great.) or a $3 all-you-can-drink cup of chai with bonsoy, but I don't even care, it's still super value for the best meal I've had in weeks, that's how pleased I am with Las Vegan.

They do takeaway, too. It's worth noting that they're only open 11-3:30, Tues-Fri.

If you're reading my blog and you don't know where Las Vegan is, I am surprised. And pleased. Don't make them too busy to fit me in, but they're on Smith St Collingwood, right near Trippy Taco and Espresso 24 or whatever it's called... between Victoria Pde and Gertrude.

Shhh!