I typically find it disappointing when I go to a place recommended to me as vegan, that turns out to largely cater to omnivores but have vegan selections, or to understand what ‘vegan’ means. Doesn’t count in my book.

That said, Yulli’s Bar in Surry Hills was a pleasant surprise. I’d been told by friends it was great; I was also thankfully warned that it was busy, and hence had a reservation. We did have to sit outside on what as possibly the coldest, windiest day in the history of Octobers in Sydney, but such is life. And while Yulli’s caters primarily to vegetarians, they had a vegan menu, which included more than one option for each course, which is honestly about all it takes to make me happy in life.

The mixed chips plate, consisting of pumpkin, beetroot, taro and other unidentified deep fried goodies, was crisp and delightful with a side of seasalt, although I do subtract points for their forgetting the ‘vegan’ nature of our request and serving a tzatziki like sauce. I was sad that it was quite so spare – approximately 30 ‘chips’ for $13.50 – but it was also delightful.

We chose to follow this up with ginger and leek dumplings, and a falafel plate. To be fair, these were also sparse; four dumplings and four falafel does not a hearty meal make, but they were also wonderful. The leek dumplings were definitely my pick of the night, steamed and tender with an amazing plum sauce. The falafel were also great, if not quite my thing; I have an uneasy relationship with coriander, and they were laced with it. Served with a spicy relish and pineapple, wrapped in betel leaves, they were an unusual treat.

It’s worth noting that all of our selections were from the entree section of the menu, which might explain the scarcity of actual food on our plates; however, neither my girlfriend or I could see the point in ordering Pad Thai or a Vegetable Sambal when we were trying to branch out and try something new. Still, judging by other’s plates, servings of mains continued to be small.

On balance, it was a lovely meal and a pleasant experience. However, the dark room and somewhat haphazard service take away from what was otherwise quite lovely. And we had to stop for vegan icecream on the way home, so factor that into your budget.

Yulli’s Bar

417 Crown Street, Surry Hills

9319 6609

My daily walk to and from the Kings Cross train station generally involves dodging puddles of vomit and hoping I don’t get stabbed with an errant hypodermic needle. Up until recently my favourite part of the neighbourhood has been the guy outside that dollar store on Darlinghurst Rd with the microphone yelling out deals on toothbrushes and energy drinks over a recording of himself doing the same. (True story.)

But now the KX has a brand new attraction that I can get behind: Green Lizard Vegan & Fusion Raw Food Cafe. It’s like a little oasis of yummy health food. Green Lizard is vegan, gluten-free, sugar-free, and not all raw, but definitely raw friendly.

I got to come in last week and sample a bunch of different foods, starting with a yummy tomato carrot juice. Green Lizard’s proprietor explained that it would help aid in digestion. I’m sure he could explain a lot more about the health benefits, which were all well and awesome. I’m no health expert, but I am a deliciousness expert, so I’ll just serve up the food porn instead.

This was a crispy rice paper “pancake” topped with delicious fresh berries.

Spring rolls and broad beans (which were soooo good).

A raw tomato and sprout salad, made with sprouts they grow themselves.

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Adelaide has always been a semi-magical place to me.  Being a planned city, mostly flat (except for those pretty hills), and with a peak hour that’s at about the same level as Sunday morning traffic in Sydney, it’s just so easy to get around!  It’s also where most of my Australian-based relatives live and, for me, visiting there has always meant a whole lot of fun.  But even more importantly, after a recent visit for a cousin’s wedding, I now also know Adelaide as a superb destination for a whole lot of vegan-eating-pleasure.

I’d done my homework and asked a local which vegan outlets shouldn’t be missed.  The resounding recommendation was for Bliss Organic Café  and with this in mind I promptly booked accommodation that was within three blocks to provide for easy access (even though, as stated previously, almost everywhere in Adelaide is “easy access” compared to Sydney).

This was definitely A Good Move.  We ate at Bliss three times and were never disappointed.  Our choices included:

Bliss also houses a “1-stop vegan shop“, with an array of vegan goodies for sale such as groceries, personal care items, books and Vegan Wares wallets and belts.

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What does one buy at a juice bar? Why soup of course!

When I am not busy singing awesomely to Ace of Base I occasionally have to do some work and occasionally that is in North Sydney. Altitude Juice Bar is a small shop in the food court complex located at 155 Miller St, North Sydney which I have stumbled upon during one of these occasions.

Soup!

The shop itself is not vegan, however they do offer several vegan options, which are clearly labelled as vegan, including 3 delicious vegan soups which change every day! (They offer 4 different soups. The sign advertises that they are all vegan, however one each day will usually say it has chicken.) They also have vegan muffins and rice paper rolls. I assume one could also get a vegan wrap or juice, however I am yet to partake in such deliciousness.

The muffins, while not the best vegan muffin in North Sydney, are still pretty good and come at the bargain basement price of $1.70 per muffin. WOAH VALUE! They come in several fruity flavours including blueberry, raspberry, banana and orange and are perfect for pre/post lunch snack or maybe even a post breakfast snack or even a pre dinner snack. So many possibilities!

Sweet potato rice paper rolls with sweet chilli sauce

The rice paper rolls are not your standard boring bland town rice paper rolls with rice noodles and blandness, but instead a journey to delicious county. The vegan rolls include: classic vegetarian (cucumber, rice noodles, carrot, peanuts and more); a very delicious basil and tofu; and finally my favourite sweet potato, which is similar to the classic vegetarian however surprisingly have 2 slices of sweet potato. Ingenious!

Muffins and rice paper rolls are all fine and dandy, however the soups are what I get all up ons about. Just in the last 2 days I’ve kept a delicious list of the delicious options: Lentil and green vegetable; Spicy dhal and pumpkin; Lima bean and mixed vegetable; Indian spicy lentil; Green pea, pumpkin and spinach; and Cannellini and mixed vegetables. There are new ones every day. I have been known to spend upwards of 4 minutes deciding on which soup to purchase, as it is a very important decision that should not be taken lightly. It also comes with a slice of bread which comes in several different varieties, another decision not to be taken lightly.

In conclusion I like soup. True story.

Lately I’ve been indulging in a lot of waffle and pie based meals. It’s not something I’m proud of. Oh who am I kidding, yes I am! In fact I started a new blog for all of the meals I’ve been cooking and ravishing recently and I make now efforts to hide how awesome they are.

But, it’s going to become hard to hide how fat I am becoming unless I start balancing out the chocolate drizzle with a few healthy meals.

Enter, Nourishing Quarter, a new vegetarian restaurant on Cleveland Street, on the border of Surry Hills and Redfern. Nourishing is such a great word to describe it, because the dishes, though healthy don’t have that bland, crunchy “healthy-tasting” feeling to them, nor does the warm atmosphere. Everything we ate was chock full of flavour, starting with these fresh veggie rolls…

We also had  a yummy “Humble Pie” with a side salad…

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Baulkham Hills is probably the best place on earth, filled with god-like people who were recently gracious enough to allow me to walk amongst them. Imagine, me, a lowly city dweller even being allowed to walk amongst the suburbanites. TRUE STORY!

Ok, actually, that is fake story filled with sarcasm. Sometimes the internet is a confusing place where sarcasm is mistaken for sincerity and it’s probably much better that you jump to making ridiculous assumptions about a person than try to discern the difference.

Now, here is my very earnest review of a very nice vegetarian restaurant in Baulkham Hills called Fountain!

Fountain is hidden in an office park, so you probably wouldn’t just stumble upon it, but if you did you’d be in for a pleasant surprise. Although it’s fairly standard pan-Asian fare, the menu offers a lot of unique dishes that pack a lot of flavour. For our entree, we ordered what was described as Crispy Yam Knots but that wasn’t very accurate. They were more like Noodle Explosions! Topped with chilli and ginger.

I couldn’t resist ordering the Tropical Fantasy of Cashew Nut which was an interesting dish of sweet and sour veggies and battered and fried cashews. Admittedly, my tropical fantasies tend to involve Mai Tais delivered to me on a beach by this man. (You’re welcome, ladies.) But you know, fried cashew nuts… also good.

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Rubyos on King Street in Newtown is the kind of accidental discovery I live for. Turns out that this fancy-ish small plates restaurant has a whole secret vegetarian menu and that the majority of the options are vegan. Your cover is blown, Rubyos! I am telling the world, and you will be flooded with vegans! And then maybe you will go all vegan! And then maybe someone will buy me a robot that cooks me vegan french toast!!! ANYTHING COULD HAPPEN!!!

Until then, allow me to dazzle you with some food porn, glorious food porn… Olives! I love olives. They’re beautiful to photograph, and the citrus marinated ones at Rubyos are soooo good. Like, James Franco so good.

I have to admit I was a little let down by the cocktails. I ordered one called a Basil Grande which was strawberry, basil, vodka, and a “peppery infusion.” All the ingredients for awesome. But it mostly just tasted like slightly alcoholic strawberry juice. Not bad, but not wow.

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Earth Cafe is Sydney’s newest all-vegan cafe. (Unless someone is withholding breaking news from me! Why would you do that??) As you can tell, we don’t see a lot of new vegan restaurants ’round these parts, so this was fairly exciting news.

It operates out of Samadhi Yoga Studio in Newtown and the menu is what you might expect from such a setting: nourishing, light, subtle. Salads, soups, smoothies, and desserts made of dates and nuts. One highlight that seems to be a regular menu fixture is the dhal served with brown rice and tamarind chutney.

I’m down with their hippie vibe as it sounds like they walk the walk, what with their composting and community garden. From their website:

“We use biodegradable take away cups and containers, as well as washable napkins.  Our crockery is sourced from the carbon neutral company ‘Ecology’ and we don’t sell drinks in plastic containers.  Good quality water is free at Earth and doesn’t come in a bottle that will end up in landfill.”

The hermits among you should beware that they’re currently serving in a pretty small space, which means one big communal table. I mean, you don’t have to talk to your dreadlocked neighbours… but you might have to smell them.

Haha, just kidding! Vegans are not all smelly hippies. That is a terrible stereotype. But we do sometimes eat things called “raw bliss balls” and expect people to take us seriously.

I’ve alluded to it, but not made official announcement of my new job working as a Campaign Officer for the World Society for the Protection of Animals. Yup, somehow I’ve convinced an awesome animal-helping organisation to pay me to be a blogger and social media wank. Not a bad gig!

When I first heard that their offices were in St Leonards in Sydney’s North Shore I was nervous about what my lunch choices might be limited to. Getting off the train on the first day led me through a food court with pretty sparse options. Some dodgy looking Indian and Thai takeaway were about the best I could scope out at first glance.

But lo and behold, it turns out that St Leonards actually offers quite a bit for vegans. Perhaps even more than downtown Sydney. My first exciting discovery: Green Gourmet!

I’ve been to the one in Newtown and quite enjoyed the variety of food offered at their buffet, and its value. The St Leonards location doesn’t stack up quite as well. Far fewer options especially if you’re not into fake meats – which I’m not. But you get a good sized portion for $8 or so and it’s chock full of filling, healthy brown rice.

And while it’s nice to have a vegan restaurant just blocks away from the office,  the majority of my lunches take place at the cafe at Nature Care College. I’m not positive, because they don’t advertise it as such, but I think it may be all vegetarian. And I’d guess at least half of their food is vegan and marked as such. Plus it’s all healthy, tasty and varied. You usually get a small main and a side salad. The mains range from curry pies to nori rolls, to Thai risotto, to the spiced lentil pattie pictured here. Again you’re looking at around $8. They’ve usually got vegan desserts as well.

There are other reasonable options. Christie’s has some nice salads and wraps. They don’t mark things as vegan so it can be hard to know for sure whether not not there’s hidden whey in their tortillas, but it’s pretty easy to tell with the salads. Likewise at the fruit and veg shop just outside the train station. They sell a lot of lentil and chickpea based salads on the cheap that you can grab to go.

Any St Leonards-working vegaroo! readers have other lunch suggestions?

Otto Ristorante is located in Sydney’s Wooloomooloo. A friend told me of their vegan menu and I knew I had to visit Otto to see what they had to offer.

The vegan menu consists of four meals that can be ordered as an entrée ($24) or as a main ($34). I chose the Carpaccio di Fichi for my entrée and the Risotto con Verdure Verdi as my main.

The carpaccio was layers of sliced figs, pine nuts, mint, baby rocket, chives and Mugolio which is an oil made from pine nuts. The serving looked beautiful but it was far too large for an entrée portion and I was lucky to be able to give many of the figs to the people dining with me.

The risotto included baby green vegetables, salsa verde and herbs. The rice was cooked perfectly and the dish was delicious, one of the best risottos I’ve ever eaten.

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