food porn.

My name is Isabel Inkster and I have a problem. And this problem is taking over my life, my bank account, and damaging relationships. I am addicted to cookbooks. New ones, old ones, fat ones, skinny ones, all sexy and sleek and prettily printed and beautifully bound. I spend far too many hours stalking the cookbook section of various bookstores. It takes time to find what I, specifically, above all, covet. You see it is a wee bit difficult to find a vegetarian cookbook that's not a 'vegetarian cookbook'...if you know what I mean. I have more than enough variations on 'substantial salads' and a squillion types of 'satisfying soups'!

This particular morning, looking offensively scruffy in a rather stuffy Claremont bookstore, I was eventually aided by one poor staff member (who probably drew the short straw to serve ‘that dykish teen without sufficient funds to actually make a purchase’). At the end of turning inside out a number of tomes, I went with the recommended ‘Plenty’ by Yotam Ottolenghi.

I scurried home with this adulterously expensive little piece and hid between the covers. Oh sweet centre folds of freekeh pilaf! Oh sealed section on the hidden delights of the aubergine! Since this scandalous purchase, I have concocted a plethora of tasty pickings from within. Thus far I've only got a sneaky snap of the green cous-cous. But by golly, there will be more. If a whole week of new meals, an engorged belly, and perhaps a daunting grocery bill are the worst side effects of this addiction...I really don’t think I’ll quit.

SLR's: making cheap food look noms since 1952

[vegetarian tempura with udon noodles, ~$5.70]

A long long time ago, when I began this blog with bold intentions and then let it self-consciously gather dust, I posted about Taka's Kitchen (freo, barrack st, shafto lane). I posted sans photo because, well, I was mostly there to grab cheap eats before getting crunk on gunch (def:Gunch, abbr; goon-punch) in the heady days of highschool friday nights, and I wouldn't dare bring my precious camera along.

[somewhat NON-vegetarian chicken katsu that 'the boys' always get, plus green tea...which is totes free]

These days eating cheap food is not only a precursor to a dirty night, it is a neccesity when you work full time at a restaurant for laughable wages ($12.84 an hour kids...) Hence, lots of Taka's, and as such, the belated Taka's photos. If you want to read the "review" (and I use that term very, very loosely), scroll down through my archives. It's so old it's vintage, and thus it is hip. Enjoy.

[vego sushi....essentially just avocado and rice...]

Monk-ey Magic

Any ‘Famous’ or ‘New Weekly’ diet section will tell you to avoid processed carbs, always carry a bottle of water, and, above all, whatever you do, AVOID BUFFETS.

And I would agree. If not for the health detriments of stuffing your face with seconds, thirds, fourths, etc, because ‘you need to get your money’s worth’, then to avoid the images that the word ‘buffet’ conjure; a giant plastic Sizzler sign, greedy grubby children with chocolate & bacteria covered faces, and putting those tiny marshmallows on everything.

I would say that’s the kind of buffet those trash magazines are talking about. At least, I hope they are. Because ain’t no glossy cover going to discourage me from taking advantage of the buffet provided by the gentle, generous, Hare Krishna caterers of Perth. You know, I’ll agree attentively with those rags on all other topics, like the state of Ashton Kutcher’s butt hair or how to get married, but there is a limit! ... I digress...

My history of Hare Krishna food involves stingy donations at Anna Lakshme on Barrack St (which I feel genuinely bad about, my friend claims ‘student discount!’), or going three days exclusively eating from the Hare Krishna stall at music festivals. Lunch at Govinda’s on William St felt comparatively classy.

First of all, it’s a set price. $10, those bastards! (or $8 concession, but I didn’t have the heart to try and wheedle the $2’s difference). Second, there is a constant stream of official looking productive persons (you know, people with proper jobs who don’t just scab the central heating from restaurants/bookstores/cafe’s all day) taking advantage of the $4 take-away special.

[delectable halva....and i don't even really dig desserts!]

So, this slightly upper-crust version of Hare Krishna servings is a little skewed compared to my hazy memories of stall-food at Southbound. Nonetheless, you’ve got the key elements - spicy fried potato in a mild gravy, pepper water, an overly yoghurt-y strawberry lasi, poppadums and halva in custard sauce. And you can shove as much of this down your monk-lovin’ gob as you can, just like ‘New Weekly’ told you not to. With certainly more flavour and variety than your average HK buffet, I don’t even care that the pakora is a dollar extra, this is good value.

The only thing this buffet is missing is mini marshmallows.

Rating: 5 chickpeas outta 5. Look, it’s not that hard for a strictly vegetarian place to cater to vegetarians, hence it’s a lot easier to give this rating out. Plus it’s cheap n’ tasty. I really can’t knock off anything.

The Deets: 194 William St, Northbridge

Big Bowl hits a Home Run

(holy nipple-tassles i should write newspaper headlines...)

Singapore "vegetarian" Noodle
(i forgot my camera, i don't have an friggin iPhone whoosy-whatsit, so this beautiful illustration will have to suffice)

‘Excuse me? Hi, um, er, s-sorry, i ordered the vegetarian noodles?’

‘Yes, Singapore vegetarian noodle,’ (points at #62 on the menu)

‘Yep! That’s the one, great, fantastic, just one problem...’

‘You order Singapore noodle,’

‘Yes, yes i did, the vegetarian Singapore noodle, brilliant, except this has meat in it, so I uh, i
don’t think it’s what I ordered,’

‘This plate is this,’ (gestures towards plate, and then to #62)

‘Yep, that’s great thank you, b-but I ah, can’t eat this, it’s full of meat,’

‘Sorry?’

‘It’s not vegetarian but it’s in the vegetarian menu,’

‘Yes it’s in the menu,’

‘Yeah, uh, see it’s under the vegetarian section of the menu but it’s got shrimp, chicken, beef, the whole animal kingdom...’

And so on so forth, until, finally, the whimpy-white-stuck-up-bitch-of-a-customer (me) got her way, and the meal was sent back to the kitchen. (For the record, I’ve never sent anything back to the kitchen before, this was really an extreme circumstance.)

Welcome to Big Bowl Noodle House!

Like in any Chinese restaurant, vegetarians are going to be a right NUISANCE if you’re sharing dishes. Basically, accept your status as a self-righteous-self-imposed-social-outcast and take the kiddies high chair in the corner – yo ain’t gonna be involved! From the whole of a double sided (delightfully laminated and tacky-picture covered) menu, there are only four dishes in the vegetarian section (and evidently they’re not all vegetarian!)

But, Big Bowl Noodle House does do noodles. And they do noodles friggen well. Maybe they just limit your choice on the menu so that when you scoot up the counter, you’re overwhelmed with gleeful emancipation as they ask you what type of noodle you’d like (thin, thick, wholemeal). The noodles are then made fresh to order, and delivered to your table in super-speedy styles.

And to me, this makes up for the minimal meatless menu. Up and down the Asian options of William St, you ain’t gonna find that wide a range of vegetarian fare (unless you just stick to your own type and hang out at the Hare Krishna restaurant). Plus, this place is certainly going to be better quality than your Shanghai foodcourt or your Uncle Billies. So don’t be a social-fuck and accept what they give ya! (even if it comes with shrimp, chicken AND beef)

the deets:
Big Bowl Noodle House 408 William Street Northbridge
Opening Hours: 11:30AM to 8:30PM ('cept Wed)
rating: 1 and 1/2 chickpeas out of five.

gastro-travel

[sage butter gnocchi, florence]

SO. It’s been a while. Dreadfully sorry for prolonged absence, oh dearest cyberspace, but I’ve been gallivanting about Europe eating my weight’s worth in deliciousness.

I had many a fantastic meal, and here are some highlights in photo form. Details of all the great or grotesque places we went to have been washed away by the gallons of liquor consumed throughout, but I definitely have a few tips under me travelling cap.

[THE flatbreads from Terre a Terre]

DO take advantage of the vegetarian fare in Brighton. High student population means there’s a lolly bag of options. Terre a Terre (71 East Street, www.terreaterre.co.uk) was our favourite. The food was stunning (spiced flatbreads with baba ghanoush, so delightful we went back for them two days later... ) and the staff chatty and forgiving, even when I mispronounced items and asked quite blatantly for their cheapest wine (the bane of backpackers budget with an inconvenient penchant for a nice meal: having to be stingy in fancy restaurants). 5 chickpeas, an easy feat considering their aim is to cater for vegetarians.

[vegie burger with handcut chips at the Lord Nelson pub - our favourite! - London]

[panzanella from Florence]

DON’T seek Asian food in Europe, despite your cravings. Although there was such a varied concoction of culinary treats, an orgy of gastronomy glory, I could only ever find high-end snobby sushi trains in Soho, or cheap n’ tasteless hangover food from noodle huts in tourist clubbing precincts. Most people I met didn’t even know what a laksa was!? A life without laksa is barely worth living!

[a nutritious backpackers' meal...]

[zuppa from the Sagra della Zuppa in Tuscany]

DO have three serves from the kitchen at ‘Yoga On Crete’ in Chora Sfakia. Ok, so this tip is a little bit specific to my trip, but it’s important! The yoga retreat lasted for one week, and each day the resident cook, Christina, would serve up a royal buffet of epic proportions (minus, perhaps, a whole pig with an apple in its mouth). All healthy vegetarian fare, with inspiring dishes, including eggplant pilaf and a hundred and one ways to make a salad.

[greek salad & beer in Crete]

DON’T choose the expensive place over the local looking one with plastic table-covers. Usually, I would avoid cheap paper napkins and any place that has over saturated pictures of its food on display. However, I got my greedy lil’ paws burnt when, selecting a whizz-bang wa-hoo restaurant in Rome and receiving the.worst.eggplant.parmigana and an even more miserable looking bill.

[pomodoro pasta from Lucca]

DO become regulars, wherever you can. Tranquillo, a (mostly) vegetarian bar/restaurant on Perissa beach in Santorini was a hangover-hidey-hole for my travel partner and I. And after gorging on a serve of beetroot n’ dill salad, or hand cut chips with a mystery source, we would down their scrumptious smoothies. By night, this combo would be replaced with the micro-brewery beer on tap (much better than the ubiquitious Mythos aka piss water served at every other greek bar) and their alluring cocktails. Regulars meant chats with the international crew of wait-staff, AND free drinks. It also meant we weren’t so embarrassed to frequent the joint at least twice a day.

[grilled octopus, crete]

But I’m back to the familiar restaurants of Perth, the Outback Jack's Grill, the $9 Heinekens, and having waitstaff pack up chairs by 10pm. Ahh, it's good to be home...

[wrap with fetta and capsicum from small cafe in Brick Lane, London]

Taka’s – Old Shanghai (Fremantle) or Shafto Lane (Perth)

Bite-Size Review: cheap, fast, and dirty – just how I like my Japanese food. 2 ½ chickpeas out of 5.

It’s a Friday night. You’ve clocked off work. You’ve got $15 on your bank card – not even enough to get cash out. It’s a desperate situation. Here’s how I’d play it:

$2 – Wrigley’s Strawberry gum, purchase at Farmer Jack’s, triumphantly request $13 cash out.
$5 – dubiously anonymous ‘South West Shiraz’ from the Subiaco Cleanskin’s Cellar next to Farmer Jack’s(conveniently close to my work!)
$1.50 – Train ticket to Freo
$5.80 – A small serve of vegie tempura, with miso, from Taka’s Japanese.
And after a perfect Friday night you’ve still got 70c left!

Hitting up Taka’s Japanese restaurant (ooh, would we call it that? Eatery? Market Stall?) at Old Shanghai food hall is a venerable tradition among many circles. So you may have to wait in line, or worse, bump into 6 people you recognise from various gigs/parties/your social networking site of preference.

But it’s popular for multiple reasons. First, it’s cheap. Second, it’s reliably delicious. And third, it’s really fucking cheap.

The portions may have decreased slightly, and you can occasionally hear the crunch of a cockroach under the boot of one of their many fast-paced chefs, but the Friday night pilgrims are as pious as ever.

From a vego’s point of view, the tempura is the best bet. Or if you’re hankering for a hearty feed, the tempura udon noodle soup comes with a filling, salty broth. The agadashi tofu is popular among many, but this picky reviewer much prefers firm tofu as used in thai cooking. Be warned, the vegetarian sushi is really just a chunk of slightly-bruised-avocado with very little going for it. Those pesky pescetarian’s have it a helluva lot easier when it comes to picking off this menu, though to be fair, that’s common to most Japanese restaurants.

Taka’s will always be my go-to for a cheap, quick, meal, despite the concerningly dirty kitchen. As they say, you can take-a da girl outta da Taka’s, but you can’t take-a da Taka’s outta da girl.

Wild Poppy is tame but tasty.

Bite-Size Review: kitsch kwality kafe. 3 chickpeas out of 5.

Beyond the cappuccino strip, on the dodgy side of south terrace (yes, we ventured past the hospital...) hides a number of lesser-known coffee-serving delights. If you’re sick of the steadily increasing prices at Gino’s, or of the ludicrously long line at Moore & Moore, I suggest you lollop/cycle/zombie shuffle yo hungover ass to this neck of freo...

Wild Poppy is one such shop of deliciousness on the corner of South Tce and Wray Avenue. The kitsch decor is delightful (though perhaps a little contrived) and the cafe spacious. Wait-staff were attentive, amicable and knew their coffee. The Wild Poppy brekkie menu is actually pretty tame, but does it display a decent number of vego options and a seriously scrumptious selection of cakes (which I’ll have to come back to try).

But the main reason I would roam repeatedly to Wild Poppy is the super-speedy-spectacularly-psychic baristas. They must be able to read your mind and start conjuring your brew ahead of your order, because I swear the coffee always arrives before I’ve even had time to remove my sunnies and let my bloodshot eyes adjust to the harsh light of a Sunday morning.

And, not only is it fast, it’s good. My long macc was only $3.50 (a dollar less than other coffee wranglers), of decent portion, not too acrid, not too milky.
My serve of scrambled eggs & turkish bread ($10) with a side of balsamic tomatoes ($4) was also served promptly. The three slices of Turkish bread were all jazzed up with a scrape of hummus, chutney, and a babaganoush. A tasty touch that would not please all, but certainly appeased my tastebuds.

The balsamic vinegar tomatoes were the highlight of the meal. Slightly caramelised, roughened up with rosemary, these were so delicious I went home and attempted my own version the next day. Shame they were almost completely ruined by the layer of ground white pepper. To me, that powdery crime tastes like dirt, and was totally off-putting.

Note: ALL cafes should use freshly cracked black pepper. That stale powdered shit is the cardinal sin of seasoning.

My boyfriend’s serve of ‘Hot Cakes’ (what the average chump would call pancakes) was plentiful, topped with mascarpone, strawberries and loads of maple syrup. As said, nothing revolutionary, but in defence of the cliché-cakes, they were light and fluffy and did the job well.

Food, service, and the kitsch-decor all fertilised an enjoyable experience. And with business going seemingly well - even expanding to the dinner-trade on Friday and Saturday nights, this place is one tall poppy I wouldn’t want to cut down.