Queen of Tarts, Dublin

Dame Street,
Temple Bar,
Dublin 2

Queen of Tarts is a small cafe/cake shop on the outskirts of the Temple Bar part of Dublin. It is situated on Dame Street opposite the entrance to Dublin Castle.

Lonely Planet says that the Queen of Tarts is the mother of all cake shops, and they're not wrong.

The cafe itself is quite small, only eight or so tables, but if it's full when you get there it's well worth waiting. The counter is absolutely packed with one of the most amazing array of cakes and pastries that I have seen. They also do snacks and light meals, including what sounds like a great veggie breakfast.

We went there twice and I had soup and cakes both times. The first time I had a carrot and fennel soup followed by a chocolate and pear tart. The second time was lentil and vegetable soup followed by apple crumble. Both soups were nice and thick and beautifully tasty and were accompanied by home made bread. The desserts were sublime, expecially the apple crumble which was served in a tart case making it a perfect single serving dessert. Apparently the blackberry and apple crumble and the victoria sponge were delicious too.

If you're in Dublin, then the Queen of Tarts is a must see - it should be on everyone's list of places to go.

Cordon Vert Diploma Finals

Last week was the culmination of my Vegetarian Society Cordon Vert cookery course that I have been doing over the last couple of years. The Diploma Finals consist of two days of cookery exams, firstly you have to cook a three course meal for four people, the second you have to cook a two course lunch for four.

The three course dinner menu is decided by the student, taking into consideration certain skills and techniques learned during the various courses. The menu has to be nutritionally balanced, taste good and look good. It also has to be served on time and the kitchen has to be kept relatively clean and tidy while you're cooking.

The second exam has much the same criteria, save for the various techniques which weren't being tested. Instead, it was the creative side of the repetoire that was under scrutiny as we were given our ingredients only an hour and a half before we started cooking.

I've been practicing and revising my dinner party menu for the last few months on friends and family and I was reasonably happy with it. After initially having timing problems, I'd managed to just about get everything served on time in the last couple of meals I'd done.

After a morning spent making our lunch, it was time to begin the first of the exams. We had some time to check our ingredients and gather equipment and then we were off. Four and a half hours to cook the best three course meal we could.

My menu was Fried Rissotto Balls with Roasted Pepper Sauce followed by Carrot and Chestnut Ravioli with Watercress Cream Sauce. This was accompanied by a Warm Sweet Potato Salad. The dessert was Poached Pears In Red Wine Galette with Iced Ricotta Parfait.

I started by making the parfait, as this had to go into the freezer. Then I worked my way through the rest of the menu, having a few problems with the pasta, but as the serving time of 7.30pm approached, I was pretty much on time.

I plated up my first course and served it to the invited guests, and gave one plate for the tutors, who would be marking the dishes. I then began getting the main course ready to plate. Once I'd served the main course, it was time to do dessert. There wasn't much, if any, time in my schedule to rest. However, the timings that I'd worked out and practiced were pretty much spot on and my dessert was ready and delivered on time. I finished my clearing up and that was it - it was all over. Or at least half of it was.

There were four of us taking the finals, and once we'd all finished clearing up, we sat and had some soup and dips and chatted about our experience. We were all shattered, it had been a really stressful day. The tutors paid us a visit but weren't giving anything away, they just warned us not to have too late a night as we still had the creative exam to do.

The next morning at 9am we were given the list of ingredients that we could use for the creative exam. We then had an hour and a half to work out what we were going to cook. I had taken about half a dozen or so of my favourite cookbooks with me to help me decide what to cook, and after having read through the ingredient list and flicked through the books I decided to do an Indian Thali followed by grilled banana pancakes.

So, at 10.30am we all began the second exam, with two and a half hours to create a two course menu to be served buffet style.

I'd decided to make a creamy coconut pepper and mushroom curry, Bombay potatoes, spinach with chilli and garlic and basmati rice cooked with onions and a selection of spices. This was then to be followed by the aforementioned banana pancakes.

Getting it all ready in the two and a half hours was pretty tough, but I just about managed to do it. I wasn't at all happy with what I'd produced, as I thought much of it was overcooked and didn't taste as good as I'd hoped.

We all served our dishes to the tutors so they could do their marking and we sat down to eat the rest of what we had cooked. I still wasn't that impressed with my morning's work and was worried that I'd thrown my diploma away.

After we'd finished eating, we cleared up and then went to see the tutors to get some feedback and results of the exams.

And the result? I passed! The sense of relief was enormous, I don't think I've ever had quite a stressful couple of days. I'm looking forward to receiving my certificate and detailed feedback on my meals.

And the future? I'm still keen to learn and to do something in catering, so watch this space...

Cordon Vert Fungus Foray

This is a course that I've been trying to get on for a couple of years but it's always been booked up. This year I booked it really early and have been looking forward to it since around May time.

I love mushrooms, so the thought of going out searching, picking and then cooking our finds was quite exciting. And, I'm pleased to say, the weekend did not disappoint.

The weekend was held at the Vegetarian Society's Cordon Vert School in Altrincham, near Manchester. It all started on Friday night with a slide show about the various different types of fungi presented by Dr Patrick Harding, who was to be our guide and expert for the weekend.

Patrick Harding has written a lot of books on plants and fungi as well as regularly presenting lectures and other weekends such as this one across the country.

Patrick is quite a character, reminding me of a cross between Stanley Unwin and Gandalf. He's a great bloke, and regular enthusiastic whoops and cries accompanied the various finds during our forays over the next couple of days which was quite amazing considering he's been doing this for years.

Saturday morning started with a more in depth slide show detailing how to categorise fungi and a look at the kind of stuff we might find. We then went to Dunham Massey, a local National Trust property, where we began our foray.

It wasn't long before a shout went up and we had discovered our first fungus, a blusher. Patrick showed us how to identify it and quizzed us as to which group of fungi it fitted into. After the initial find, things were a bit sparse for the first hour or so with just the odd patch of sulpher tuft and a few 'little brown jobs' as Patrick dismissively called them.

Just as we were about to take a break for a picnic lunch things started getting interesting with hen of the woods, a parasol and a host of ink caps. No too much edible stuff yet, but it was interesting to see the diversity of different species.

The afternoon proved to be really good and we collected a host of fungi, both edible and not including some bay boletes, beefsteak and a single cep. Some of the fungi such as the amethyst deceivers and some of the waxtops were amazing colours.

Around 3pm we made our way back to the Cordon Vert school and, once there, Patrick challenged us to categorise all our finds. We didn't do too bad, only a handful of them were wrong. Patrick calculated that we had collected 62 different species during the day. I never realised that there were so many!

Before the evening meal we had a slide show about edible funghi and, after dinner, we had a presentation about the folklore of fungus, including some interesting theories about the origin of Santa Claus.

On Sunday morning we went for an hour and a half's foray over the local golf course. We returned with another dozen new species, including a couple that Patrick hadn't seen before and took with him to check.

After we returned it was time to cook some recipes using the edible fungi that we had found. Some of them, such as the beefsteak are a bit of an aquired taste but others were very nice.

The weekend was great fun and very, very interesting. I'm interested to get out and see what fungi the local woods and paths have to offer. Whether I'll be brave enough to eat anything I find, I don't know. If you see Patrick Harding doing any presentations around your way, I urge you to go and see him - you won't regret it.

Chutney Mary, London

Chutney Mary
535 Kings Road,
Chelsea, London SW10 0SZ
www.chutneymary.com

Chutney Mary is an Indian restaurant that is part of the same chain that comprises Veeraswamy, Amaya and the Masala Zone restaurants.

Chutney Mary is on the Kings Road, Chelsea about a 10 minute walk or so from Fulham Broadway tube. The restaurant itself is in the basement of the building, but although it isn't brightly lit, it doesn't feel enclosed at all.

There were nine of us at the meal, a mixture of veggies and non-veggies.

The menu has plenty of choices for those of us who don't eat meat and it isn't your normal "korma, madras, vindaloo" Indian restaurant menu either as you'll see.

Before the starters were delivered we were treated to an amuse bouche of tomato soup. This was served in a small cup and saucer and was very nice.

For the first course, I had something that was labeled as three vegetarian kebabs. When it turned up it was three patties, one of pea and fig, one of sago and one comprising of spiced yam. They were presented nicely on a lotus leaf and accompanied by an avocado cream and a fruit chutney. They were all really nice, especially the yam one. I wasn't too keen on the avocado, but then I'm not a huge fan of guacamole either. One of the most popular starters on our table was the potato basket which was a 'basket' made of fried potatoes that was filled with various street foods and yoghurts. For a starter it looked very big and quite filling. Judging by the empty plates, it was very tasty too.

The main course choice for vegetarians at Chutney Mary is pretty good with two platters comprising various vegetable delights. We had a mixture of the two delivered to our table so I'll endeavour to remember the various dishes that they comprised.

I had the Punjab Vegetable Platter which had a selection of black lentil dhal, aloo gobi, spinach and cheese, okra, tomato and waterchestnut curry and spicy rice. This was served in small dishes on a great moon shaped tray that fitted perfectly around the plate. To accompany this I had a cheese and chilli naan.

The dhal was spicy and incredibly creamy, possibly one of the nicest I have ever had. I'm not a big okra lover, usually finding it stringy and/or slimy. But this okra had none of that, it was tender and very nice. I tried a couple of the options that were on the Vegetarian Platter, the other veggie dish on the main menu. These were tandoori broccoli, which was just-cooked and really crunchy laced with a spicy sauce. I also tries some peppers stuffed with smoked aubergine. The aubergine had a superb smokey flavour - it was gorgeous.

The dessert menu had what was described as a Garam Masala and Cardamom Brulee, so the choice was made for me. The brulee was served in the middle of a large plate, without a ramekin, topped with coconut ice cream and mint leaves. This was the first time I had ever had a brulee that wasn't in a dish of some sort. The texture of the brulee was just about perfect, firm and silky. I couldn't taste any garam masala, but the cardamom flavour was definitely there, but not overwhelming. On Gaz's Brulee scale this was a good eight and a half.

The service was great, there was always someone there when you needed them, and despite our awkward and disorganised ordering, the dishes were always correct and delivered to the right people. The waitress was also more than happy to take a photo of the group. It was a birthday celebration for a couple of the group and the restaurant supplied a cake and candles to celebrate.

A service charge was added to the bill, I'm not sure if this is standard for every one or whether it was because we were a large group and they happily split the bill over several credit cards.

A great night out and highly recommended if you fancy an Indian meal with a difference.

The Conservatory at the Lanesborough, London

The Lanesborough,
Hyde Park Corner, London SW1X 7TA
Website

While on holiday in Australia earlier this year, I came across a cookbook called Pure Vegetarian by Paul Gaylor. The recipes are amazing and I'm using one of them in my Cordon Vert Diploma finals. Upon further investigation, I discovered that Paul Gaylor is the executive chef at the Lanesborough Hotel in London, and so a visit there sometime was arranged.

The Lanesborough hotel is easy to find, towering, as it does over exit four of Hyde Park Corner tube station. We had arrived early, so after checking our reservation time, we went to the Library Bar where my wife had a G&T and I had a rather splendid port-finished Glenmorangie. We tucked into the nuts, crisps and little snacks that were served to us while we drank - including a splendid little snack of two pieces of penne stuck together with cheese with a tomato paste on the top. This was served in one of those Chinese soup spoons thingies. Sounds simple, it is, and tasted really nice.

Once we'd finished the drinks, we made our way to the Conservatory restaurant. The setting is lovely. A lovely high vaulted glass ceiling, wall fountains and greenery everywhere. Upon a small stage was set a piano, double bass and jazz drum set. We were led to the centre table, just off the dance floor (oh yeah, the Lanesborough does tea and dinner dances) while soft music played in the background.

The menus had a fine choice for all tastes. What was nice was that the menu was mixed so the dishes that were suitable for veggies were only highlighted by a small "v" not tucked away in a section at the back or on a separate menu. There were about three "v's" in both the starters and main sections.

For starters I chose something marked "Artichoke" This was, apparently a combination of soft, crispy and creamy artichokes. Sounds interesting, I thought, and I like artichokes.

Then we were presented with a choice of breads (and a choice of salted or unsalted butter) and an accompanying tomato tapanade.

Then the waiter turned up with two tiny mugs. An amuse bouche, we were told, from the chef, of Cauliflower Veloutte and Pecorino sticks. T'was lovely. To describe it as a cauliflower soup would be doing it an injustice, it was really nice.

So, then the starters arrived. Both were beautifully presented and the scallops and squid, which my wife had chosen, were excellent, I was told. "Artichoke" was a small, artichoke-sized mound in the centre of the plate topped with some salad leaves. Upon futher investigation, the mound was constructed thus. The base was the base of an artichoke, probably boiled (soft). It was the sliced into quarters and re-assembled. Into this base was placed grated, or very finely sliced, artichoke mixed with mayonnaise (creamy) On top of this was balance two pieces of a tempura of the softer artichoke "petals" (crispy). On top of this structure were the aforementioned salad leaved. Tastewise and texturewise it was excellent. And what a brilliant idea for doing something interesting with a single ingredient!

Sometime around now, three elderly gentlemen made their way onto the stage and took their places at the instruments. After a brief intro they began playing songs by Cole Porter, George Gershwin and the like. A few of the older diners got up and danced. We considered it, but weren't quite brave enough and were quite content to listen. Now, I realise that this kind of thing wouldn't be to everyone's taste, but it seemed to fit the place perfectly and it wasn't intrusive or over load at all.

So, onto the main course. The choice for me was between a portobello mushroom dish, an aubergine dish or Thai green vegetable curry, all of which sounded great. Now, I'm a sucker for mushies, and I always have them on the menu, so I decided for once, no to. I wasn't really in a curry mood so I opted for the dish labeled simply "Aubergine".

"Aubergine" was aubergine croquettes served with sherry-glazed vegetables and garlic aioli. Once again both dishes were presented beautifully. Upon dissection, the croquettes were very thin slices of aubergine coated with what appeared to be a pepper and tomato sauce and mozzarella. These were then wrapped up in deep fried in breadcrumbs. Very, very tasty, especially with the aioli.

Unfortunately my wife, who is a great lover of fresh fish, found the John Dory rubbery. Now, this may be because it's supposed to be like that, or that it was cooked wrong - I've no idea. The Head Waiter enquired as to why she hadn't eaten it and took it away. A moment or two later the waiter appeared again and said that desserts and coffees would be on the house! No protestations that it was cooked fine or anything - just a great "The customer is always right - keep them happy" attitude that means that a dodgy dish (either by choosing the wrong dish for your taste, being badly cooked or whatever) didn't spoil the rest of the meal.

And now, the desserts - which were of course, free. I was praying that there wouldn't be a brulee on the menu, as nice as I'm sure it would've been, I wanted to try something a little more interesting. Luckily, there wasn't. The menu was split into two sections - "Fruit" and "Chocolate". My wife chose a dish from "Fruit". It was a lemon parfait served with lemon mousse and various citrus fruits. When it came (again beautifully presented) she said it was really interesting as there was nothing "sweet" about it. I tried the lemon mousse and it was very light and refreshing. The lemon parfait was a bit too lemony for me.

I chose from "Chocolate" and had a peanut parfait with chocolate mousse. It was as nice as it sounds.

My only reservation about the place is some tiny print at the bottom of the menu that says "service charge included". When you get the bill, you just feel compelled to leave a tip (which we did) as the service was superb throughout, which effectively means that we did end up paying for dessert anyway. Apart from that little niggle, it was brilliant - I'd recommend it, and would love to go back. I'll just have to start saving those pennies...

A Vegetarian in South Africa

One of the guys I was travelling with was proudly boasting that he had eaten around 14 different species on his last visit to Cape Town, so I wasn't really expecting much more than salads and maybe the odd pasta dish during the two weeks I was visiting.

I'd like to say that I was wrong, but with only a couple of exceptions, I wasn't.

South Africe, well Cape Town at least, is very very meat and fish oriented. As a veggie, it was quite difficult to find anything in restaurants other than those usual resorts of vegetarians, Italian, Indian and Mexican. The only exception to this was the Wild Fig which was superb, both in quality of food and choice.

I did get a Halloumi Cheese stir fry cooked for me in Ocean Basket, a fish restaurant that the group visited, and although it was quite tasty, it wasn't that exciting. Other than that, I had the usual round of salads and vegetable lasagnes. I had a vegetable pattie in one restaurant (it was either that or another salad) and room service at the Cullinan hotel consisted of an amazingly tasteless vegetable lasagne or pasta arrabiatta.

At the Courtyard Hotel they had a delivery service called Mr Delivery which consisted of a book of around a dozen menus. You cose your dishes, rang a central number and Mr Delivery would then go around the various outlets and collect and deliver your order. There were quite a few veggie options in this list, however, they were mostly Italian or Indian.

All in all, Cape Town isn't the place to go if you're after a vegetarian culinary extravaganza.

Hildebrand - Cape Town, South Africa

Hildebrand
Pierhead, V&A Waterfront,
Cape Town, South Africa

www.hildebrand.co.za

The Hildebrand is an Italian restaurant at the V&A Waterfront complex in Cape Town, South Africa. Italian restaurants are usually a good oasis for vegetarians, and this was no exception. I visited it twice during the week I was there.

The first visit was at lunch time and I had the Tagliatelle Alfredo, which was tagliatelle with mushrooms in a creamy sauce. It was very nice, the pasta was cooked well and the sauce was very tasty. There was also plenty of it to fill me up.

The second visit was an evening affair, so I had the full starters, main and dessert. For starters I had garlic stuffed mushrooms and boy were they garlicky! Very nice though. These I followed with Ravioli Di Magro. This was your standard ricotta and spinach ravioli with a choice of Sage Cream or Napoli sauce. I chose the Sage Cream sauce. It was really nice, and set off the relative blandness of the ravioli nicely. The dessert menu had a creme brulee so, of course, I had to try it. It was pretty low on the scale, barely scraping a 6 as the custard was very grainy. Apart from that, the meal was very enjoyable.

Wild Fig - Cape Town, South Africa

Wild Fig
Liesbeek Avenue, Valkenberg Estate,
Mowbray, Cape Town, South Africa

www.thewildfig.co.za

The Wild Fig is situated next door to the Courtyard Hotel just outside Cape Town. For a vegetarian in South Africa, a restaurant with a single vegetarian option on its menu is a blessing, to find one with three options is not far off a miracle.

Because the hotel was a little way out of the town it gave me the chance to try a couple of the menu options as we visited the restaurant on a couple of occasions.

For starters I had the Deep Fried Camembert one evening and the Butternut Squash and Coconut soup on another. The Camembert was fied in a light beer batter with fig jelly and melba toast, and was very nice. The fig jelly was a nice change from the usual cranberry that you tend to get. The soup was just the right side of spicy and managed to walk the fine line of not being too bland due to the squash and being overly coconutty. It was a very nice start to the meal.

For the main course I had, on one evening, the Vegetarian Dolmades which consisted of braised cabbage leaves stuffed with sauteéd aubergine, mushroom & basmatic rice, served with basil mayonnaise. It was presented realy nicely, and tasted great. It was also quite filling, although it still left room for the wonderful roast potatoes that accompanied every meal we had here.

On another evening I had the Thai Green Vegetable Curry. This was coconut milk infused with chilli, fried onions& poached with broccoli, baby corn & carrots and was divine. It wasn't too spicy and had was serverd in a large bowl with the accompanying rice on a separate plate. The ever present roasties were ideal for mopping up the last of the coconut sauce.

The dessert menu had a Creme Brulee on it, which was around a 7.5 on the scale. However, one of the desserts that we had recommended was Roasted Chilli Honey Nut Ice Cream Sandwich with chocolate sauce. This was almost worth the trip to SA itself. Chilli nuts sandwiched between two slabs of creamy ice-cream, just as it says. Wow! The chillies had a nice kick that was then cooled by the icecream and chocolate sauce. A fine dessert.

All of the dishes were well presented and the service was good. In fact, onone night the service was superb, with the waiter keeping the bar open late so we could sample some of their list of over 40 single malt scotches.

In short, if you're in Cape Town I recommend the Wild Fig.

La Cucina Caldesi, London

La Cucina Caldesi
118 Marylebone Lane
London W1U 2QF

http://www.caffecaldesi.com

La Cucina Caldesi is an Italian cookery school attached to Caffe Caldesi restaurant. You may have seen Giancarlo and Katie Caldesi on the BBC series "Return to Tuscany" which showed them setting up their cookery school in Italy.

Their cookery school in London runs a host of courses many with well known chefs and cookery writers such as Gennaro Contaldo and Ursula Ferrigno.

I picked to do the Italian Vegetarian course run by Giancarlo and Katie. However, when I turned up I found it was being run by Stefano Borella, the pastry chef rather than Giancarlo Caldesi himself. I was a little disappointed, as I wanted to ask Giancarlo about the suitability of the Tuscan cookery school course for vegetarians.

However, Stefano was a good tutor so my disappointment didn't last long.

There were around a dozen of us on the course, so it was reasonably crowded. Luckily, there were plenty of dishes we had to cook, so there were plenty to go around.

The course started with Stefano showing us all how to make foccacia bread and we then volunteered to cook the various dishes.

On the menu was Focaccia Bread, Melanzana Parmigiana, Roasted Vegetables, Balsamic Onions, Sformato of Carrots, Saffron Risotto and Stuffed Tomatoes.

I volunteered to do the sformato of carrots which is a carrot puree mixed with bechamel sauce, whipped egg whites and then baked. I was quite chuffed as Stefano complimented my bechamel sauce. Mind you, I've been making it fairly regularly over the last couple of weeks as I practise for my CV diploma so I'd be in trouble if it wasn't at least half decent.

Stefano himself demonstrated the risotto, using a fresh stock made from the carrot peelings and other leftovers from the morning's cooking. Once he had finished we sat down and had the risotto for starters before tucking into the rest of the food .

The food was really nice, especially the melanzana parmigiana and the roasted peppers and courgettes which we had with mozarella sandwiched in the focaccia. The sformato was pretty good too.

I enjoyed the course, its a shame that there were so many on it and that we couldn't have done a bit more hands on stuff, but we came away with the recipes so I can try them at home sometime.

Curryleaf East, London

Curryleaf East
20, City road,
London EC1Y 2AJ

www.curryleafeast.co.uk

Having spent the day expecting to go to Anakana having read the great reviews on London-Eating, my two companions and myself were slightly disappointed to find it shut due to some electrical fault or other.

Not sure what to do next, we took the "any port in a storm" option and headed into the next Indian restaurant that we saw. This happened to be the Curryleaf East on City Road. The menu looked promising, so we decided to try it.

The interior is very smart, with dark wood decoration and high backed chairs that somehow gives an Indian feel to the place without it screaming at you or having any resemblance to the flock wallpaper we all know and love.

Indian food, like Italian food, is usually pretty good for vegetarians. Even if there are no main dishes on the menu, the selection of side dishes usually provide a tasty, varied meal.

And so it is with Curryleaf East. The only veggie option on the main menu is Navratan (vegetable) Biryani, but there are loads of vegetable starters and side dishes.

To start we ordered a selection from the vegetable starters list. The Aloo Tiki Pithi Wala (crispy fried mashed potatoes shuffed with lentils and topped with yoghurt) were very tasty as were the Mysore Bonda (fried ginger and coriander potato balls) but my fave were the Bharwan Khumb (stuffed mushrooms).

For the main course I had Baigan Mirch Ka Salan which consisted of beautifully cooked baby aubergines in a peanut yoghurt sauce. Along side this I had Matar Paneer, Miloni Khurchan (mixed vegetables with pomegranite) and mushroom pilau rice. The combination worked well and nothing overwhelmed the other by being too hot or too bland.

The Curryleaf East was a pleasant surprise after the disappointment of finding the Anakan shut. the service was good - attentive, but not too attentive, the setting was very pleasant and, above all, the food was good.

The Old Lodge, Limpsfield

The Old Lodge
High Street, Limpsfield, Surrey
Tel: 01883 714365

We've driven past the Old Lodge many times, and eventually decided to try them out for a meal last Saturday night. After phoning to check that they had a vegetarian option on the menu (which they did) we booked a table.

We were shown into the bar area and shown the menus. The bar area was very comfortable, and it was nice to be able to peruse the menu and wine list. The main menu had about three meat free selections on the starter menu, but none on the mains. However, there was a note at the top of the menu saying to ask for today's vegetarian selection. So I did.

I was pleasantly surprised, that there were three main menu options that I could choose from. All the options sounded nice. I chose what was described as Caramelised Onion, Pear and Fig Cheese Cake. For starters I chose Pasta with asparagus and horseradish in a creamy sauce.

The pasta was fusili and the sauce was very nice. It had a slight taragony flavour too and, despite it being a fairly large portion, the taste was good enough that the dish never got boring.

Between the courses, a complimentory apple and blackcurrent sorbet turned up, which was an unexpected, but extremely pleasant surprise.

The 'cheesecake' was next. I'd been wondering what this would be like, as the description sounded more like a dessert rather than a main course.

Very shortly, the wait was over and a small tart turned up on the table, accompanied by onions along with the mushrooms and saute potatoes I'd ordered from the side orders menu. The tart was like a cheesy quiche, with pears and figs layered through it with caramelised onions on the top. It had a sort of sweet and sour taste as the pear and onion took turns at assaulting the taste buds. It was an unusual sensation, but a very pleasant one.

The dessert trolley contained a plethora of cakes and tarts from which I chose a rather nice pear and chocolate cake.

The service was very good, save for the fact that we had to top our own wine up - but thats a minor complaint. The staff were also interested in my opinions of the vegetarian dish, and said that they always have three or four dishes on the menu suitable for vegetarians, which is good to know.

All in all, it was a good night out - as for the price, it worked out to around the same price as our meal at Terre a Terre earlier this week. What really matters is that the food was nice, the service good and the setting very pleasant indeed.

Terre a Terre, Brighton

Terre a Terre
71 East Street, Brighton, East Sussex BN1 1HQ
Tel: 01273 729051

www.terreaterre.co.uk

So, Terre a Terre - another mungbean and lentil hippy café in the veggie capital of England, Brighton you say? Well, you couldn't be more wrong. Terre a Terre will blow away any preconceptions you may have of vegetarian cuisine being lentil and nut based - this is veggie fine dining of the like I've not had since Il Margutto in Rome.

The restaurant itself is easy to find, being up one of the roads that leads directly from the seafront. From the outside it looks pretty small and unassuming, but it stretches back quite a way, and also has a small garden area.

We arrived early but seating us was no issue (there was an England game on, so it was fairly quiet) and we were presented with the menu and wine list.

Before the starters arrived, we decided on having some Wasabi Cashews to nibble. Wow! You have to try these, if you visit. They taste much as they sound - and they sound great.

The menu is very wordy, and this makes it a little confusing as, unless you've eaten here before give you little idea of what you're going to get. To give you an idea, I have stated below what the menu stated, followed by my report of the dish. I tried a mouthful of everything my wife had and I've included her comments on the food too.

For starters we had Truly Truffly Risotto - served with set cep consomme and fresh chestnut parmesan milk foam, with virgin oil and organic aged balsamic green tops, toasted barley and scrunched fried sage and Miso Pretty - Sweet ginger sushi reverse roll in Szechwan chilli flakes, served with roast yellow pepper and white miso dressing, soused Enoki mushrooms, lime and tamari ketchup, cashew and coriander salad gaspacho, served with hot and sour soup and dry miso powder.

The risotto on its own was lovely, nice lemony tang and a spinkle of truffle shavings but when combined with the cep consomme and foam (served in a small 'shot glass') it was great. The balsamic green tops were nice, but my fave was the risotto.
I tried a little bit of the Miso Pretty and it was very tasty. My wife said it was really delicious.

Next up was the main course. I had Ravioli Butter Cookie Crumble and White Asparagus Milk Shake - Fava and pea farci ravioli crammed with tarragon, flat leaf parsley and lemon thyme, topped with butter cookie crumble, served with parmesan ice, fresh ricotta wild garlic pressé and just-cut pea shoot tangle, with wet garlic and salt lemon confit pastry shards. My wife chose Wotzyuzu Ithai Gnocchi - Potato gnocchi poached in Asian citrus liquor and wokked with bok choy, choi sum and star shitaki, doused with mushroom ketchup, served with smudges of soy pea miso sake blitz and roast cashew satay, tempura Sechuan spice cress and ginger hair, accompanied by a green tea and thai basil shooter with wotzyuzu dressed micro leaves.

The presentation was amazing. The ravioli (looking like a pie made of pasta) was perched on top of half a dozen asparagus spears. On top of the ravioli was the butter cookie crumble - rather like a very thin biscuit. The rest of the plate consisted of some pea puree in which was placed the parmesan ice (more of that later) a small jug of what I can only describe as pea soup (which was to pour over the ravioli), a small green pyramid of the ricotta and garlic presse and the garlic confit pastry shards. So, what about the taste? On first taste, I immediately thought of mushy peas, but there were a lot of more subtle flavours , the more I ate. The parmesan ice was like an inch high ice cream cone with a small round frozen sorbet on the top - very surpising, but refreshing. The garlic confit and the ricotta presse were both very nice, but seemed to be more for decoration, as they didn't add that much to the dish as a whole.

As for my wife's dish, she overlooked the tempura part of this, which unfortunately doesn't agree with her, but she said it was nice, but not as nice as the starter. Presentation was 'stack-style' - again, very impressive.

We also ordered a portion of Smokey Scrunch Chips loaded with bang bang salt served with chilli spiked avocado mayonnaise to share which were nice, but we didn't finish them, as the mains were quite filling.

The pudding menu looked amazing. Luckily Terre a Terre do a dish that contains a selection of the sweets on the menu which they call Tapas Sweety? - pudding miniatures - for two. This consisted of small portions of the following sweets: Peachy Cheeks - Roasted Amaretto peaches with set 'Calabrian' cream, orange and thyme shortbread, blood orange and Campari granita and an Amaretto syrup. I'm gonna have a full portion of his next time I go. The 'Calabrian' cream is basically a crème brulee tipped out of its pot. Apart from being a bit runnier than I like - it was perfect. A definite 9! The peaches were gorgeous too. Coconut Cupcake Crumble - crammed with banana curd and topped with sweet toasted coconut crumb, served with maple citrus syrup, palm cream, banana ice and sugar snap. Yum! The banana ice was superb! Jasmine Nashi - Warm Nashi pear poached with plum and mirin liqueur, sitting in Asian apricot citrus puree, served with scented sushi and poached apricot, liquorice nori roll and deep-fried pureed anise rice pattie served with sweet jasmine tea. The pear was beautiful, the 'sushi' was apricot wrapped in rice pudding then wrapped in licorice - amazing. Chocolate Brownie in Chocolate sauce. Poor chocolate brownie - it was never gonna compete with the others, nice though it was.

The service was great - the waiters were very knowledgable about the ingredients of each dish.
The overall impression was of excellent food imaginatively (if sometimes a little over-ostentatiously) presented and excellent service.

Will I go back? You bet.

Taste of London

Regents Park
London
www.tasteoflondon.co.uk

Taste of London was an event held in Regents Park where forty of the capitol's top restaurants set up their stalls allowing you ti sample some of their top dishes. In addition to the restaurants there were plenty of other stalls, demo's by celebrity chefs, cookery lessons and much more.

To sample the food you had to have the event currency, crowns, which you could either buy at the event or order in advance with your tickets.

I worked out that to eat all of the menu items that were suitable for me, as a vegetarian, would cost me around 235 crowns. I had thirty-six, so I had to choose carefully. Most of the choices however, were desserts, there weren't an awful of meat-free main courses so that made it slightly easier.

To start with, I headed towards the Fifteen tent to sample the "creamy risotto of smashed peas, broad beans, mint and ricotta salata." It was a popular dish, which meant about a ten minute wait while they cooked up a couple of batches. It was very nice though - and creamy, as the description said. From there I made my way to Imli, an Indian resturant that offers a modern take on the standard Indian restaurant fayre. They were offering a couple of dishes that were marked suitable for vegetarians (the only ones that I saw marked thus in the whole show - well done Imli.) I selected the "medley of puffed rice, cucmbers and roasted peanuts tossed with assorted tangy chutneys." It was very spicy, and quite tasty. I couldn't have eaten a lot of it, but the portion served was just about right.

So, what next? I fancied something sweet and the "vanilla mille feuille with roasted peaches" from Angela Hartnett at The Connaught fitted the bill perfectly and tasted great.

Passing the Cinnamon Club I noticed that they had a "mango and cardamon brulee" which I just had to try, given my love of brulees. This was certainly different, but very nice reaching a good 8 on the scale.

Finally, I spent the last of my crowns on the "avocado and goats cheese soup" from the Notting Grill tent. As I was slurping it down, Anthony Worrall Thompson walked past. I said hello as he passed and he returned the greeting. The soup wasn't bad - it was a cold soup and I feel it would actually be nicer if it was hot, but it was tasty none the less.

So, that used up all my crowns. During the visit, we also sampled loads of cheeses, dips and sauces, ate an ice cream or two and tried the odd sample of wine. We came away with a few jars of pasta sauce (some of which were given away free) and plenty of leaflets for online shops, cookery courses etc - some of which I may try in the future, so watch this space.

All in all, it was an enjoyable night, the weather was perfect and even British Rail deemed to be on time for that particular night, so getting to and from the event was nice and easy too. Hopefully Taste of London will be repeated next year, so look out for it.

Cordon Vert Cookery School

Cordon Vert Cookery School
Vegetarian Society
Altrincham
www.vegsoc.org

Last weekend I attended the Far Eastern cookery course at the Vegetarian Society's Cordon Vert cookery school near Manchester. This course marks the halfway point of the diploma course that I'm doing.

It's a two and a bit day course. The first evening the tutor, Chico - who runs a couple of cookery schools of his own and is also chef to the ex-royal family of Germany - gave us a brief introduction followed by a meal that highlighted the kind of dishes that we would be cooking over the next couple of days. During the meal I got to know the other nine students that were taking the course.

The next morning, we all gathered in the kitchen for a demo of what we would be cooking and Chico regailed us with various hints and tips gleaned from his travels. The course is based around the 'real' food of the far east (Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailad etc) rather than around fancy restaurant quality dishes.

After the intro talk we began cooking for our lunch, which included a spicy soup with peppers, lime leaves and coconut, stir fry salad and a dessert made with sweet potato. We also made sushi and a dipping sauce from vinegar, sugar and chilli.

After lunch it was back into the kitchen for more demos. My job this afternoon was to make chinese leaves stuffed with tempeh, ginger, garlic, shoyu, beansprouts and beanshoots. The other groups made various spicy dishes including curries and stirfries and the table was bowing under the weight of the food when we sat down for dinner. After eating everyone sat around chatting until almost midnight.

Sunday morning started with a chat about different oils and vinegars and then continued with a demonstration of different presentation techniques. After a quick demo of some of the dishes we were to cook everyone was split into teams again to cook lunch. I cooked some vegetable fritters and did the melon balls for dessert. Lunch consisted of the fritters, tofu sesame toasts, black bean and yellow rice, kebabs and wonton soup.

The course was great fun, the people that were on the course were nice, and easy to get along with and I can't wait for my next one in a few weeks time.

Melbourne, Australia

As a vegetarian, you are never going to go hungry in Melbourne. As I strolled along I checked the menus of many of the restaurants in the city to see if they had a choice that would be suitable for vegetarians. With the exception of one pie shop, everywhere had at least one meat free option on the menu.

Breakfast is never a problem as most places do a pick and mix and most are happy if you want to substitute one item with another, but some do specific veggie breakfasts. For lunch or dinner you are literally spoiled for choice from the many cafes and restaurants that inhabit the city or the specialised areas, such as Lygon Street that offers a whole host of Italian restaurants.

One place we ate at was a restaurant called O'Connells in South Melbourne (www.oconnells.com.au) at which I had a fabulous linguini with fennel and goats cheese. There wasn't a huge choice for veggies on their menu, but it does go to show that even places that are away from the centre of the city can still produce some really tasty dishes.

Further afield, on the Mornington Peninsula, the Portsea Hotel (www.portseahotel.com.au) served a rather tasty Asparagus and Rocket Risotto with truffle oil and they had two or three other meat free dishes on there menu.

The markets are fantastic. I don't think I've seen so many fresh vegetable, fruits and spices in one place before. Queen Victoria Market's (www.qvm.com.au) food hall is magnificent. There are stalls selling a myriad of different versions of cheese, anti pasti and more different versions of tofu that you can shake a stick at! They also do specialised food nights which are well worth a visit. South Melbourne Market (www.portphillip.vic.gov.au/southmelbournemarket.html) is smaller, but still has a huge selection of fresh produce. Organic and gluten free produce seems to be quite big over there at the moment so these add to the already large choice.

I also popped into one of the many Asian supermarkets that are in the city and was pleasantly surprised to find that they stocked most of the mock-meat products that you can get here plus many other kinds of tufu and sauces suitable for vegetarians.

The only things that I could not find in my travels were vegetable suet (which no-one seemed to have heard of), vegetable haggis and Quorn. I contacted Quorn and they told me that they have no plans at present to market their product in Australia which is a real shame, but with all of the other ingredients and produce that are available, I daresay one could live without it.

Soul Mama, Melbourne, Australia

Soul Mama Global Vegetarian Cafe
St Kilda Baths
Melbourne

www.soulmama.com.au

Soul Mama is set on the beachfront in St Kilda. The restaurant has large tables and offers great views over the bay. On the way in there is an area with a lovely log fire that has cushions strewn around it that would make for a very interesting eating experience I imagine. However, we went for the standard option and sat around a table.

The concept of ordering the food at Soul Mama is very simple. You pay for the size of bowl you would like and then fill it with rice and either four or five other dishes from their buffet depending on the size of the bowl you order.

I decided to start with a courgette, leek and tomato soup which was very nice - not too tomatoey, which (for me) is good. It was actually quite filling and I was wondering how much of the buffet I would actually be able to eat. No matter - I would give it a good try anyway.

The buffet was fairly extensive with a range of hot dishes and cold salads. However, a lot of it was fairly standard veggie fare and tended towards the curry side of world cuisine. Aside from the curries, there were a couple of other veggie staples - pasta and tomato sauce and moussaka.

Now, don't get me wrong, just because I think the menu was fairly standard doesn't mean that it wasn't good. For my part I had saffron rice, vegetable satay, spicy lentils, noodle salad, potato and rice balls and pepper and tomato chutney. With the exception of the lentils, which I found were a bit floury and dry the rest was pretty good. The potato balls were very nice as was the satay - which was quite spicy. The noodle salad didn't have a huge amount of taste, but provided a good antidote to the spicyness of the satay, so I was glad it was there. The portions were ample and you had the choice of having it all served in a single bowl or in a prison/school dinner--style compartmentalised tray.

I didn't have room for a pudding, but they all looked rather tempting.

The staff were very good and had no problem with us waiting for a good half hour or so for another of our number to turn up, despite the fact that we were taking up one of their large tables. The prices are reasonable too. There are plenty of restaurants serving veggie food in St Kilda and Soul Mama is the only purely vegetarian restaurant I tried during my time there so I can't recommend it over anything else, but its definitely worth a go.

Blue Train Cafe - Melbourne, Australia

Blue Train Cafe,
Southgate Landing,
Southbank, Melbourne.

www.bluetrain.com.au

We popped in here for a quick bite to eat at lunchtime. Its worth a mention as there are always a few veggie options on the menu and it's very reasonable on the purse.

I had potato and vegetable samosas with rice, cucumber raita and mango chutney, and my wife had vegetable spring rolls with chilli dipping sauce. Both were very nice and fresh tasting.

Mention must also be made of the service at the Blue Train. Upon complaining about a foul-tasting wine that we were given, they happily opened another bottle (which tasted the same incidentally) and then exchanged it for another wine without any fuss. We were just charged for the one wine. Also, enquiries about the ingredients of the dishes were happily answered. They also put a bottle of water on your table, which isn't charged for. Okay, it may only be tap water, but its a nice gesture and one that doesn't happen at many places.

Bokchoy Tang - Melbourne, Australia

Bokchoy Tang
Federation Square
Melbourne, Australia

www.bokchoytang.com.au

Bokchoy Tang is a Chinese restaurant on the top floor of Federation Square in Melbourne. It seats just over 200 and, depending on where you sit, looks out over the central plaza of Federation Square.

It describes its food as "contemporary Chinese cuisine."

Chinese restaurants don't usually offer that much choice for vegetarians, so it was a pleasant surprise to see a good half dozen veggie (or veggo as the say over here) dishes on the menu.

I started with Jiao Zi which were dumplings served with a salad of julienne potato & red vinegar dipping sauce on-the-side. The menu offers both a meat and a vegetarian version of the dumplings and the veggie version had what appeared to be cabbage or seaweed and shredded egg in them. It was very nice. The julienne potato was very interesting. It looked like some kind of noodle, but appeared to have been made from a single piece of potato. Again, it was very tasty.

For main course I had North Chinese Country-Style Tofu Box which constisted of three 'boxes' made from tofu filled with mushrooms, fresh soy beans, carrots & bamboo shoots. This was served with soy sauce, bokchoy and steamed rice. The little tofu boxes were quite strange, to say the least and it was shortly after trying to eat one and squirting soy-sauce down my front, that I gave up trying to eat them with chopsticks and requested a spoon. Whatever the method of eating them, however, they tasted great.

My wife chose the Spicy Szechwan Chicken and has asked me to warn anyone that reads this that they really mean it when they say spicy as she had about 30 chillies in her portion!

We were too full for dessert, as the entree and main meal portions were quite sizable and the bill (including a glass of wine each) came to around A$90 for the two of us which works out at less than £20 each, which isn't at all bad for food this good.

Morrisons Winery, Moama, Australia

Morrisons Riverview Winery & Restaurant
2 Merool Lane
Moama, NSW, Australia

www.riverviewestate.com.au

Morrison's is a winery on the New South Wales bank of the River Murray. Its setting is gorgeous and the restaurant itself looks over the river. It is only open at lunchtimes for meals and winetastings.

We started with a winetasting, working our way through around eight or so wines from a selection of whites, reds, dessert and after dinner wines.

From there we were shown to our table. The restaurant had been informed in advance that I was a vegetarian and had said that it would be no problem, they would adapt their menu accordingly. The menu itself had one main dish that was meat-free, which was stuffed vine leaves. However, once I had sat down, the waiter came over and enquired as to what restrictions I had to my diet, and said that it would be no problem to tailor any of the dishes, or to mix and match dishes to my requirements. If I wanted a risotto, he told me he would enquire as to whether a meat or vegetable stock was used and whether it could be changed if possible. What more could you ask for?

We started by ordering a couple of plates of bread and dips for the whole table. One dish was sourdough bread accompanied by olive oil and a mix of hazelnut and sesame seeds, the other was bread accompanied by three dips, one of spicy lentil, one of roasted beetroot and the other of hummus. All were lovely, the spicy lentil dip especially so. It was not unlike a dhal, but it was blended to and extremely smooth texture.

For main course, I chose the spaghetti dish that was on the menu. It came with prawns, baby spinach, chilli, and zuccini. I asked if I could have it without the prawns and could they put a few mushrooms in it if possible. No problem at all, I was told and indeed it wasn't. When the dish arrived, it was a mushroom feast. It had shitake mushrooms, field mushroom and oyster mushrooms as well as all of the other ingredients and was superb. The chilli was 'just about there' which meant it left a slight burning after-taste but didn't overwhelm the rest of the dish.

For dessert, I had a warm toffee pudding with caramel sauce, cream and ice cream. It tasted as good as it sounds and then we ordered a cheese board to share across the table. This consisted of three Aussie cheeses from King Island, a cheddar, a blue and a brie and all were as tasty as their European counterparts.

All in all, it was a great meal and the service was spot on. If you're down this part of the world I recommend you put aside a lunchtime to visit Morrison's Winery.

Echuca - Moama

I've now been in the Echuca-Moama region of Australia for around a week now and I'm pleased to report that it is very veggie-friendly. I've been checking menus as I've been making my way around and just about all have some kind of veggie option available. Even in the small villages, like Maldon, the cafes will have vegetable pies, or samosas available.

Ordering off-menu hasn't been a problem and everywhere that I've been have been more than happy to switch ingredients around to accomodate my diet. I'll be posting a review shortly of a meal I had at Morrisons Winery which was, quite frankly amazing. The waiter took time to go through the menu explaining which dishes could be altered and which ingredients could be substituted etc.

The shops have plenty of veggie stuff, mostly soya and vegetable based, but nothing quite on the scale that we have with Quorn and Linda McCartney back in the UK. The best thing though, is the abundance of fresh ingredients and having had the facilities to be able to cook for the last week, its been great.

Tomorrow, we're off to Melbourne for the remainder of our holiday, and I'm hoping to visit some good restaurants there, so expect some more reviews to be posted over the next few days.