Berrissimo Frozen Yoghurt

My colleague Steph told me about this magical Frozen Yoghurt place Berrissimo on Brunswick St that do vegan options.

They have two vegan flavours (and yes, they are gluten-free!) each week.  This week's flavours are watermelon and yellow peach.  I was going for the small yellow peach with no topping ($4) but K said the whole point of having fro-yo is the fun of adding toppings.

So, I decided to go hard and picked yellow peach pieces and two types of buba ($5.5 with three toppings).
It is even better than the  TCBY fro-yo I had back home in my pre-vegan days.  And yep, picking toppings for your fro-yo is fun! :-) K loved it too, she said it had a great sweet-sour flavour.

Berrissimo
Address: Shop 2, 360 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy
Ph: 03 9041 2177
Hours: Sunday - Thursday 12pm to 9:30pm, Friday – Saturday 12pm to 10:30pm

My colleague Steph told me about this magical Frozen Yoghurt place Berrissimo on Brunswick St that do vegan options.

They have two vegan flavours (and yes, they are gluten-free!) each week.  This week's flavours are watermelon and yellow peach.  I was going for the small yellow peach with no topping ($4) but K said the whole point of having fro-yo is the fun of adding toppings.

So, I decided to go hard and picked yellow peach pieces and two types of buba ($5.5 with three toppings).
It is even better than the  TCBY fro-yo I had back home in my pre-vegan days.  And yep, picking toppings for your fro-yo is fun! :-) K loved it too, she said it had a great sweet-sour flavour.

Berrissimo
Address: Shop 2, 360 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy
Ph: 03 9041 2177
Hours: Sunday - Thursday 12pm to 9:30pm, Friday – Saturday 12pm to 10:30pm

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Yong's Green Food- New Menu

We went to Yong's on Sunday night with Bec and Troy and discovered that they have a new menu with plenty of gluten free options.

Phone picture warning

Toby and I decided to share the buckwheat crepes, the crepes were delicious and didn't have a strong buckwheat flavor, the filling felt quite healthy with wasabi mayo which not spicy at all and plenty of fresh vegies.



I also got the kimchi fried rice, this was delicious, the kimchi wasn't too spicy and just added a slight kick to the dish and I love the addition of the creamy cashew sauce. I wouldn't have thought of combining the two things but it worked!



I also couldn't resist getting a shake, have become obsessed with almond and cashew milk lately but don't currently have a blender. I chose the cacao shake with had a nice choc banana taste but did leave me filling super full. I sadly didn't take a pic of the shake but did get a picture of Troy's kombucha, he let me have a sip, it was my first time trying it and better than I thought, with a slight sour flavour.



Yong's Green Food
421 Brunswick Street
Fitzroy

The service was great and I do enoy going there, its got such cute surroundings. Although I wonder if they tense up when they see me coming due to our first review which was negative. I certainly don't have any ill feelings for them as the issue was well and truly resolved and I respect how seriously they took me and how quickly it was fixed up. In fact I probably feel safer going there now when it comes to gluten free food then other places as i'm sure they learnt from their mistake and I haven't had any other issues in the numerous times that I have gone back.

It has recently been blogged about by my mini manifesto, mariecitadelle and sneakylily.

We went to Yong's on Sunday night with Bec and Troy and discovered that they have a new menu with plenty of gluten free options.

Phone picture warning

Toby and I decided to share the buckwheat crepes, the crepes were delicious and didn't have a strong buckwheat flavor, the filling felt quite healthy with wasabi mayo which not spicy at all and plenty of fresh vegies.



I also got the kimchi fried rice, this was delicious, the kimchi wasn't too spicy and just added a slight kick to the dish and I love the addition of the creamy cashew sauce. I wouldn't have thought of combining the two things but it worked!



I also couldn't resist getting a shake, have become obsessed with almond and cashew milk lately but don't currently have a blender. I chose the cacao shake with had a nice choc banana taste but did leave me filling super full. I sadly didn't take a pic of the shake but did get a picture of Troy's kombucha, he let me have a sip, it was my first time trying it and better than I thought, with a slight sour flavour.



Yong's Green Food
421 Brunswick Street
Fitzroy

The service was great and I do enoy going there, its got such cute surroundings. Although I wonder if they tense up when they see me coming due to our first review which was negative. I certainly don't have any ill feelings for them as the issue was well and truly resolved and I respect how seriously they took me and how quickly it was fixed up. In fact I probably feel safer going there now when it comes to gluten free food then other places as i'm sure they learnt from their mistake and I haven't had any other issues in the numerous times that I have gone back.

It has recently been blogged about by my mini manifesto, mariecitadelle and sneakylily.

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Vegie Bar

I've been pretty critical of Vegie Bar in the past. I have a theory about why: I have noticed that new vegan or vegetarians or new Melbournians tend to love vegie bar whereas vegetarians and vegans who have been living here for while tend to be more critical of Vegie Bar. I think the reason is that menu hasn't changed much over the years and people who have been going for years have too many bad experiences. I have had several experiences of accidentally eating dairy there over the years and some bad customer service experiences too. I have gone a few times over the last few months though and had much better experiences.

When our friend Yuanna was down from Hong Kong we took her there the first night and again on the last night. Yuanna is an omni but loved her food there on both occasions. The first time we had some raw crackers with a raw cashew based dips. It was so pleasing to have crackers and dip that I could eat. The dip was creamy and the crackers were comparable to the ones at yongs greens food. Btw, all photos were taken by Yuanna.

I then had the mostly greens with tempeh and satay sauce. Healthy but satisfying.

 

 and we had a piece of the vegan chocolate cake. I didn't realise that it was guten free. This was great served there, as it was warmed and kind of gooey, whereas if you have it take away it tends to be a bit hard:

 

The second time I had the vermicelli noodles, this is my fav dish. Slightly fried and lots of flavour. I guess it is a lot like what we make at home but without the effort and dishes.

The second time they had a special dessert, a avocado based chocolate mousse with poached pear and pistachios. I really liked this, you couldn't tell that it was made from avocado and Yuanna said that it reminded her of Indonesian desserts and so she tried to order two but they had sold out by that stage.

 

Vegie Bar 

380 Brunswick St

Fitzroy

 9417 6935

Recently reviewed by carla, steph and healthy party girl.

I've been pretty critical of Vegie Bar in the past. I have a theory about why: I have noticed that new vegan or vegetarians or new Melbournians tend to love vegie bar whereas vegetarians and vegans who have been living here for while tend to be more critical of Vegie Bar. I think the reason is that menu hasn't changed much over the years and people who have been going for years have too many bad experiences. I have had several experiences of accidentally eating dairy there over the years and some bad customer service experiences too. I have gone a few times over the last few months though and had much better experiences.

When our friend Yuanna was down from Hong Kong we took her there the first night and again on the last night. Yuanna is an omni but loved her food there on both occasions. The first time we had some raw crackers with a raw cashew based dips. It was so pleasing to have crackers and dip that I could eat. The dip was creamy and the crackers were comparable to the ones at yongs greens food. Btw, all photos were taken by Yuanna.

I then had the mostly greens with tempeh and satay sauce. Healthy but satisfying.

 

 and we had a piece of the vegan chocolate cake. I didn't realise that it was guten free. This was great served there, as it was warmed and kind of gooey, whereas if you have it take away it tends to be a bit hard:

 

The second time I had the vermicelli noodles, this is my fav dish. Slightly fried and lots of flavour. I guess it is a lot like what we make at home but without the effort and dishes.

The second time they had a special dessert, a avocado based chocolate mousse with poached pear and pistachios. I really liked this, you couldn't tell that it was made from avocado and Yuanna said that it reminded her of Indonesian desserts and so she tried to order two but they had sold out by that stage.

 

Vegie Bar 

380 Brunswick St

Fitzroy

 9417 6935

Recently reviewed by carla, steph and healthy party girl.

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Coffee: My Drug of Choice II

It's been more than one year since I blogged about coffee. Melbournians now have many more specialty cafes to choose from. 

St Ali has opened Sensory Lab in the heart of the city and Outpost on the wrong side of the river, both are open SEVEN days a week.   Seven Seeds also opened De Clieu on Gertrude St.  According to the review on The Age, they even have a gluten-free vegan option. 

Melbourne's best coffee chain Cafenatics also opened a specialty coffee joint called Eclipse in the city.  It is ONLY TWO MINUTES walk from my work.  I can now sleep in for  20 minutes because I don't need to detour to Brother Baba Budan on the way to work anymore.  They normally have three different types of beans in their grinders: different single origin coffee, guest blend and the house blend. They make great coffee most of the time and knock my socks off every now and then.  I had a Bonsoy long mac made with Market Lane Seasonal Blend there and it was the best espresso coffee I've ever had.  They also serve pour-over and cold drip coffee .  I tried one when they were testing the recipe and it was pretty awesome. 

(I normally use my Keepcup, don't hate me, Captain Planet.)

Eclipse

60/470 Flinders Ln, Melbourne

Awesome people at Eclipse told me they also have a little sister called Little Wish (See The Real Melbourne's review here).  What they offer are pretty much the same as the sister cafe but they have an awesome looking SLAYER espresso machine!

I had a very delicious Santa Babara and Kenya Gethumbwini (both single origin beans are from Market Lane) on pour-over there.

Little Wish 
530 Little Collins St, Melbourne
(It is very hard to find as they don't have any signs at all. Entry via Exchange Tower main entrance, walk pass all the fast food joints and news agency, look right.)

For the "Latte-Sipping Carbon-Neutral Bleeding Hearts", the one-year-old lacto vegetarian cafe Monk Bodhi Dharma in Balaclava is the best choice. They serve top-notch coffee and amaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazing vegan-friendly gluten-free food. (We blogged about it twice before our blog turned gluten-free and once afterward)  

I highly recommend their delicate hand crafted pour-over coffee. The beautiful aromas and flavours are very complex and change when it cooled down. The best pour-over I've ever had.

nice soy long mac

fantastic single origin pour over 

Monk Bodhi Dharma

202 Carlisle Street,Balaclava
Ph 9534 7250
 

Back to the northside, you can't really go past Proud Mary for some mind blowing specialty coffee action.  I have tried their flawless Soy Latte, syphon and cold drip. The cafe is pretty big but it is pretty hard to get a table as they are full of Hipsters and 4WDers from other side of the river.  

If you like a good syphon and cold drip, try them at Proud Mary.

Soy Latte

Syphon

Proud Mary

172 Oxford Street, Collingwood
Ph: 9417 593

Padre Coffee's East Brunswick Project is just a short bike ride from our house.  They are also one of the early proud owners of the Slayer espresso machine.  

 

yummy and pretty soy latte and soy hot choc

 nice soy long mac

The Brunswick East Project

438 Lygon St,Brunswick East
Ph: 03 9939 8422  

I really need to wrap it up here or I will never finish this post.  I might do another blog post about the Fantastic Market Lane after I try out the coffee from Cup Of Turth, Dancing Goat and Dead Man Espresso and other Melbourne specialty cafes.

On My Walkman  

Tron: Legacy OST - Daft Punk

It's been more than one year since I blogged about coffee. Melbournians now have many more specialty cafes to choose from. 

St Ali has opened Sensory Lab in the heart of the city and Outpost on the wrong side of the river, both are open SEVEN days a week.   Seven Seeds also opened De Clieu on Gertrude St.  According to the review on The Age, they even have a gluten-free vegan option. 

Melbourne's best coffee chain Cafenatics also opened a specialty coffee joint called Eclipse in the city.  It is ONLY TWO MINUTES walk from my work.  I can now sleep in for  20 minutes because I don't need to detour to Brother Baba Budan on the way to work anymore.  They normally have three different types of beans in their grinders: different single origin coffee, guest blend and the house blend. They make great coffee most of the time and knock my socks off every now and then.  I had a Bonsoy long mac made with Market Lane Seasonal Blend there and it was the best espresso coffee I've ever had.  They also serve pour-over and cold drip coffee .  I tried one when they were testing the recipe and it was pretty awesome. 

(I normally use my Keepcup, don't hate me, Captain Planet.)

Eclipse

60/470 Flinders Ln, Melbourne

Awesome people at Eclipse told me they also have a little sister called Little Wish (See The Real Melbourne's review here).  What they offer are pretty much the same as the sister cafe but they have an awesome looking SLAYER espresso machine!

I had a very delicious Santa Babara and Kenya Gethumbwini (both single origin beans are from Market Lane) on pour-over there.

Little Wish 
530 Little Collins St, Melbourne
(It is very hard to find as they don't have any signs at all. Entry via Exchange Tower main entrance, walk pass all the fast food joints and news agency, look right.)

For the "Latte-Sipping Carbon-Neutral Bleeding Hearts", the one-year-old lacto vegetarian cafe Monk Bodhi Dharma in Balaclava is the best choice. They serve top-notch coffee and amaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazing vegan-friendly gluten-free food. (We blogged about it twice before our blog turned gluten-free and once afterward)  

I highly recommend their delicate hand crafted pour-over coffee. The beautiful aromas and flavours are very complex and change when it cooled down. The best pour-over I've ever had.

nice soy long mac

fantastic single origin pour over 

Monk Bodhi Dharma

202 Carlisle Street,Balaclava
Ph 9534 7250
 

Back to the northside, you can't really go past Proud Mary for some mind blowing specialty coffee action.  I have tried their flawless Soy Latte, syphon and cold drip. The cafe is pretty big but it is pretty hard to get a table as they are full of Hipsters and 4WDers from other side of the river.  

If you like a good syphon and cold drip, try them at Proud Mary.

Soy Latte

Syphon

Proud Mary

172 Oxford Street, Collingwood
Ph: 9417 593

Padre Coffee's East Brunswick Project is just a short bike ride from our house.  They are also one of the early proud owners of the Slayer espresso machine.  

 

yummy and pretty soy latte and soy hot choc

 nice soy long mac

The Brunswick East Project

438 Lygon St,Brunswick East
Ph: 03 9939 8422  

I really need to wrap it up here or I will never finish this post.  I might do another blog post about the Fantastic Market Lane after I try out the coffee from Cup Of Turth, Dancing Goat and Dead Man Espresso and other Melbourne specialty cafes.

On My Walkman  

Tron: Legacy OST - Daft Punk

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Penang Affair

Once again ignore our horrible pics, Toby has a new google phone and refuses to use the flash which we have since realised results in some pretty bad pics.

For date night a few weeks ago, I decided to take Toby to Penang Affair after discovering that it could be vegan friendly at Steph's blog and gluten free at gluten shmooten. Asian food (except for Indian) has been tricky since going gluten free and I know Toby has been missing it. Penang Affair however is an exception with '90% coeliac friendly' advertisement. We ordered for starters the vegetarian sang choy bau which had a range of vegies and mushrooms thinly diced and covered in a thick strong vegetarian 'oyster' type sauce. It was delicious and I'm so impressed that it was g/f: We also shared the satay tofu dish. This satay sauce was perfect over deep fried tofu, bean shoots and with the smart addition of cucumber. This was our favourite dish, simple but so yummy.
For mains we shared the spicy lemongrass vegetables but asked for it to be mild. This was mild enough for me, although toby still thought it was a bit too spicy for him. It contained a range of green veggies, loads of garlic, lemongrass, chili and tofu.
and we shared the Char Kuey Teow (CKT). I was really looking forward to this after seeing the delicious looking pic at Steph's blog and thought that maybe they would use tamari or g/f soy sauce but instead this was super bland with basically plain noodles, fried tofu and herbs on top. We ended up asking for more satay sauce to mix with it.
Overall, we were pretty impressed with Penang Affair. The meals were very well priced ($10.90 for the CKT, $15.90 for the lemongrass vegies and $5 to $7 for most veg entrees), the service was great and it really was special to find an omni asian restaurant that could do both g/f and vegan dishes. It also has a large selection of beers and Kelly Brothers cider. I look forward to going back one day soon to try the vegetarian laksa and penang eggplant.

You can also read reviews at Where's the beef? and Gluten Savvy.

Penang Affair
325 Brunswick St
Fitzroy
9419 7594
Lunch 12-3pm
Dinner 6pm to late (closed mondays)
www

Once again ignore our horrible pics, Toby has a new google phone and refuses to use the flash which we have since realised results in some pretty bad pics.

For date night a few weeks ago, I decided to take Toby to Penang Affair after discovering that it could be vegan friendly at Steph's blog and gluten free at gluten shmooten. Asian food (except for Indian) has been tricky since going gluten free and I know Toby has been missing it. Penang Affair however is an exception with '90% coeliac friendly' advertisement. We ordered for starters the vegetarian sang choy bau which had a range of vegies and mushrooms thinly diced and covered in a thick strong vegetarian 'oyster' type sauce. It was delicious and I'm so impressed that it was g/f: We also shared the satay tofu dish. This satay sauce was perfect over deep fried tofu, bean shoots and with the smart addition of cucumber. This was our favourite dish, simple but so yummy.
For mains we shared the spicy lemongrass vegetables but asked for it to be mild. This was mild enough for me, although toby still thought it was a bit too spicy for him. It contained a range of green veggies, loads of garlic, lemongrass, chili and tofu.
and we shared the Char Kuey Teow (CKT). I was really looking forward to this after seeing the delicious looking pic at Steph's blog and thought that maybe they would use tamari or g/f soy sauce but instead this was super bland with basically plain noodles, fried tofu and herbs on top. We ended up asking for more satay sauce to mix with it.
Overall, we were pretty impressed with Penang Affair. The meals were very well priced ($10.90 for the CKT, $15.90 for the lemongrass vegies and $5 to $7 for most veg entrees), the service was great and it really was special to find an omni asian restaurant that could do both g/f and vegan dishes. It also has a large selection of beers and Kelly Brothers cider. I look forward to going back one day soon to try the vegetarian laksa and penang eggplant.

You can also read reviews at Where's the beef? and Gluten Savvy.

Penang Affair
325 Brunswick St
Fitzroy
9419 7594
Lunch 12-3pm
Dinner 6pm to late (closed mondays)
www

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Yong Green Food II

We finally went back to Yong Green Food after Kristy was "glutened". I was very excited because it has been two months and there were lots of thing I wanted to try.

After we ordered, a friendly girl (I guess she is Sunju but not sure how she figured out who we are) approached Kristy and said:
"I guess I owe you a meal."

We told her we appreciated the offer but she doesn't need to do that . At the end she still took the price of the Thai Green Curry off our bill.

Kristy ordered the Raw Nachos (Sorry for the out of focus camera phone photo, I blame Nokia):

Instead of the boring corn chips, we have some yummy raw crisp flax crackers. It came with three different dips: cashew cream (pretty smooth), guacamole and sunflower seed tomato dip. She loved the dish especially the rich tomato dip which had a nice chilli kick to it and was impressed with the creaminess of the cashew 'cream'. Whilst it was obviously not the same as cooked nachos it was an excellent dish. Kristy said she was very full after this one dish. I guess there are lots of nuts in this dish. Lots of nuts = lots of protein = road to awesome human performance.

I looooooooved my grilled mock tuna on rice (Sorry for the photo again):

The "tuna" (not G/F) is the one you can get from mock meat shops and some Asian supermarkets. It was crispy on the outside and had a very rich fishy flavour. It came with a wasabi soy sauce, a purple cabbage coleslaw and some steamed vegetable.

I also had a vanilla soy ice-cream with red bean. The ice-cream was just the normal So Good one but the Japanese/Korean style red bean was awesome.

I reckon it is a smart choice to offer both raw and cooked food, as raw diet is not everyone's cup of tea especially on cold days. I would go back for more as there are lots of choice (and gluten-free food for Kristy) and the dishes are not too pricy ($12-15 for a main and $8.5 for burger/wraps).

Check out our last visit and other blog posts about Yong Green Food by Michael, Steph, Cate, Niki and Shawna.

Yong Green Food
421 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy

On my walkman:
I Learned the Hard Way - Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings

We finally went back to Yong Green Food after Kristy was "glutened". I was very excited because it has been two months and there were lots of thing I wanted to try.

After we ordered, a friendly girl (I guess she is Sunju but not sure how she figured out who we are) approached Kristy and said:
"I guess I owe you a meal."

We told her we appreciated the offer but she doesn't need to do that . At the end she still took the price of the Thai Green Curry off our bill.

Kristy ordered the Raw Nachos (Sorry for the out of focus camera phone photo, I blame Nokia):

Instead of the boring corn chips, we have some yummy raw crisp flax crackers. It came with three different dips: cashew cream (pretty smooth), guacamole and sunflower seed tomato dip. She loved the dish especially the rich tomato dip which had a nice chilli kick to it and was impressed with the creaminess of the cashew 'cream'. Whilst it was obviously not the same as cooked nachos it was an excellent dish. Kristy said she was very full after this one dish. I guess there are lots of nuts in this dish. Lots of nuts = lots of protein = road to awesome human performance.

I looooooooved my grilled mock tuna on rice (Sorry for the photo again):

The "tuna" (not G/F) is the one you can get from mock meat shops and some Asian supermarkets. It was crispy on the outside and had a very rich fishy flavour. It came with a wasabi soy sauce, a purple cabbage coleslaw and some steamed vegetable.

I also had a vanilla soy ice-cream with red bean. The ice-cream was just the normal So Good one but the Japanese/Korean style red bean was awesome.

I reckon it is a smart choice to offer both raw and cooked food, as raw diet is not everyone's cup of tea especially on cold days. I would go back for more as there are lots of choice (and gluten-free food for Kristy) and the dishes are not too pricy ($12-15 for a main and $8.5 for burger/wraps).

Check out our last visit and other blog posts about Yong Green Food by Michael, Steph, Cate, Niki and Shawna.

Yong Green Food
421 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy

On my walkman:
I Learned the Hard Way - Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings

reade more... Résuméabuiyad