A. Bongiovanni and KFL: Supermarkets in the West

Sure when you move to a different area you need to do things like find a new doctor, dentist etc but one of the most annoying but also kind of exciting thing is exploring new supermarkets. I'm the type of person who loves to stroll around supermarkets in new countries etc just exploring what sorts of products they have. I'm sure i'm in the minority here and other people have lives or something but if your like me then continue reading if not perhaps this can serve as some sort of boring night time reading to put you to sleep. 

I wanted to tell you about two quite different supermarkets they we frequent in our new hood. The first is in seddon. Seddon is a tiny slightly yuppish suburb with several cafes, at least two dog accessory shops and lots of seddon puns: seddonia, seddon deadly sins, seddon hand etc. They are also home o A. Bongiovanni a fancy grocery store.

Otherwise known as a 'organic and gluten free specialist'!

Which is around the corner from one of my favourite pieces of street art, I love this series in general you can see similar ones in footscray, brunswick etc but this is my fave.

They do have lots of gluten free flours, cereal and one of the best gf breads- black ruby bread

They also have some mexican things like black beans and all sorts of peppers:

And one of the biggest arlington tapioca dessert range I have seen, if you haven't tried them yet, you should! Also coyo yogurt and funky pies.

One warning about A. Bioniovanni though, its pricey. I was so excited to see their big range of special products whereas Toby was just a tad outraged about how expensive it is was. Also they close early like at 7pm on weeknights.

A. Bongiovanni and Son Grocery Store
176 Victoria Street
Seddon
9689 8669


The second supermarket they were frequent a little more is almost the opposite. It's an Asian supermarket in Footscray:



It has one of the biggest tofu ranges I have seen. I refuse to buy non asian tofu from places like coles (except for the occasional smoked tofu). Asian tofu like yensons have much more variety, better quality and much cheaper (like more than half the price).

I also saw stuff I have never seen before like jelly tofu:

And tofu and sauce to make the chinese style dessert which I love called douha

They also a had a big range of dried mockmeat-tvp style, plus lots of noodles and coriander for 69 cents!

KFL Supermarket-Footscray

176 Barkly Street

Footscray

9687 4855

Sure when you move to a different area you need to do things like find a new doctor, dentist etc but one of the most annoying but also kind of exciting thing is exploring new supermarkets. I'm the type of person who loves to stroll around supermarkets in new countries etc just exploring what sorts of products they have. I'm sure i'm in the minority here and other people have lives or something but if your like me then continue reading if not perhaps this can serve as some sort of boring night time reading to put you to sleep. 

I wanted to tell you about two quite different supermarkets they we frequent in our new hood. The first is in seddon. Seddon is a tiny slightly yuppish suburb with several cafes, at least two dog accessory shops and lots of seddon puns: seddonia, seddon deadly sins, seddon hand etc. They are also home o A. Bongiovanni a fancy grocery store.

Otherwise known as a 'organic and gluten free specialist'!

Which is around the corner from one of my favourite pieces of street art, I love this series in general you can see similar ones in footscray, brunswick etc but this is my fave.

They do have lots of gluten free flours, cereal and one of the best gf breads- black ruby bread

They also have some mexican things like black beans and all sorts of peppers:

And one of the biggest arlington tapioca dessert range I have seen, if you haven't tried them yet, you should! Also coyo yogurt and funky pies.

One warning about A. Bioniovanni though, its pricey. I was so excited to see their big range of special products whereas Toby was just a tad outraged about how expensive it is was. Also they close early like at 7pm on weeknights.

A. Bongiovanni and Son Grocery Store
176 Victoria Street
Seddon
9689 8669


The second supermarket they were frequent a little more is almost the opposite. It's an Asian supermarket in Footscray:



It has one of the biggest tofu ranges I have seen. I refuse to buy non asian tofu from places like coles (except for the occasional smoked tofu). Asian tofu like yensons have much more variety, better quality and much cheaper (like more than half the price).

I also saw stuff I have never seen before like jelly tofu:

And tofu and sauce to make the chinese style dessert which I love called douha

They also a had a big range of dried mockmeat-tvp style, plus lots of noodles and coriander for 69 cents!

KFL Supermarket-Footscray

176 Barkly Street

Footscray

9687 4855

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Reverence Hotel - Footscray

Toby and I finally started to explore the bike paths in the west, we road to the docklands and back, it was quite quick with hardly any traffic lights to stop at. Afterwards we rode to reverence hotel which is right next to the bike path. Reverence is an omni pub with vegan options, it is owned by the ex arthouse owners. Every tuesday night they have trivia, $3 tacos and $3 tecate's (mexican beer), but this week they had it today-boxing day.  Tuesday never seems to work time wise but a public holiday was perfect timing. We went along with Cindy and Michael, see their blog in a few days for better pics!

There was a mixture of hipsters and some older locals but unfortunately there was no inside tables left so we sat outside in the beer garden. Looks like they take bookings since a few tables were reserved. I notice they also had pizzas on their regular menu with vegan and gf options from Thursday-Sunday.

There was 4 taco options (all gf), two meat options and two vegan options: beans and tofu. Toby ordered one of each for me and him:



The tofu was my favourite and reminded me of our tofu tacos, it was crumbled and flavoured with smoked paprika and other spices. It was served with a creamy mayo type sauce with home made salsa and lime on the side. Two wasn't enough for either of us, toby needed four to get full, and I needed 3 in total. I was pretty pleased with my $9 dinner, I really had low expectations but they were both great. The bean taco was tobys favourite, it has mushrooms and avocado and corn in it. Toby was pleased with cheap but good beer. We will be back to try the pizza another night but pleased to have another westside vegan option.
 .
It has been blogged about the good hearted.

Reverence Hotel
28 Napier Street
Footscray

Toby and I finally started to explore the bike paths in the west, we road to the docklands and back, it was quite quick with hardly any traffic lights to stop at. Afterwards we rode to reverence hotel which is right next to the bike path. Reverence is an omni pub with vegan options, it is owned by the ex arthouse owners. Every tuesday night they have trivia, $3 tacos and $3 tecate's (mexican beer), but this week they had it today-boxing day.  Tuesday never seems to work time wise but a public holiday was perfect timing. We went along with Cindy and Michael, see their blog in a few days for better pics!

There was a mixture of hipsters and some older locals but unfortunately there was no inside tables left so we sat outside in the beer garden. Looks like they take bookings since a few tables were reserved. I notice they also had pizzas on their regular menu with vegan and gf options from Thursday-Sunday.

There was 4 taco options (all gf), two meat options and two vegan options: beans and tofu. Toby ordered one of each for me and him:



The tofu was my favourite and reminded me of our tofu tacos, it was crumbled and flavoured with smoked paprika and other spices. It was served with a creamy mayo type sauce with home made salsa and lime on the side. Two wasn't enough for either of us, toby needed four to get full, and I needed 3 in total. I was pretty pleased with my $9 dinner, I really had low expectations but they were both great. The bean taco was tobys favourite, it has mushrooms and avocado and corn in it. Toby was pleased with cheap but good beer. We will be back to try the pizza another night but pleased to have another westside vegan option.
 .
It has been blogged about the good hearted.

Reverence Hotel
28 Napier Street
Footscray

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Cafe Lalibela

I went to Cafe Laliebla recently with Eve, it's a Ethiopian omni restaurant in Footscray but with plenty of veg options. It's close to the Footscray station and Savers which is handy, although I'm not sure if I would recommend going there at night. Footscray while much better than it used to be, still attracts some interesting characters. We both chose the vegetarian banquet for only $12 each which contains all but one of the vegetarian dishes. The one dish that it doesn't contain is ful which is the only non-vegan option. So that works out very well!

It was served on top of injera which is a spongy slightly sour type bread. Injera is traditionally made with teff flour which is gluten free but sometimes they add in other things and I didn't check. The dishes served included a salad, stewed vegetables, lentil stew, split bean stew, and a stew with pea flour. One of the curries was quite spicy, but the rest were quite mild. My favourite was the tangy split pea curry. If you hadn't had Ethiopian before it's lots of fun to use the injera to scoop up the dishes on top.

It was all delicious and quite filling. We couldn't quite finish it:

Cafe Lalibela provided prompt service, a tasty, cheap filling meal, so I will certainly visit again when I'm in the area. Although if I had to choose Abyssinian might get my pick even though it is more expensive because they have an amazing chickpea style gravy in their banquet.

Where's the beef, Lisa and Foodscrazy have also given it glowing reviews.

Cafe Lalibela
91 Irving St
Footscray
9687 0300

I went to Cafe Laliebla recently with Eve, it's a Ethiopian omni restaurant in Footscray but with plenty of veg options. It's close to the Footscray station and Savers which is handy, although I'm not sure if I would recommend going there at night. Footscray while much better than it used to be, still attracts some interesting characters. We both chose the vegetarian banquet for only $12 each which contains all but one of the vegetarian dishes. The one dish that it doesn't contain is ful which is the only non-vegan option. So that works out very well!

It was served on top of injera which is a spongy slightly sour type bread. Injera is traditionally made with teff flour which is gluten free but sometimes they add in other things and I didn't check. The dishes served included a salad, stewed vegetables, lentil stew, split bean stew, and a stew with pea flour. One of the curries was quite spicy, but the rest were quite mild. My favourite was the tangy split pea curry. If you hadn't had Ethiopian before it's lots of fun to use the injera to scoop up the dishes on top.

It was all delicious and quite filling. We couldn't quite finish it:

Cafe Lalibela provided prompt service, a tasty, cheap filling meal, so I will certainly visit again when I'm in the area. Although if I had to choose Abyssinian might get my pick even though it is more expensive because they have an amazing chickpea style gravy in their banquet.

Where's the beef, Lisa and Foodscrazy have also given it glowing reviews.

Cafe Lalibela
91 Irving St
Footscray
9687 0300

reade more... Résuméabuiyad