Tuesday 18 October 2016

Eating Out: Vegerama West End

I spent this weekend just gone at The Animal Activist Forum, and will be doing a write up about that (including food) shortly, I just don't have my notes with me at the moment. It was a pretty intense and heavy going weekend, but thankfully I was able to balance it out by spending a lovely post-forum day with my friend, eating all over Brisbane. But more on all of that in a later post. For now, let's get back to Leigh and J's visit!

I have actually skipped over where we went for our Sunday dinner, but I am saving that for a VeganMoFo post! On Monday, the final day of their visit, we went to Vegerama in West End before I dropped them off at the airport. You can see my previous posts about Vegerama here.

We shared some starters, including the Raw Tasting Plate ($15), which had nut cheese, chipotle salsa, crispy kale chips, seeded crackers, raw sour cream and a side salad. We were a little underwhelmed. We all enjoyed the kale chips, and I enjoyed the crackers and the side salad. The raw sour cream basically just tastes like coconut fat and must be avoided at all costs. The nut cheese was tasty, but mostly tasted like walnuts.

Raw Tasting Plate at Vege Rama West End


We were much happier with out choice from the specials board, the vegan Arancini. These rice was mixed in with veggies and cheese, and they were hot and crisp.

Arancini Special at Vege Rama West End


I decided to try the Vege Burger ($17), which had a black bean patty, kipfler fries, saffron mustard aioli and beetroot relish. Sadly they were out of kifler potatoes, so replaced then with sweet potato. I love sweet potato, but they made them taste really oily. They also had inexplicably put sweet chili sauce on the burger, which made it a bit too spicy for my preference, and also was an odd choice flavour-wise.

Vege Burger at Vege Rama West End


I love silly juices, and this time grabbed the Iron Enhancer ($8: Kale, spinach, kiwi, parsley, spirulina, blueberries), which was actually pretty nice. You can see Leigh's Bloody Mary in the background, which she said was not good and she didn't finish (sorry, I can't remember the exact issue with it).

Iron Booster Juice and Bloody Mary at Vege Rama West End


J got the Linguine with radicchio, shiitake & enoki mushrooms, vine ripened truss tomatoes and nut parmesan ($17), which was enjoyed. And Leigh got the Sweet Potato Gnocchi with king brown mushrooms, sugar snap peas, cold press olive oil and chive cream ($17.50). They had cooked the mushrooms much better than the time I had it!

Linguine at Vege Rama West End


Sweet Potato Gnocchi at Vege Rama West End


We also picked out a chocolate cookie cake from the counter, which wasn't the greatest. The taste was OK, but the texture was so dry. It improved greatly after a couple of days in the freezer to allow the cookie layers to soften up!

Cookie Nut Cake at Vege Rama West End


Vegerama West End - Shop 2a 220 Melbourne St, West End, QLD - 07 3255 3388

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post

Unis


This is Unis, and her blurry face. She gives amazingly good snuggles, and loves to bop you all over with her head while you lie on the ground with her!

8 comments:

  1. The vegan arancini look sooooo good! I've always wanted to try to make them, but I have a deep fear of deep frying! I love Unis little face!!

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    1. I am terrified of deep frying as well. When I make them at home I normally just mist them with some olive oil from a spray bottle and bake them until golden and crunchy.

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  2. Arancini is without a shadow of a doubt one of my favourite foods ever, I get so excited when I spot it on a menu. I really need to try making it one day!

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    1. I hardly ever see it on menus, but Vegerama has had it a few times. It is such a fun food!

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  3. That's too bad about the raw plate. I'm surprised the sour cream tasted like coconut fat - typically it's cashew based. At least the kale chips were good.
    Woah! The arancini looks so good!!! I've never heard of that, but it looks like deep-fried deliciousness!
    Sorry your food experience wasn't stellar.

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    1. Their idea of sour cream seems to be jus coconut fat. Gross. I've been to another place where the sour cream was also coconut based. So wrong.

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  4. I feel like maybe the Bloody Mary was too savory? I feel like Bloody Mary's taste best with bourbon (not vodka) and it NEEDS booze XD I assume this place made it just a juice right?

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    1. It was actually a very expensive vodka-containing cocktail, which made it all the more disappointing that she didn't want to drink it. I feel that maybe it wasn't savoury enough though, that sounds familiar. Perhaps not enough tomato. It looks pretty washed out in terms of colour, normally they are so red.

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