Eating Out: Wooden Horse

A new addition to the blog! Wooden Horse restaurant and bar is literally a 45 second walk away from one of the places I occasionally work. I'd walked past a number of times when it was closed (it only opens for dinner), but never thought much of it. Until one day I saw a post in one of the vegan groups on Facebook that they were starting to offering vegan menu options! And it looked good. Of course, COVID and such. It took me a while to be able to get there. But one day when I was working at the nearby place and finishing at 7pm, I thought it would be a handy time to go try it out. The menu changes based on the season, and I this was from their summer menu.

First up, the Arancini with beetroot, white bean cheese, and green goddess dressing. It was supposed to come with chipotle mayo, but I asked if they could switch it for something less spicy. This is still on the current autumn menu, so perhaps it is a regular.



They had a bunch of pizzas on their summer menu, and I got The Drifter. It had cauliflower, beetroot, hummus, spinach, pinenuts, green goddess, and vegan cheese. I asked them to leave off the capsicum. It was really nice, a very unique pizza topping combination. I took half of it home so I had room for dessert, and it tasted great cold the next day.



I mentioned dessert. Oh yes, I did. The vegan dessert option was the Pumpkin Pie, which had burnt butter crumb, pecan praline, candied sage, chocolate soil, and vanilla ice cream. The ice cream was coconut based, but it was in that range where I wouldn't want to eat a whole tub, but a single scoop didn't make me feel sick. All together it was a wonderful dessert.



A few weeks ago, my roster got suddenly changed so I was working an evening shift at the nearby clinic again. I spontaneously (a big deal for me) decided that I should got back for dinner that night! I live on the other side of town, so had to take advantage of being a 45 second walk away! And it meant I got to try out their current autumn menu.

I skipped the starters and went straight for the main, the King Trumpet Mushroom Scallops. These had house-aged shiitake, grilled asparagus, crispy enoki, and aromatic congee. It was delicious. So savoury and mushroomy. I was very happy.

While I didn't have a starter, I sure did have a side. Not Your Mum's Sprouts were roasted Brussels sprouts with aged soy mushrooms, maple, smoked almond, and shallot, vegan mozzarella. This was phenomenal. It was piping hot, and just a perfect combination of sweet and smoky and creamy and crunchy. It ended up being a cold and raining night, and this hit the spot.



Of course I had to end with dessert! The 'Choc Onslaught', described as ganache, olive oil semifreddo, raspberry, chambord, choc shards, and cocoa soil. Oh friends, this was AMAZING!! The choc shards had this wonderful malted flavour, almost like milo. But the star was the olive oil semifreddo, which had passionfruit, and I could have eaten an entire tray of it. Oh, just thinking about it again makes me yearn for it.



I highly recommend Wooden Horse to everyone! If your non-vegan friend is thinking about a dinner out, suggest this place! You will be well taken care of. I can't wait to go back and see what is on their winter menu when it is released. They always have a gnocchi dish on the vegan menu, but the two times I have been their seasonal version always had chilli in it. It is meant to be amazing, so I really hope that the next one will be chilli free so I can enjoy some gnocchi. Anyway, if you are in Brisbane, go here.