Sukothai, Yarralumla

Sukothai has now closed.
 
This Thai restaurant can be found at the Yarralumla shops at the very end of a short arcade. It's actually rather spacious inside. There are several tofu dishes on the menu, but as is usual for many restaurants, you need to be clear that you don't eat seafood products and so on. After establishing this, the people at Sukothai are happy to accommodate, and they do understand the meaning of the word 'vegan'. Lunches I've had include a beautiful tofu yellow curry, and a spicy chilli-basil tofu stiry fry noodle dish. They told me that it can take longer to prepare vegan dishes, so if you are coming with a large party of people you might like to pre-order. One last thing: ask for mild chilli unless you are accustomed to the hot spiciness of authentic Thai food.

Tofu yellow curry

Chilli-basil stir fry tofu, vegies and rice noodle

Sweet Bones Bakery Cafe, Braddon

Although we have blogged Sweet Bones before, the menu has evolved much since then and we thought it was worth a revisit to talk about two of our favourite dishes. The Italian tempeh sandwich comes with olive bread, salad, pickles and tasty flavoured tempeh. If you haven't tried tempeh before, we encourage you to give it a go, as the Sweet Bones people have really excelled on this one.

The nachos mountain is a great choice when you have a big hunger to fill. It is packed with interesting flavours -- chillies, olives, corn and beans with vegan sour cream & cheeses, on a large bed of corn chips. The chips are the Mission brand and are free of palm oil.

Sweet Bones cafe has moved to new premises. The entrance is now on Elouera St, close to the roundabout on Lonsdale. They now have a printed menu, which is a great improvement over the blackboard, and it has a number of new items that we can't wait to try.  

Italian tempeh sandwich

Nachos mountain

Mannu's Kitchen, Maitland

If you do an internet search for vegan food in Maitland NSW, not a whole lot comes up. There is the Momo Wholefood Cafe, but it wasn't open when we needed it to be (i.e. dinner time).

Mannu's Kitchen is an Indian restaurant in central Maitland that was open late for dinner on Saturday night when we were in town. After making the usual polite vegan enquiries, we were able to order three vegetable curries with rice and pappadums, as well as vegetable pakora entree. The pakora were among the largest we've seen – one serve is almost a meal on its own. All in all, it was a very filling and satisfying meal. Like some other Indian restaurants we've tried, their dhal dishes all contained animal products. We hope that in time restaurants will provide the option for coconut cream instead of dairy.

Vegetable curries

Pakora with tamarind sauce

Oaks Brasserie, Yarralumla

This week I attended a work lunch at the Oaks for a large party of people. A few days before, I enquired about vegan options, and received a fast response stating that there were a few items on the menu that could be veganised. In the end, I chose to have them make me a vegan surprise. I received this beautifully presented polenta dish topped with grilled vegetables, avocado and tomato. The grilled eggplant and capsicum were lovely in their own right, and the dish had just the right amount of herbs and salt. All of our meals had been pre-ordered, which saved a huge amount of time. The garden setting is a very relaxing atmosphere to have lunch. If you're looking for something a little bit fancier than usual, you might like to try the Oaks and give them some advance notice.

Cafe Essen, Civic

Lately we've been to Essen a few times for the monthly vegan coffee and cake meetup. We find that there's usually a few vegan items on the menu, as well as vegan cupcakes. On this particular evening, the specials board had a vegan burger, so a few of us gave it a try. It had a potato pattie – basically a hash brown – along with tasty eggplant puree, avocado and sauces. Highly recommended! Cheers to the friendly staff for letting us split the bill.

Vegan burger

Specials board

Bombay to Byron, Byron Bay

Bombay to Byron serves "authentic Indian food". More importantly for us, they had some vegan menu items clearly labelled, and their kitchen was open late just as other restaurants were closing.

The vegetable pakora was astonishingly good, with a complex spicy flavour. The two vegetable curries that we ordered were hearty and spiced to perfection. The good food and service with a smile added up to a very satisfying vegan dining experience.

Pakora with tamarind sauce

Aloo Mutter

Dal Tadka

Heart & Halo, Byron Bay

We found the food at the Heart & Halo cafe to be consistently good. It is not all vegan, but there is a wide selection of vegan things available. The cafe has less ambience than some other Byron establishments but it makes up for that with friendly service, tasty food and cheaper prices. The vegan bliss balls are really special! We also made use of their frozen dinner packs, which are great value.

Salad

Vegan, gluten-free pizza

Kohli's Indian, Batemans Bay

We were happy to find Kohli's, an Indian restaurant in Batemans Bay that clearly offers vegan items on their regular menu.

We began with the vegetable pakora entree – vegetables fried in a chickpea flour batter. So good! For the mains we had a mushroom & pea curry (mushroom matar) along with another vegetable curry in tomato & onion sauce (subz-e-karahi). Both dishes were full of flavour and cooked to perfection. We had a salad as a side dish, beautifully presented with a light vinaigrette dressing. The lovely food and friendly service left us feeling very satisfied with our dining experience.

The only slight disappointment was that none of the dhal mains were dairy-free, and one of them was mistakenly labelled as vegan, although it wasn't hard to spot the error.

Green Salad

Vegetable Pakora

Mushroom Matar

Subz-E-Karahi

Jamie's Italian, Civic

We booked Jamie's Italian for a family dinner and so the restaurant had some prior notice that the vegans were coming. We had some personal attention from one of the chefs, who suggested a number of options that he could make vegan (and gluten-free). This personal touch gave us confidence that we were in capable hands. The dishes which arrived did not disappoint. In particular, the olive risotto was both delicious and attractively presented.

Fennel and orange salad

Olive and tomato risotto

Green beans in tomato sauce

Eggplant and tomato pasta

Perfect Break Vegetarian Cafe, Gerringong

This cafe has been on our list for a while so we're glad we were finally able to visit. There are some good vegan options on the menu, including the tofu burger pictured below, which features a lovely satay sauce. The roast vegetable salad was delicious too – avocado was easily substituted for the cheese, making for a very satisfying vegan dish. There are some sweet treats for sale at the counter, although you will need to ask which ones are animal-free. The atmosphere is very pleasant and if you sit upstairs you will be treated to a pretty view out towards the ocean.

Tofu burger with salad

  

Roast vegetable salad

Fresh juice