Coda

In music, a Coda is a passage that brings the song to a conclusion.

My experience of Coda Bar and Resturaunt was surprising - in a good way - and very satisfying.

I ordered eco-food versions of the following items listed on the menu:

• Spanner crab, galangal, roasted chilli and lime betel leaf $5.80

• Soft rice paper rolled with pork, prawn, perilla and chive bud $6

I don't know enough about spanner crab and the most recent research I could find suggested that there is some uncertainty in estimation of stock status at least in Queensland. Instead, I ordered a vegetarian betel leaf which came topped with a delicious salad of glass noodle, corriander and carrot along with galangal, roasted chilli and lime betel leaf. It was superb.

The eco-food credentials of prawn and pork are questionable, so I again opted for an alternative. My vegetarian rice paper roll was excellent with the dipping sauce making my day.

I also ordered the eggplant and tofu lettuce delight with enoki mushroom, crispy garlic and black vinegar $6 which I couldn't fault. It had that melt in your mouth flavour explosion. Yum!


The surprising part was that when the bill was presented, I noticed something that I've very rarely encountered in any resturaunt. The betel leaf and rice paper roll dishes had been discounted to reflect my requested vegetarian modifications. They were only $4 and $5 respectively! A bargain in any language. Cool eh?

I was also impressed by the bar staff who served me (I sat at the bar rather than the tables). The gentleman who waited on me was extremely vegetarian savvy and accomodating. He suggested the numerous possible modifications and pointed out the several dishes on the menu that were either vegetarian, met my nebulous eco-food criteria, or could be modified as such. Very unusual and most welcome.

The nifty thing about sitting at the bar is that it gives you a prime view of Adam D'Sylva and his team as they busy themselves concocting cuisine in the kitchen. The bar is satisfyingly modern with lights picking out the colours in the bottles.

Adam - the head chef and owner of Coda has a strong pedigree having been Head Chef at Longrain. He is also a supporter of environmental issues and was appointed as an Ambassador for Earth Hour.

I reckon that in my case Coda means I need no longer continue my quest for eco-food fine dining.

But then again, there are no doubt other eco-food havens waiting to be discovered...

Bamboo and Buns

Today I set myself an assignment. Find a satisfying two-course CBD lunch for under $6. 

A quick bit of research prior to leaving the office suggested that that Nam Loong did a vege Bun for $1.50 which sounded like a perfect start for my assignment. Primed for success I marched along Russel and into the door of Nam Loong. I was greeted by shelves and shelves of buns of all varieties and enormous bamboo steamers preparing the more on the stove. Alas, the shelf labelled Vegetarian Buns was empty! And it was only 12:44 pm - sold out! Arghh. Could this be the beginning of an assigment Epic Fail?

I whipped out the iPhone and was relieved to learn that Miss T had found Melbourne Central's Bamboo City offered something similar for $1.80. I arrive full of hope, blinking in the neon, only to run into potential failure Number Two. Alas. Perhaps the GFC or Miss T garnered fame had lead to price inflation to round numbers. I gingerly handed over my $2 gold pieces in exchange for two quite substantial looking vege buns. 

Across the road to the State Library lawn for the taste test. Not bad. Not great, but not bad. The buns were a bit hard on the outside - probably from sitting under the neon for too long, but the filling was tasty enough. The seagull certainly thought so. They were filled with glass-noodles, tofu, carrot and spring onions and were certainly filling.

Now with only $2 remaining for dessert I marched off in the direction of the delightfully named Little Cupcakes on Degraves. Sitting on the little wooden table inside I devoured the Cookies and Cream flavoured morsal. Yum.

I also felt a sense of achievement having marched more than 2600 metres in my mission to fulfill this assignment. I'm keen to try the Nam Loong buns because that would mean a two-course meal for under a fiver!

Sakura Kaiten

Some days I feel like treating myself to a few tasty morsals of vegetarian goodness. If you also find yourself so inclined, can I suggest you try Sakura Kaiten Sushi.

The staff are friendly, welcoming and helpful in this stylishly decorated sushi bar. I asked for assistance in identifying vegetarian options on the sushi train and the waitress quickly pointed out several options for me to try.

I selected the vegetarian gyoza (5.80), a fried-mashed-potato sushi ($3.60), a seaweed sushi ($4.60) and the agedashi tofu (4.60). Other options on offer were vegetable tempura, seaweed salad, spinach salad, cucumber salad, edamame and several other options.

The potato sushi comes accompanied with subtly flavoured mustard and was probably my favourite of the selection.

The gyoza were topped with a savoury sauce and contained mashed vegetables including potato and were lovely and crisp.

The seaweed sushi had that straight from the ocean taste and was delicious when dipped in shoyu sauce.


I enjoyed the agedashi tofu, but I think the Wood Spoon and Peko Peko on Smith Street might have the edge for tofu goodness. Nothing wrong with Sakura Kaiten's offering, just not my favourite.


If you haven't been to a Japanese sushi train bar before, it is worth going just for entertainment value. While not featuring an actual miniture train like some places we found in Tokyo, Sakura Kaiten has a nifty conveyor-belt that whisks the beautifully presented and numerous dishes past diners for easy selecting. The dishes are colour coded to represent different priced options from black and pink as the least expensive to white and red as the (slightly) more expensive options.

The cafe soundtrack of Marvin Gaye and several other Motown and Soul balladiers contributed to an ecclectic and most enjoyable lunch.

Curiosity at Kanitar

So you're in Geelong.

You're hungry.

And you're hankering for some Southeast Asian goodness?

I say, mosy on down to Kanitar on Malop St - the town's main drag.

I hadn't been there before, but I wandered in after seeing the golden statues, hoping for the best.

I was delighted to discover they do an $8 lunch special on a variety of thai staples.

The owner and chef are thai and the vegetable red curry I ordered was as authentic as any I've enjoyed in downtown Banglampoo.

The serving was generous. The service was friendly. The decor was quaint. And the flavours are all there. That perfect balance of spicy, salty, sweet and sour were married behind a little shopfront in Geelong.

A surpringly good find.

Izakaya Hachibeh

Izakaya Hachibeh offers a refreshing change from the usual chain-store nori-ramen-noodles Japanese options elsewhere in Melbourne.

I went for lunch and selected from the excellent value $12 Hachibeh bento menu. Following the eco-creed I ordered the fried vegetables, potato salad and agedashi tofu (because I’m incapable of going to any Japanese restaurant and not ordering it). The bento menu might be confusing, but the idea is that you select one item from each of the A, B and C boxes. There are also specials options on a board and more extensive alternatives available should you wish to branch out further. A PDF dinner menu is available on their website. One of the more intriguing options is the “Hachibeh ladies lunch set” which is only available to those without a Y chromosome, so I was out of luck.

The large bento comes attractively presented with the three selected options and rice arranged in their own little compartments in the box. There is also a complimentary miso which was very good. The flavours in each dish complemented each other nicely. The tasty potato salad was cold mashed and well seasoned with spring onions and pieces of carrot. It went nicely with the flavoursome teriyaki sauce vegetable stir-fry of carrots, cabbage, cauliflower and onion topped with sesame seeds. Of course my favourite was the agedashi tofu. Deliciously crisp on the outside and exquisitely smooth within. And the texture was matched by the taste. Excellent.

The word Izakaya is a compound of the Japanese words for sit (“i) and sake shop (“sakaya”). Upon entering Izakaya Hachibeh, you’ll find it looks more like a restaurant than a bar, with black tables, maroon walls and beautiful red lanterns adorned with characters reading “izakaya”. But there is also an impressively diverse range of sake on offer including their “special-made Hachibeh sake” which I’d be keen to try for dinner.

The restaurant which markets itself as Japanese Tapas was a novel concept for me. But with more than 100 small dishes available for dinner, they certainly have variety.

Izakaya Hachibeh should also be commended for the clarity of their dinner menu. I haven’t yet been for dinner (perhaps for a future entry) but I checked the menu and was delighted to find an entire section headed Vegetarian No Fish Stock with 20 delicious-looking options to choose from. Other Japanese restaurants could do well by learning from this example.

Izakaya Hachibeh is a friendly and great value lunch spot with authentic tasty Japanese food and I’m looking forward to trying it for dinner.

Kim Sing for a Song

If anyone bragged about a hearty lunch spot where you'd have change from a fiver in the heart of the Melbourne CBD, I'd have called them wishful.

Yet somehow Kim Sing manages to produce exactly that in the form of a tasty, filling, freshly cooked vegetarian fried rice for a grand total of $4.00. Yep, really!

I stumbled upon Kim Sing on a lunchtime ramble yesterday and came back again today. If you're seeking romantic fine-dining with white table cloths and starched waiters you won't find it. But you will find an armada of woks dancing on blue flames, a supersized menu with lifesize pictures of dishes on offer and exceptional value for money.

Kim Sing is tucked in Port Phillip Arcade (which embarrassingly I only discovered yesterday, despite having lived in Melbourne for 30 plus years). The cafe spans both sides of the walkway. There is a small yellow sign to identify the place, but long before you see the sign you'll probably see dozens of tables full of students, backpackers and hungry office workers all munching on delicious looking fare.

Yesterday I had the Stirfried Mixed Vegetables with Tofu and Rice for $6. Presentation might not have been superlative, but it was very tasty and came with a nice sauce. The tofu was good, the vegetables were nicely crispy and the mushrooms were really good.

I didn't notice the Vegetarian Fried Rice on the menu until after I'd eaten yesterday, so I had to come back and try it today just to see if it was possible to make a decent dish for $4. Verdict - yes! It came with carrots, beanshoots, spring onions, cabbage, brocolli and pieces of omelette. The rice was fluffy and light and there was enough on the plate to leave me feeling very satisfied. Was it the best fried rice ever - probably not, but it was infinitely better than the soggy overpriced, tasteless, reheated bain-marie gloop I've suffered through in food courts.

Vegie Ducks at the Dumpling Village

So I strayed from my staple of dumplings on my second visit today and it was a mixed blessing.

I couldn't resist ordering the Vegetarian Duck $4, just to see whether it was a salad-eating-antatid or something entirely different. As it happens, it is some kind of tofu/wheat gluten concotion (see pic). It tasted salty and had an interesting texture, but is probably a dish best enjoyed in combination with something else as its flavour is somewhat one-dimensional. I can't tell you how much the taste resembled its flesh and blood namesake because I haven't eaten any ducks for decades, but as a tofu vegetarian dish, it was quite enjoyable.

The same can't be said for the anaemic Vegetarian Spring Rolls $3 (see pic) which were mostly pastry and very little filling. I guess their price might have given me a hint of things to come, but I always hope for the best. I'd estimate the percentage of pastry to filling was probably 80/20 which made for a crunchy but rather tasteless dish.

The highlight for me today was the Buns with Vegetable and Mushroom $4 (see pic). I haven't had a huge number of steamed buns in my time as most of the places I've encountered them, they have been filled with dubious meat products of uncertain provenance. But at Shanghai Village Dumpling, they were full of delicous stirfried mushroom, spinach, and onion. The buns with light and fluffy and they came nicely presented in a bamboo steamer. Thumbs up for the buns!

I've also included a photo of resturaunt's Black List taped to one of the pink walls. I couldn't help it, I just found it quite funny. The List is designed to shame diners who have done a runner without paying. Maybe it's wrong, but it just reminded me of a tarring and feathering from times of old. I wonder how effective it is?

I shared my Shanghai Village Dumpling visit with Scuba Steve so we could have a bit of a catchup. Steve wasn't overly pleased by his experience as you can see his review on urbanspoon, but we had a good 'ol chat anyway while we waited and waited for our dishes to arrive. To be fair, they were quite busy.

Southern Spice Secret

So you’re out west and suddenly develop a hankering for a fresh crispy masala dosai. Or you’re craving a breakfast poori that tastes like you bought it from a guy on Platform 18 at New Dehli Station as you rushed to board the Kerala Express? If you find yourself in this condition and you don’t mind popping into a café that has slightly less ambience than your local laundromat, then I’ll let you in on a secret.

Situated in a prime location across from a multi-colour-flag used car dealership and next to Pizza Hut on busy Gordon Street Footscray, Southern Spice may well sate your desires. Even though their address is listed as Ballarat Road, you enter off Gordon Street, there is a carpark behind the little group of shops or you can catch the number 82 tram. Here is a Google Street View.

The food is cheap (Entrees $2.00-$4.00 Mains $4.00-$7.00) and delicious. When we used to live near this place and I loved dragging Mi here as often as I could. We even convinced many friends to come with us. And while they were initially dubious, they were instant converts after the first mouthful.

The masala dosai comes with the usual spiced potato and ghee filling and the poori is served with a delicious light dal. They also have great lassis and there a plenty more vegetarian and vegan choices on the menu.

I'll have to go back there and get some photos for you, but in the mean time, why not check it out for yourself?

Thali Time

Oh joy! 

Bismi are now doing an all-you-can-eat lunch buffet from Mon-Wed with around 25 choices including dosai, roti, dhal and several vegetarian (8+) and non-veg curries. 

For $11.90 it is great value but it certainly won't be good for my waistline. I'm going back tomorrow!

Bismi has without a doubt the best masala dosai in Melbourne - crisp, paper thin and very very tasty. I've been enjoying them for around 4 years now and I think they might even be getting better. 

Their roti and thali dishes are great too. I can't comment on the biryani or meat dishes - never made it past my staples. 

I think they might have recently turned down the music (at least when I was there) and it's possible they have even have given it a clean! 

I would probably still frequent this place even if it was the grottiest in Melbourne - the food is that good. 

Fo Guang Goodness

Perhaps Fo Guang Gallery hasn't been reviewed because everyone wants to keep it secret? Not really surprising given the tasty food, relaxing music, and beautiful asian art all combined inside a tranquil haven on Queen Street. The entire menu is vegetarian, but omnivores will still find plenty of good options.

I had the Vegetarian Laksa $12 (see pic) which was more subtly flavoured than I'm used to, but still delivered welcome complexity with fresh curry leaves, mung bean shoots, veges and tasty gluten/soy vegetarian 'pork'. The laksa soup didn't have the knock-you-over punch of flavour I enjoy at my other favourite laksa haunts (Laksa King, Chinta Ria Soul, Blue Chillies and Laksa Me), but that is probably because all the others use shrimp paste in their 'vegetarian' laksa whereas Fo Guang is a proper vegetarian laksa. Fo Guang's laksa has a nice amount of spice and good flavours.

I also enjoyed a pot of Kumquat Tea (see pic) which was a balance of citrus and sweetness - not too sweet though. It even had a real kumquat rolling about and infusing at the base of the clear glass teapot. The tea was served with two delicous mini biscuits. The menu at Fo Guang has more desert and tea options than mains, so make sure you leave some room.
I'm looking forward to going back and working my way through the wontons, spring rolls, stirfries, and steamed buns. But first on my list will be the Crystal Dumplings ordered by a customer on the adjacent table - they engendered serious food envy.

What else are second visits for, other than trying things you missed on the first?

No Spice in the Road

Unfortunately our high hopes for this place were unfulfilled. Where did all the flavour go? And I'd prefer not to have gritty coriander as a garnish. 

The surroundings were nice, but the food was really pretty uninspiring for the price. If I'd eaten similar dishes in a lower-priced venue I might be more charitable, but at this level, I really expect something more.

We liked the sound of the Tasting Banquet and asked if we could have a vegetarian version.

'Yes of course - just select which dishes you would like vegetarian versions of.'

We did this, but then rushing back from the kitchen our waitress indicated that she was mistaken and that the only vegetarian dishes available were 

'A stir-fry, papaya salad and a green curry.'

'Ok, no worries, we'll one of each of those.' says I.

Not a perfect start, but no problem.

Shortly thereafter, we were presented with a vegetarian version of the Betel Leaf entree (see pic). The dish was a puree of ginger, onion flakes, a tiny bit of chilly, kaffir lime and maybe pureed cabbage? It was interesting, but not something I'd order again.

Next came the three mains. They were attractively presented and looked the part, but the flavours just weren't there for me.

The stir-fry was a variation on Char Kway Teow with flat rice noodles as a base and mushrooms, capsicum and snap peas. The primary source of flavouring was soy sauce with a tiny bit of sesame oil and coriander. Frankly I've had tastier version of this dish in food courts. The other strike against this dish was the crunchy/gritty sensation which I think came from coriander which hadn't been washed properly and was still covered in dirt - ewww.

The Papaya Salad was a poor imitation of its authentic Thai cousin. I realise that the classic version of this dish has a liberal dose of fish-sauce, but we have had plenty of vegetarian versions in Thailand with light-soy mixed with a dash of mushroom oyster sauce that were delicious. The main disappointment was the absence of the Thai quartet of spicy, salty, sweet and sour that should combine to make the dish what it is. I don't think this dish actually had a chilli in it at all. Perhaps the chefs are caving to a chilli averse clientele. But surely a place named Red Spice Road can get away with at least the option of some chilli in its dishes.

Finally, the vegetarian Green Curry. The flavours in this dish were also very diluted. It was probably the better of all the dishes, but was more sweet than normal and a long way from authentic.

Mi and I were at Red Spice Road for our wedding anniversary lunch and I really would have hoped for a little more sophistication and frankly more spice! 

Staff were accommodating and helpful, but the food really wasn't any better than standard 'food court' fare.

Wing Loong Restaurant

Complimentary tea. Super fast service. Fluorescent menus for specials and banquets. $4 wine and beer. And tasty food!

What more could you ask for? 

I guess you could ask for an aloe and lycee slushie? Well, you'd be in luck because they've got them too.

Been going to this place for years. I love the serving size of the vegetarian fried rice and it only costs $6.50. Great for when you're really hungry or perhaps a little hungover and it comes with tofu, mushrooms and other veges.

Now maybe the food isn't high class, but it doesn't pretend to be either. Fantastic place for a quick, filling and tasty lunch or dinner.