Loving Hut

Update 07/04/2020: Loving Hut has been rebranded as Brother Bon.

January 30, 2014

Back in November, The Lentil Institution spread the news that there'd soon be a new Loving Hut in Northcote. It's now been open a little over a month, and we stopped by for dinner before hitting the Northcote Social Club for a gig last week.

This is a huge outlet stocked with groceries at the front - bulk TVP, gallon jugs of vegetarian oyster sauce and the widest range of mock meats this side of Vincent. Behind the screen is a flouro-lit cafe with the atmosphere of a quiet food court.

The menu's largely what we've come to expect from Loving Huts worldwide, i.e. mostly Asian-style meals heavy with mock meat. There's spring rolls and sushi, noodle soups and stir-fries, with a couple of salads and Southern fried chicken breaking the mold. Everything is vegan (including the broken rice - apparently they're serving fake egg!) and the gluten-free, raw and onion-garlic items are clearly marked.

We started out with crispy wontons ($8) and they didn't make much of an impression - crispy enough, chewy enough, but a bit bland.

The Southern fried chicken on rice ($12) was much more satisfying - the huge chunks of 'chicken' boasted a thick and crunchy, subtly spiced batter and were even better dipped in the barely-spicy sweet chilli mayo. Carrot-radish pickle and cucumber slices provided some refreshment, and I would have enjoyed a meal with more vegetables still. This is one for the KFC-nostalgics, and now that Gasometer is gone, I know I'll be back for another fix.

Michael had a go at the fish clay pot ($14) with a side of rice ($2) and was impressed by their stock, though he caught himself wishing for more vegetables in the mix too.

The Loving Hut staff were eager to please and our food was served unexpectedly quickly. Mentions of Supreme Master were limited to an unobtrusive book shelf, and the TV mercifully showed a snowboarding show rather than the Master's own station. We're keen to return and try more of the menu, hopefully timing our trip to allow for some grocery shopping on our way out.

____________

The Lentil Institution first broke the news about Northcote's Loving Hut. veganopoulous and The Lentil Institution later gave it a go and were both generally positive.

____________

Loving Hut
377-379 High St, Northcote
9077 1335
menu 1, 2, 3, 4
facebook page

Accessibility: Lookin' good! A very wide automatic door, flat floors and moderately spaced tables. We ordered at our table and paid at a low-ish counter. We didn't visit the toilets, but I spotted a disability-labelled unisex toilet down a wide corridor at the back of the building.

Clifton Hill Brewpub

January 27, 2014

Fitzroyalty's recent post brought the Clifton Hill Brewpub to our attention. A new pub in the inner north with decent food? Straight to the top of our pub-club list. The Brewpub has replaced the old Clifton Hill Hotel. They've stripped out the TAB and tried to go a bit upmarket, brewing their own beer, fancying up the menu and adding some modern stylings to the fit-out. It's a huge venue - there's a front bar, a small side area where we sat and a huge carpeted dining space. We thought it must have once been a pokies area, but a bit of research suggests it was the old live music space.

The veggie options aren't hugely innovative: eggplant parma ($18), a pasta bake ($24), a lentil burger ($17) and a whole bunch of starters and snacks. None of the three salads on the menu are vego and vegans will basically be stuck with chips (or maybe the lentil burger).

We started with a huge serve of chips ($7), which were crinkle cut and crispy and very satisfactory.

On top of that we ordered the vegetarian platter ($16 per person with a minimum of 2 people ordering).

It more or less compiles the veggie starters from the menu: spinach and feta boreks; potato, blue cheese and walnut croquettes; olives; pickled veggies; crumbed feta and macadamia stuffed mushrooms; bread and dips. This was a bit of a mixed bag - the beetroot dip and the bread were quite nice but the pumpkin didn't really do much for me. The various fried goods were just okay - it's hard to go too far wrong when you're frying pastry and/or cheese - but they weren't amazing. The mushrooms were probably the pick of the bunch. The pickled veggies looked really sad, but Cindy said they were good (I focussed my attention on the olives). 

Our dining companions were pretty happy with their meals (including a massive and massively cheesy eggplant parma) and their beer range is top notch. The service was a bit weird - they've  clearly got a bit of an issue about kids, offering a kids' menu but not high chairs, and were pretty concerned that our party's toddler was kept under close supervision despite there being almost nobody else in the pub. The whole experience was solid - not a rival to some of our nearby favourites, but not a bad addition to the neighbourhood.

____________

Brian's very positive review at Fitzroyalty seems to be the only blog action at that the Clifton Hill Brewpub has attracted so far.

____________

Clifton Hill Brewpub
89 Queens Parade, Clifton Hill
9489 8705
menu

facebook page

Accessibility: Not bad. There may be a small step on entry, but things are flat and spacious inside. There's full table service and the toilets are fully accessible.

Thyme sugar syrup

January 27, 2014

Thyme is usually sold in bigger bunches than recipes need, and I've found that thyme sugar syrup is an easy way to use up the leftovers. I must've come up with this idea after drinking thyme cocktails at Cafe Vue, then googled around to confirm that I needed nothing more than thyme, sugar and water.

I tend to use a lot more thyme than other online recipes recommend and then use my syrup sparingly - just a centimetre in the bottom of a glass, twice as much orange juice, topped up with ice cubes and soda water. Some day soon I'll try a boozy version with vodka, gin or Cointreau. I wonder what the syrup would be like on fruit salad, or waffles?

Thyme sugar syrup
(adapted from a recipe at imbibe)

1 cup sugar
1 cup water
20 sprigs thyme

Place all the ingredients in a saucepan. Simmer them over medium heat until the sugar is completely dissolved. Turn off the heat and allow the syrup to continue infusing as it cools to room temperature. Strain out the thyme sprigs and store the syrup in an airtight jar in the fridge.

Ottolenghi eggplant fest

January 25, 2014

Cindy returned from a couple of weeks away keen to get back into the kitchen and eating some veggie heavy dishes. We turned, inevitably, to Ottolenghi and came up with a couple of recipes to fill up our Saturday. 

Both dishes involved roasting eggplants over an open flame, not something I'd ever been brave enough to try before. It turns out to be reasonably straightforward - get your gas burners going and pop the eggplant on top, turning it every few minutes to ensure that the whole thing gets charred. The skin will blacken and start to peel, but you really need to give it a good 20 minutes of cooking - I got worried about over-cooking with the first one and found that much of the flesh under the blackened skin had yet to really soften up. If you do it right, the filling comes out really soft and takes only a bit of mushing to turn into a smooth paste.

The first of the dishes was Ottolenghi's slightly fancy take on baba ganoush, a roasted eggplant dip with a dash of tahini and lots of big fresh flavours from the veggies, pomegranate and herbs. Once you've roasted the eggplant, this is just a simple 'stir everything together' recipe, and it's well worth the effort. We smeared it on fresh bread for a very satisfying lunch.

The second dish was dinner - a lentil and eggplant dish with Ottolenghi's usual load of veggies and herbs to keep things interesting. The star here was the eggplant. It's incredibly simple, just roasted to an almost liquid softness and seasoned with vinegar and heaps of salt and pepper, but the smokiness and hint of vinegary sharpness really shine. The lentil base is good too - make sure you don't overcook the cubed veggies, a bit of texture amidst the soft lentils is key. 

We continue to find treasures tucked away in Plenty - these are a couple more that we'll be returning to in future.

Burnt eggplant with tahini

(a recipe from Yotam Ottolenghi's Plenty)

1 medium eggplant

1/4 cup tahini

1/4 cup water

2 teaspoons pomegranate molasses

juice of half a lemon

1 garlic clove, crushed

3 tablespoons parsley, chopped

1/2 cucumber, diced small

6 cherry tomatoes, halved

seeds from half a pomegranate

olive oil

salt and pepper

First up, roast the eggplant with the skin on. I talked a bit about how to do this above. Make sure you really blacken the skin and get the eggplant completely mushed. Halve the eggplant and scoop out the flesh. Drain the flesh in a colander for fifteen minutes or so.

Once it's drained, chop it up a bit so that it starts to turn into a paste. Pop it into a mixing bowl and add the tahini, water, pomegranate molasses, lemon juice, garlic and parsley and mix everything together well. 

Add the cucumber and tomatoes and stir them through. 

Season with salt and pepper and serve drizzled with a splash of olive oil and a sprinkle of the pomegranate seeds.

Lentils with grilled eggplant

(another recipe from Plenty, also available at The Guardian)

2 medium eggplants

2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

200g puy lentils

3 small carrots

2 sticks of celery

1 bay leaf

3 sprigs thyme

1 small white onion, halved

3 tablespoons olive oil

10 cherry tomatoes, halved

1/2 teaspoon brown sugar

1 tablespoon chopped parsley

1 tablespoon chopped coriander

1/2 teaspoon dried dill

salt and pepper

yoghurt for dolloping

Preheat the oven to 140°C.

Roast the eggplants over a gas stove. Once the skins are completely blackened and the flesh has collapsed into softness, slice them open and scoop the soft innards out into a colander. Leave them to drain for 15 minutes, and then sprinkle them a heaps of salt and pepper and half a teaspoon of the vinegar.

While you're roasting the eggplants, get the lentils sorted. Put them in a saucepan with plenty of water, plus one of the carrots and half of a celery stick (both cut into big chunks) along with the bay leaf, thyme and onion. Bring it to the boil and simmer on low heat for about 25 minutes, until the lentils are cooked.

Drain the lentils and remove the veggie chunks and herbs. In a mixing bowl, combine the drained lentils and the rest of the vinegar, 2 tablespoons of olive oil and plenty of salt and pepper.

Cut the leftover carrot and celery into 1cm cubes and combine with the tomatoes, a tablespoon of olive oil, sugar and salt. Cook in the oven for about 20 minutes (if you time this right, you can have the veggies cooking while you simmer the lentils).

Add the cooked veggies, and the coriander, parsley and dill to the lentils and stir together. 

Serve by building a little pile of the lentil/veggie mix on a plate, topping it with a generous few blobs of the eggplant and then dolloping a few tablespoons of yoghurt and a drizzle of olive oil on top.

CERES cafe IV

January 25, 2014

Though we've visited several times, it seems that we haven't blogged about CERES since a flurry of three posts in 2008! We stopped by the rambling outdoor cafe for a Saturday breakfast before raiding their market produce, organic groceries and nursery, and we figured it was time for an update.

To be honest, it doesn't seem as if the menu has changed a lot since they introduced the Indonesian eggs. It's organic-focused and hippy-ish: free-range eggs and sourdough toast comes with hummus, beans or beetroot relish, there's quinoa in the salad and the display case is full of muffins. Vegan and gluten-free options are well-marked and abundant.

CERES cafe does seem to have streamlined their ordering system a little. Now we queue to place our orders rather than hoping desperately to catch the interest of staff from the haphazardly arranged  tables. Our food and hot drinks were prepared and delivered promptly and the staff looked less harried, even adding a smile or dropping a darlin' along the way.

Michael went back for the vegan adaptation of the Indonesian eggs ($15.60), a deceptively filling plate of brown rice piled with a herb-heavy salad, soy-marinated smoked tofu and a generous side of sambal.

I tried the equally vegan-friendly pumpkin, tofu and miso roll with a side of salad and tomato kasundi ($10.20). The filling was a little bland but the kasundi set it right, and I was mightily relieved to get flaky golden pastry and not the cardboardy stuff of some other co-op cafes. CERES also get top marks for a lightly dressed green leaf side salad full of sunflower and sesame seeds.

The only challenge of counter ordering is resisting the sweet treats on display. I was compelled to queue again for a vegan doughnut ($4.50) and final drink (soy flat white for Michael, $3.80, and dandelion latte for me, $4.50). The doughnut must've been sourdough-based, which worked well with the raw sugar crust.

CERES cafe is a lovely spot on a summer day with reliable, veg-friendly food; all the better if you have children and/or dogs in tow!

____________

You can also read about one, two, three of our previous visits to CERES cafe. Since then veg blogs Green Gourmet Giraffe, Vegematarian and In The Mood For Noodles have posted nice things about it, although CERES mistakenly served coeliac K glutenous toast.

Elsewhere there's been positive feedback on little eats, juganaut's foodie thoughts, Melbourne Cafes Photo Blog, Milk, Chai & Honey, TOT: HOT OR NOT, Purple Party People, The Hungry Grub, Melbourne Mum and adventures of the ordinary. Reviews are more mixed on Globe Troffer and 8ITES.

____________

CERES cafe
8 Lee St, Brunswick East
9389 0155
veg breakfasts $5.70-15.60
http://www.ceres.org.au/cafe/cafe.html

Accessibility: The cafe is open air and very spacious. Access to the medium-height counter is via half a dozen steps or a narrow and uneven path. We grabbed menus, ordered and paid at the counter, then our food was brought out to us. We haven't visited the toilets, though Johanna GGG reported that they're composting!