Tuesday 28 February 2012

Vegetarian restaurant crawl of BA

So we admit it, we have been eating meat whilst away.  Judge away, I know we are.  We tried to fight it.  We resisted as hard as we could, but after days of eating stale bread and fried potatoes our will was weak and our strength was fading.  We had managed to find one vegetarian restaurant early in the week.  By Australian standards the salads were bland and unimaginative but it was better than nothing and the seats were really comfy.

BA offers meat restaurant after meat restaurant with top quality steaks at bargain basement prices.  The thrifty Asian could no longer hold out and was the first to crack.  Not wanting to do anything by halves, a bloody medium rare steak was ordered and quickly devoured.  It was good but I knew there would be consequences.  The next day I felt ok.  A little lethargic with only a hint of stomach pain.  As I had broken my meat pact thoroughly, it was now Marc's turn.  Another delicious steak was inhaled with a small side of guilt.  Two days was enough.  We knew we had to find vegetables.  So with the help of a few blogs and a couple of hours of hard core internet research we had our targets and set off.

1. Bio

This place was a sheer delight and not only because of the FREE home made breads and pumpkin dip!  Here we sampled their delicious fresh lemonade with a good hit of ginger and a stir fried mixed mushroom dish.  It was simple fare but executed brilliantly and after days of poor eating we were quite happy with our mushrooms and rice.  The vibe was accidental love child oh urban hipster meets dazed and confused Nimbin hippy.  This place scores 4 out of 5 tofu cubes.


"Stop taking photos of me I'm trying to eat free bread."

Smug.
Hongos a la Bahiana - mushrooms with chili and coconut milk

2. Meraviglia

We completely misjudged the distance between all these restaurants and thought we would snack at one then slowly make out way to the next by which time we would be hungry again.  Unfortunately they were all quite close together and we were not really hungry.  Marc managed to squeeze in an orange and banana juice (odd combo but surprisingly it worked) and I forced down an amazing organic wholewheat flour cinnamon bun.  So good and definitely worth the public shame of having to undo the top button of my shorts.  The atmosphere here was a little sterile compared to Bio but the staff were very friendly.  3.5 lentil patties out of 5.


3. Artemisia

Our last stop of the day was 2 blocks down and we were well and truly full by this stage.  We managed to score some more free bread and ordered a large bottle of gingery lemonade in the hope that the ginger would help settle out stomachs.  The place was lovely and airy and open and the waitress was very tolerant of our minimal ordering.  As we didn't actually eat here the score will have to be for service and ambiance only.  4 wheat grass shots out of 5.