Saturday 6 October 2012

Vegie Bar in Fitzroy

Popular amongst the locals and visitors alike, it is not difficult to understand why.

My dining partner Mr I and myself arrived one lazy Sunday afternoon after 1pm and we were seated almost immediately despite the full capacity of the place. The crowd is quite varied and family friendly orientated.

After a week of heavy dining and training for a fun run, we opted for Vegie Bar to ensure that our hard efforts in exercise were not wasted. Being a carnivore, some of the hesitations I have with vegetarian food relate to taste and possibly getting hungry again 2 hours later. However this proved to not be the case and we walked away with an overall good experience.

We ordered two mushroom dishes from their menu. One dish with quinoa and a lovely tomato sauce base that was better than some of the Italian places I have tried! Flavours were well combined and additively awesome. I would order this again with no hesitation and ask for more sauce :D



Mr I ordered a baked mushroom with beetroot, snow peas, avocado and salad. It was tasty but didn't have intense flavours as the quinoa dish.


Both dishes arrived fairly quickly once we placed the order. Must be a popular dish. The table next to us ordered the exact same thing. Light and refreshing, the dishes don't leave you in a bloated state which is what we were aiming for. Oh how that would change...

Being major sweet tooths, the dessert cabinet also caught both our attention upon being led to our seat initially. We ordered a raspberry yoghurt cheesecake and flourless chocolate cake to share. The cheesecake was a healthy alternative however the texture was more of a frozen yoghurt in the end. It was a tad too sour for my liking.

The best dish of the day was the gluten free chocolate cake. It had a balanced texture and the cocoa wasn't too rich. Overall, it was not too dense, rather fluffy in nature even though the flour was missing. Maybe we should all start baking without flour :) we polished off every crumb and chocolate sauce from the cake with no hesitations. Inside we were probably screaming *MORE* and wanted to lick the plate if no-one was watching however started to feel guilty when we saw our bulging stomachs towards the end of the meal.



Value
The mains we had were reasonably priced ($16.50). The menu is overall good value for money with reasonable portions and decent quality. The entertainment book contains a once-off 25% discount voucher.

Service
Service was a hit and miss. The female waitresses were attentive and prompt when we requested items or asked questions to follow up on missing food. There was one male floor staff floating around the dining area and near the counter who took a while to come back with answers or any requests. Our desserts were really delayed compared to our mains. We requested the bill from the male waiter and that took at least 15min which I thought was unacceptable. When the bill finally arrived, the male waiter stood there while we sorted out the bill split. We did not want to hand over our bill to him incase he took a long time with the change. I placed cash on the tray and was expecting $10 change. Another 10-15min had surpassed and we wondered what had happened to the change. Tired and restless, we approach the counter and enquired about our bill. Our $10 change was placed in the tip jar! I cannot believe the waiter made an assumption that he had the right to deal with our change in that way. We would have left a tip but after that mix up and being stood up on essentially, we just wanted to get out of there ASAP as we were late for another appointment.

I hope readers don't experience the same service as we did. Approach the friendly female waitresses instead.

Food: 9/10
Value: 8/10
Atmosphere: 8/10 (busy but you can still hear your conversations. Evenings are more difficult)
Service: on this occasion 5/10. Would have been higher if it weren't for the hiccup towards the end.
Would I return? Yes for the chocolate cake!

Vegie Bar on Urbanspoon


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