Bloggers night out at Gasometer

I haven't been using Twitter very long and am not in the habit of constantly checking up on the numerous tweets that people send out frequently so it was fortunate that I happened to be checking my Twitter page right when Theresa of The Tropical Vegan announced that she was coming to Melbourne. Theresa was travelling for work and her arrival on a Sunday night meant that she was free for a dinner date. After a bit of tweeting back and forth dinner was arranged at Gasometer.

It was wonderful to meet up with the lovely Theresa as I have been reading her posts for a couple of years and enjoy her recipes as well as hearing about gardening and house projects and more generally life in the tropics (Townsville) because I am quite fond of the Far North Queensland region. Which is exactly what we spent our time chatting about as well as our families, jobs, pets and of course, veganism, food and blogging.

Theresa had her heart set on the pastrami burger which is the perfect choice for an out of towner. I chose to try something different and ordered the broccoli, spinach and leek pancake with roasted root vegetables. The pancakes were light and delicious, the combination of greens in the filling tasted fantastic, the flavour of the leeks was apparent without being overwhelming and the creamy paprika spiked sauce on top brought it together perfectly. An even nicer surprise were the roasted vegetables on the side, the potatoes, beetroot, carrots, garlic and beans were delicious, cooked to perfection and presented attractively on the plate. This was the largest quantity of vegetables I've had in a meal at Gasometer.

When Theresa and I said our farewells, we both had little surprises in store for each other. Theresa made this adorable elephant for me as a thank you which has the sweetest little tail, gorgeous eyes and just look at that big long trunk. I haven't come up with a name for him/her yet but I really think it needs one. 

In the afternoon, I made a tangy lemon slice which was a recipe I had bookmarked from Kari of bite sized thoughts. I won't bother posting the recipe as I didn't change anything apart from adding a bit of lemon zest to the base. The only issue was I hadn't taken note that the slice needed to be refrigerated 2 to 4 hours prior to slicing. With just under an hour to spare, I whacked it in the freezer for a bit which seemed to suffice. I brought along some of the slice for Theresa in case she was in need of a sweet snack during her stay in Melbourne.

It's always a fantastic experience to meet up with other bloggers even for a shy introvert like me. I'm glad I got the chance to meet Theresa in person and look forward to catching up again one day, if not in Melbourne then perhaps in the tropics!

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This is the third time I have posted about eating at Gasometer, you can read my initial post about the old US diner styled menu here and the current Eastern European menu here. Since I last posted about Gasometer, I've eaten here a few more times but haven't had my camera with me.

The mushroom schnitzels are challenging the pastrami burger as the man's favourite meal, they have a lovely crust on the outside and a tasty mushroom filling inside with an interesting texture and is served with a delicious gravy. It comes with a huge amount of mashed potato which isn't terribly exciting and some garlicky green beans to make you feel good about having something green on your plate.

We have also tried the pretzel and the mamaliga fritters from the smaller plates section of the menu. The pretzel is a perfect dish for sharing between 2, 3 or more people, it's a huge freshly baked bread topped with large flakes of sea salt and fennel seeds and served with a mustard butter. The mamaliga fritters were a bit hit and miss for us but we aren't huge fans of polenta. I was expecting a higher ratio of the vegan goats cheese filling to the outer layer of polenta and the quantity of vegan cheese didn't seem to be consistent between the balls with some of them containing a very small amount. The accompanying sauce tasted great and made the fritters a bit more interesting.

I would also like to add that the waiting staff at Gasometer are very accommodating about taking home leftovers for those times when you happen to order too much food. It's a difficult task to get the man interested in trying other places these days as Gasometer's food has totally won him over.

Gasometer's new menu hasn't had much coverage since I last reviewed it. Johanna of Green Gourmet Giraffe is the only veg*n blogger I could find that has posted about it recently.

Gasometer
484 Smith St, Collingwood
Ph: 9417 5538