FNQ - Eating out

This feels like a rather pathetic post as over the course of the week that we were on holidays, we only dined out a few times and not once did I take a photo! The camera didn't make it with us to one of these dinners, once the light wasn't great so I didn't bother and another time I was too darn hungry to remember to take a shot before shovelling the food into my mouth. Nonetheless, I thought I would write a bit about the places we ate at as finding vegan food around Cairns and particularly Mission Beach was a bit challenging! To jazz the post up a little I have added in a few shots from our week away...

Someone getting ready for a swim, definitely not me!

After our return from Russell Heads, the man and I stayed a night in Cairns and strolled around town for a long time trying to settle on a place to eat. He felt like a Malaysian style vegetable curry but we were put off by limited veg options in a few Asian restaurants and staff standing by the door trying to intice you in just like they do on Lygon Street in Melbourne. We recalled having a decent vegetarian curry on our last trip to Cairns two years ago and wandered in the direction of a place called Mondo's at the Hilton. The Hilton has a couple of restaurants, Mondo's being the more casual of the two which also has the bonus of outdoor tables by the water.

The menu stated the items that contained dairy and we were disappointed to find that out of the 4 or 5 vegetarian items, all had the little "d" symbol next to them. We were getting tired and hungry by this stage and after questioning whether the Sri Lankan vegetable curry could be made without dairy we were given the thumbs up! This was just what we needed, a mild-moderately spiced bowl of curried vegetables served with rice, a tasty tomato chutney and a crispy pappadum.

Bananas growing in the garden of our rental house in the Daintree

Before we headed to the Daintree, I dragged the man down to Lillipad Cafe as I had seen it listed on the Happy Cow website as being vegetarian friendly. It was a very casual laid-back place and it took us a little while to realise that we needed to grab menus from the counter inside where you also ordered meals. There was only was breakfast item that didn't contain eggs so we both went with that after verifying with the staff that it would be vegan. The man was disappointed that they didn't provide any Nuttelex even though I pointed out that there was more than enough avocado to spread on the lovely light pieces of toast. The brekky also came with some cute mini hash browns, yummy pan grilled tofu, grilled tomatoes and mushrooms cooked with spring onions. We also enjoyed well-made coffees and freshly squeezed orange juice and waddled out of there full to the brim.

Cairns is a destination we have been to several times so we like to travel around the region and spend time in different locations as there is so much diversity. Rainforests, islands, mountains, beaches, beautiful croc-free freshwater swimming places and even goldfields and the outback are accessible. We still haven't seen it all!

Although the sky looks clear at Mission Beach is was quite windy and not very warm

Cyclone Yasi tore through Mission Beach and the surrounding area in February causing a huge amount of damage to local residences, businesses and surrounding national parks. As we hadn't been to this area before I felt it would be a good time to visit. Many businesses only started to re-open in July and really need all the tourism dollars they can get. The cyclone must have been too much for some people as there were plenty of businesses closed down and shops up for lease.

There are three main towns in the Mission Beach area and although we stayed closest to the largest one we didn't eat there as there wasn't much that looked vegan friendly. After driving through the Wongaling Beach shops and then a bit further down to the beach we spotted a Thai restaurant opposite the beach. The man and I don't usually frequent Thai restaurants as we find that Thai food in Australia contains way too much coconut milk, not enough spices and tastes nothing like what you eat over in Thailand. As we were rather limited for options this time, we decided to give it a try.

Tully's Golden Gumboot - it's height of 79m represents the highest rainfall in one year!

Many dishes had the option of being made with tofu or vegetables including soups, noodles, stir-frys and curries so there was plenty to choose from. The man surprised me by selecting pad grapow (stir-fry with chilli, garlic and thai basil) which is what I would usually choose. I had my eye on a jungle curry which is something you don't see very often. This appealed to me as the description indicated it was water based rather than coconut based which sounded like it would be nice and spicy. We ordered both of these meals with tofu as they already contained vegetables and ensured that there would not be any fish or oyster sauce added.

When our meals were delivered we were in heaven as they were absolutely delicious. I don't think we have eaten Thai food this authentic since going to Thailand. The jungle curry tasted so fresh and spicy and I was relieved that the man didn't want to split our meals down the middle. He was more than happy with his meal so we were both satisfied with simply tasting a few bites of each others. I was curious about the jungle curry ingredients so I questioned the owner as I wanted to know if he had used fresh peppercorns in the paste. Oh yes indeed, they were grown in Silkwood (20 kms down the road). This meal was the absolute highlight of our trip and now I am on the hunt to find some fresh peppercorns so I can attempt to recreate this sensational curry at home!      

Josephine falls near Innisvale. None of our photos do this beautiful place justice.

Mondos
34 Esplanade, Cairns
(07) 4052 6780
Lunch and dinner only

Lillipad Cafe
72 Grafton St, Cairns
(07) 4051 9565
Breakfast and lunch only

Nana Thai
165 Reid St, Wongaling Beach
(07) 4068 9101
Only open for dinner, dine-in or take-away

FNQ - Holiday Cooking

My first official trip away from home as a vegan was to Far North Queensland last week so I wanted to be well prepared and take along some food for the road. The man and I (we went childless this time) flew up to Cairns, were picked up by our friends K and N and taken to an isolated spot called Russell Heads (pictured above) for the weekend, It is a tranquil and beautiful place 45 minutes south of Cairns and on the coast but only accessible by boat and only when the tide is high. The two of us then drove to the Daintree where we stayed in a gorgeous house in the middle of the rainforest for a couple of days and after that drove south down to Mission Beach to throw some dollars at the local economy which is still rebuilding after the devastation that Cyclone Yasi caused in February.

I started preparing for the trip a week in advance with some Viva Vegan chorizo seitan sausages as I thought they would be handy to have in case of a BBQ. Around the time I discovered chorizo seitan last summer, this spicy chipotle ranch dressing was also a hit and we enjoyed several chorizo snags in bread topped with the ranch dressing. It had been a while between batches, so I whizzed one up for the road. I also took along some of Cindy's well renowned vegan sausage rolls and prepped the bean burger mixture also posted on Where's the Beef recently. For the plane trip, I threw together a Mediterranean flavoured risoni based pasta salad which the man adored. It is a recipe I plan to work on further when the warmer months arrive as I thought it needed a little tweaking. So as well as our luggage I had a big cooler bag full to the brim of supplies to keep us going!        

The sausage rolls went on the first night and although K and N liked them, they were totally blown away by the chipotle ranch dressing. Unfortunately we forgot to take tomato or BBQ sauce so the sausage rolls were downed in a rather unorthodox fashion, with either sweet chilli sauce, tamari or chipotle ranch dressing. A trip to the shops would have meant a cruise back up the crocodile infested river in the dark so we had to make do with what we had. K and N made some awesome rice paper rolls the following night which was a bit of a struggle given the only knife in the house was totally blunt rendering it almost useless. Unfortunately I didn't take a photo of the end result.

On our way to the Daintree we stopped off in Port Douglas for groceries and the man was interested in a Thai red curry and lentil bolognese (with garlic bread of course!) for our dinners. I was stunned that I couldn't find any plain tofu in two supermarkets, all they had was the pre-marinated packages which I usually don't buy. On our first night I made a red curry with a vegan friendly paste spruced up with extra chilli, garlic and lime loaded with heaps of vegies and marinated tofu and it was delicious.

For lunch the next day we had bean burger subs. The pre-made burger mix was purely made of ground beans, nuts, oats, flour and spices which made it perfect travel food. There was no need to keep it chilled and a week after making the mixture, it still smelt fresh and just as  good as the day it had been made. The final steps only required the addition of tamari, water and some garlic and after soaking for 15 minutes it was ready to ready to fry. These burgers had such a robust texture that I had no qualms about them falling apart in the pan. The subs were layered with a tofutti cheese slice (which I thankfully brought with me from Melbourne), the bean burger, tomato sauce, lettuce, carrot, capsicum, red onion and avocado. They were very tasty subs, the bean burgers had a fantastic nut and garlic flavour with a slight crunch and were deceivingly filling too.

We didn't have cooking facilities at Mission Beach which was a shame as it was difficult to find vegan eats but I will write more about that in my next post. For our last night we drove back to Cairns to stay with K and N who had planned a wood-fired pizza night as they recently bought a second-hand oven. I tried to hunt down some cheezly in Cairns but to no avail. A vegetarian supplies shop listed on the Happy Cow website had a "For Lease" sign in the window and a couple of other health food stores were of no use in the cheezly department. We made do with the remaining chopped up tofutti slices we had and the man was unusually given license to create the toppings for the vegan pizza. As well as heaps of veggies and loads of garlic, he decided to chop up some bean burgers and chorizo which worked a treat. We called it the vegan meat-lovers pizza! 

My biggest regret was that I didn't return to the Cairns markets before we returned home to purchase some fresh produce. We went there on our first day and I was blown away with variety of fruit and vegetables available. Local produce like bananas, pineapples and avocadoes were about half the price that we pay in Melbourne. Other more exotic tropical fruits like jackfruit, lychees, mangosteens and rambutans were in abundance. My jaw dropped open when I saw plantains as there are quite a few recipes that use plantains in Viva Vegan which I have wanted to try!

Although the weather was a lot warmer than Melbourne we only felt the sun on our skin once which was a shame. It was overcast most days with showers here and there but it was still lovely to walk around in shorts and t-shirts for a week. It doesn't feel right to finish without a recipe so I will leave you with the bean burgers which will definitely be made again and they will be something that I keep in mind for future travel. 

Next post will feature some places where we ate in FNQ!

Bean Burgers (Adapted from Where's the Beef and originally from Meals without Meat)

1/2 cup dry chickpeas
1/2 cup dry cannellini beans
1/2 cup unsalted peanuts
1/4 cup toasted sesame seeds
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/4 cup chickpea flour
1 tablespoon dried parsley flakes
1 teaspoon salt
2 large cloves garlic, finely chopped
4 tablespoons tamari
1 cup water

Place the chickpeas, cannellini beans, peanuts and sesame seeds in a food processor bowl and process until the texture resembles breadcrumbs. Add the parsley, salt, oats and chickpea flour and mix well.

At this stage it can be stored in a airtight container for at least a week.

When you are ready to make burgers, add the water, tamari and chopped garlic to the dry mixture, mix until well combined and allow to soak for 15 minutes. Shape the dough into burger patties and fry until each side has browned up nicely.