Red Rice

Red Rice - 193 Brunswick St, Fitzroy

I wanted to choose a restaurant for a birthday dinner with friends that would have a nice atmosphere and be fairly cheap, but not be all rushed out the door as soon as we'd finished eating. Red Rice does have a great atmosphere, it's decorated very ornately and even has a miniature fish pond surrounded by ferns through one of the windows.

The food we ate was lovely... we got all vegetarian food and shared it between us. We started with spring rolls and rice paper rolls. The spring rolls were heaps better than most veg spring rolls are, and the rice paper rolls were satisfying but maybe not the most spectacular.

For mains we had the grilled eggplant dish, the tofu stack, and the vegie curry. These were all lovely. The eggplant was soft and not too oily, with a little side of pickled carrots for balance. The tofu stack and the vegie curry were similar, the tofu in the stack was crispy and surrounded by a curried sauteed vegies. The vegie curry dish was for me the best dish, the coconut sauce was great - a little bit sweet & sour - like a Thai red curry but not as in your face.

The rice is the most memorable dish - I figured it was Red as in the kind of pinky rice you can get at healthy restaurants (such as Lentil as Anything). But no, it's BRIGHT red, coloured with some kind of plant extract and cooked in garlic and chicken stock. It really is exceptionally red.
The staff were all lovely, and it definitely fulfilled all my requirements!

Cost - Starters - $6 - $8, Mains - $15 - $20

Vegie friendly - 6/10. Not a huge selection, but good food.

Overall - 7/10

Food Inn - Indian Dine

Food Inn - Indian Dine : 1224 Glen Huntly Rd, Glen Huntly 3163

Wanted to start the blog with a rave review - here it is. Food Inn is a cute, super cheap North & South Indian Restaurant in the shopping strip along Glen Huntly station. They're open weekday evenings (except Monday) and in the weekends are open for lunch and dinner. We went Saturday lunch - Sunday they have an all you can eat buffet that's around $13.

Their North Indian menu is pretty standard-ish, there's all the usual meat curries, as well as a large vegie menu. I like the South Indian part because I like South Indian food, and it's also a bit more difficult to find in Melbs.

Today I got Dosa, Vada, Iddly and a Meetha Naan (yum). The Dosa was fabulously crisp, the potato filling was lovely, and it comes with Sambar and Coconut Chutney. The Meetha Naan was great - I haven't had one before (I'm a garlic naan kinda gal) but it's like a regular naan stuffed with fenugreek leaves and then cooked. It was super! The fenugreek is a bit spinachy, with a faint trace of maple syrupy smell (tastes better than I'm making it sound). My only issue with Food Inn is that they do use quite a bit of ghee - not the best if you're a reformed vegan and it also makes the food quite heavy. Apart from that it's all good. Other good recommendations from the menu that I've had previously are the Mushroom Curry (which they can make mild for you if you're a chilli-baby like me), Samosa with Mint sauce, and Palak Paneer.

I give it 9/10.

Veg-ometer - 8/10 (huge vegie menu, but perhaps not the best for vegans)

Prices - $12 - $15 for mains, $3 - $8 for snacks (Cheap!)