In the tourist-centric neighbourhood of The Rocks, we found really good veggie wraps and smoothies at the Playfair Cafe, a low-key, open air cafe with outdoor seating right on Playfair Street (the one with the market). It was very crowded. Although it was definitely not a veg establishment, it was a good option.

 

 

Excuse me, do you speak Canadian? A Quick Translation Guide:
Rocket = lettuce
Capsicum = red or yellow pepper

 

Far away from the tourists, in the suburb where we were staying, we found some veg foods in the local grocery stores, Coles and Woolworth’s (known colloquially as Woolly’s). The selection was small. Curiously, the health foods section had a huge gluten-free aisle, but very little of it was vegan, and the word ‘vegan’ was non-existent. I have found out since returning that Coles carries a line of gourmet, vegan cookies. We found our salvation in Fruit World, however. Fruit markets are in every neighbourhood, and carry a vast assortment of fruit and veg for those who are eating raw or able to cook where they are staying (we were staying with rels, so we had the convenience of a kitchen). It is important to note that organic produce has not caught on to the same extent in Australia as it has in the Americas. In fact, it was only to be found in a few small shops and it was expensive. Also surprising were the high prices of Australian-grown delicacies like mangoes. We did find roadside stands selling flats of mangoes for around $20. Of course we indulged!

 

Yeah, yeah, but what about the vegan restaurants?

The vegan-most neighbourhood is the funky, hipster ‘burb of Newtown (on the Inner West train line). Here you’ll find Green Gourmet, Green Palace, Vegan’s Choice Convenience Store (by the time this is published it will also be a vegan fast food cafe) and Basil Pizza. All are in the same block of King St.

Green Gourmet is a buffet-style restaurant offering vegan buffet items in a casual atmosphere.

Green Palace is an all-vegan Thai restaurant that offers a buffet and a la carte options. Besides a good selection of gluten creations, they have vegan versions of all the Thai favourites. Portions are ample which makes it a good value, and a tasty one.

Vegan’s Choice is like a mini-Food Fight! Its humble environs belie its selection of vegan staples, dry goods, faux-meat products and treats. It also sells the excellent Australian Vegan Voice quarterly magazine and has a vegan soy ice cream case.

 

Basil Pizza isn’t a vegan restaurant exactly. It’s kind of half-vegan. One of the two owners is vegan (and quite an affable chap) and the restaurant offers one dedicated vegan pizza (Vegan Lover’s) and the option of vegan soy cheese (Cheesly brand) on their vegetarian pizzas. As an added bonus, they make their vegan pizzas on separate pans, with separate utensils so no cross-contamination occurs. It appeared that most of the staff were vegan too, and thus vegan-friendly. The staff were just plain friendly really. If you’re there for the first time and order a vegan pizza, one of them, the vegan owner perhaps, is likely to strike up a conversation with you. That’s how rare vegans are in Australia! It reinforces the sense that being an Aussie vegan is like being part of an underground resistance movement (which we at vegan underground kinda’ dig) and less like the broad and legitimate healthy/compassionate lifestyle choice that it is in other countries across the big pond. Charles, the owner welcomed us into his vegan Sydney with complementary long blacks made on his 100% vegan, never-fouled-by-dairy espresso machine. We felt like we were in! Charles was so wrapped up in his conversation with us that I had to remind him to charge us!

 

Basil Pizza has another identity that only comes out on lazy, hazy, weekend mornings. As Newtown sleeps off its hangover, the little pizza place with a secret transforms into Naked Espresso. To accompany the aforementioned vegan coffee, they have an all-vegan breakfast menu. Leave your hippie-pretensions at home, this is a real Aussie breakfast, but a (mostly) healthy one that didn’t incur the harm of any living beings. How good is that? The challenge here is what to have, with choices like The “Morning After” Giant Fry-Up and the Big Aussie Vegan Feast. You really can enjoy it too, because it’s all made with vegan-only, untainted pots, pans, cutting boards and utensils. Charles (the owner) really does care about his vegan patrons, even the Canadian ones! Our breakfast visit (sadly we could only fit in one) was pleasantly unique as we played a rigorous game of Uno with the owner’s 4-year-old daughter before our food came. We had the Morning After, which could instantly cure any fuzzy remnants of the night’s debauchery and reminded us of those 24-hour breakfast places in our university days. That this was compassionate, and not that bad for us, was hard to believe. We also tried the Organic Pancakes, a more sophisticated stack of fluffy, gluten-free, buckwheat delights, layered with bananas and strawberries, and lightly drizzled with real Quebec maple syrup (hey the stuff’s expensive on the other side of the world!). Needless to say, we left with the fullest stomachs we’d yet had on our trip.

 

A must-do weekend side trip from Sydney is the south coast of New South Wales: the Sapphire Coast. Apart from a fantastic drive (if you do the Princes Highway the whole way), some great beaches and a good cross section of Australian life, there is one real jewel: Pebbly Beach. Google it and you’ll see why it’s so magical to us foreigners still enamoured with bipedal marsupials. It’s a beach with wild kangaroos on it! They come out of the bush at dusk, when it’s a bit cooler. You can walk quietly into the herd and just hang with them. Some of them will come right up to you to check you out! Do not feed them though, that’s not allowed and not advised. If you piss one of them off, you could get a bite, a bit of a boxing or a mean kick. One look at their claws, or those giant toenails on their feet and you’ll be cautious. For the most part, the roos go about their business, eating grasses, and ignoring the humans.

 

 

It’s a truly amazing experience. No captivity, no fences, no baiting, just wild kangaroos doing their thing. It was one of the most magical places we’ve ever been. In addition to the roos, there are tons of cheeky tropical birds, ducks and giant goannas. I almost stepped on a 4-foot-long goanna (lizard in the monitor family) with feet the size of my hands, fair dinkum.

 

 

Our other major destination was the city of Brisbane, in Queensland. Brisbane is relaxed compared to the big city of Sydney. Its smaller scale and cool modern architecture make it a great city to walk around in. The only real vegan establishment we could find was a laid-back restaurant on Boundary St. in the West End called The Forest. Their smoothies are refreshing on a hot arvo, and the Tempeh and Veggie Burgers are delish. They also have a selection of vegan dishes available by the plate load, two sizes, and awesome vegan cakes for dessert. If you’re in Brisbane and looking for a vegan restaurant, this is your best and only bet. We thought we might stumble across something in Fortitude Valley (where Chinatown is), but we didn’t. The West End is a typical sort of strip where you’d find vegan food. It’s lined with funky clothing shops, record stores, second hand places and a rad-looking BMX shop called Ride On (same name as one of our local BMX bike stores here in Vancouver. Hmmm).

 

No trip to Brissy would be complete without a weekend getaway to a beach unit on the Sunshine Coast! Travel tip: check www.wotif.com for great last minute deals on vacation units (condos).

We stumbled upon a great find while staying at Mooloolaba Beach: The Spirit of Tibet restaurant. It’s not all vegan, but it has many vegan items on the menu. And they use the word “vegan”! We had two meals there, one eat-in, one take-away. The place is genuinely Tibetan, which has to be extremely rare anywhere in the world, and our server was Tibetan (it’s a family-run business). We started with Spirit of Tibet Mixed Entree (in Australia, an entree is an appetizer) which included Momos (Tibetan steamed dumplings), Spring Rolls filled with tofu, and vegan Samosas. All was tasty. For mains, we had the Tse Thukpa and spicy Koko Nor Bamboo. Both were unique and delicious. The added novelty of eating in a real Tibetan restaurant made it a memorable dinner.

 

Other vegan notables... on a driving tour that took us through the Glasshouse Mountains, we stopped for refreshments in a quaint town called Montville. We saw t-shirts with anti-vegetarian slogans, which were meant to be humorous, but they summed up the general feeling we got from most Aussies (including the ones we are related to) about our chosen lifestyle. Of course their irony was not lost on us.

 

 

We also took our young cousins to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, which turned out to be mostly a thinly-disguised zoo. Once in the gate, we made the most of it and visited the various indigenous animals and tried to teach compassion and appreciation to the young among us. We felt conflicted about the whole affair and could only hope that our money went to the conservation efforts they said it would. While we were in Queensland, a related news item reported that a state-run Koala rescue was being investigated on charges that they abused and brutally killed any and all rescued koalas brought to them. The Lone Pine Sanctuary seemed far from that, but the resounding attitude towards the national wildlife seemed to be a jaded one. How many times did we have to listen to people telling us the kangaroos need to be culled, and that this animal, or that bird was really a pest? Many times. Of course, we hear it in our country too.

 

While it can be hard to find at times, Australia’s vegan community is definitely solid. It seems to have been shaped by Australia’s geographic isolation. Like the unique indigenous flora and fauna, vegans have evolved their own Aussie versions of things vegan. They have their own organization, the Vegan Society. They have their own magazine, the Vegan Voice. They have their own veggie burgers, Bounty Burgers (and others). They have their own vegan shoe manufacturer, Vegan Wares. They have their own vegan skin care products, Myutopia. They even have their own pet food, Biopet Vegan. There are farm animal sanctuaries and vegans there are making sure the public hears about animal rights issues like the live export of sheep. The vegan scene downunder may not be as big as on this side of the earth, but it’s definitely full on.

 

On the next tour, we’ll hit Melbourne, Adelaide and possibly Perth in our quest to uncover what it’s like to be vegan in Australia.