Quick and Easy Red Thai Curry

This is a very simple curry. I used a Maesri curry paste, coconut cream and vegan fish paste to create the sauce. In the curry is tofu, mushroom, zucchini, carrot, bamboo shoots, tomato and capsicum. I used a whole tin of the curry paste. It was a bit hot, even though I like hot food, and not creamy enough for me. Next time I would use half a tin and freeze half.

We served it with rice for an easy spicy dinner.

Food at Mt Tambourine

What can a vegan eat at the mountain holiday resort town of Mt Tamborine? As you saw from my previous post, the food at our B&B was plentiful, fresh and delicious.

However, the vegan options for the rest of the town were varied.

(Please forgive the poor quality mobile phone photos, but our camera died.)

On our first night, we ate picked up takeaway pizza at Tamborine Mountain Pizza. They make small, medium and large pizzas. We had a small pizza each. I had a vegetarian pizza with no cheese. The chef confirmed that the base was vegan. They also offered to use a clean cutter for my pizza, without being asked. The base was splendid, crisp, light and chewy all at once. The toppings were plentiful and fresh. The sauce was a tangy tomato sauce. I would have liked a bit more sauce, but it was a very good pizza. Mr BrisVegan had a similar opinion of his non-vegan option.

On Tuesday, we cruised gallery row, which is the main craft sales area of Mt Tambourine. I found a lovely little spice store, Gourmet Spice Blends, where I got some Szechwan pepper, sea salt, dukkah and other items. We visited a few winery outlets. We also went to the MT brewery, which had a tasting platter for $10, which gives 4 small beers.



I had the Mountain Bitter (a Yorkshire style with caramel overtones), the moderation pale ale (US style with fresh citrus and tropical fruit scents), the 0909 Cuvee Blonde (Belgian style with raisin and hops notes) and the Katya Imperial Stout (black stout with chocolate flavours in a full bodied yeasty stout). I loved the Mountain Bitter and Moderation Pale Ale. The others were also very good. There are many other options to try.

On Tuesday night, we went to the local Thai restaurant, Eagle Thai. They were happy to give us a list of menu items that did not contain fish sauce. They had quite a few vegan and vegetarian options. We had the deep fried tofu, followed by a Thai tofu salad with peanut sauce and a green curry, with steamed jasmine rice.



The deep fried tofu was firm tofu, deep fried and served with a nice sweet chilli sauce. The tofu was firm, rather than soft, which I have had deep fried in the past. It was nice for a tofu lover like me, but not the best tofu for the dish.

The curry showed some heat and the fresh spiciness of a green curry. However, it was not particularly full flavoured and did not show the full coconut creaminess that you would expect from this type of curry. It also had a lot of wombok, which was an odd vegetable for a Thai curry. The salad had very little tofu and a lot of iceberg lettuce. The peanut sauce was sweet, nutty and good.

I really wanted to like all of this. I love Thai food and the staff were very obliging. However, after dinner, Mr Brisvegan said "Would you recommend the restaurant to your friends?" We both had to answer "No." We have both had better Thai food at a lot of other places. However, the staff seem to understand the concept of vegan food and have a lot of vegan options, so you know that, as a vegan, you will have a lot of choices.

There are a lot of other restaurants at Mt Tamborine, many of which had vegetarian and maybe even vegan options. I would like to explore further in the future.

Sydney Trip: Peace Harmony

Another restaurant that I regularly go to in Sydney is Peace Harmony. Peace Harmony is a Thai vegan restaurant, which serves some seriously good Thai food. I usually go to the restaurant in Erskine Street. They also have a takeaway outlet in King Street.

The menu is heavy on mock meats, but also has some more traditional items. Mr BrisVegan, an omni, has said that it is some of the best Thai food that he has had, and, seriously, he has had a lot of Thai food.

Here are my most recent choices:

This is a Mixed Entree plate, Tom Yum Soup and tropical juice. The Mixed Entree is satay, spring roll, curry puff, money bag and tod mun. The spring roll is pretty standard, but the money bag and curry puff are miles above average. The satay is juicy seitan served with a very satisfying peanut sauce. The tod mun was probably the best thing on the plate. It was a spicy tangy patty very similar to the traditional tod mun pla.

The Tom Yum soup behind it is fantastic. It is a wonderful hot, sour soup with delicious umami undertones. It is full of veges, mock meat and tofu. I always order this as it is seriously the best Thai soup I have ever had.

Another entree that I have had in the past and heartily recommend is the Tofu Tod, a plate of tender juicy deep fried tofu with chilli and peanut sauce.


For a main I had the Musman Curry quick meal, as I was in the mood for curry. It was very good. I got this for a change, but Musman is not my favourite style of curry. I enjoyed it very much, but in the past have liked the red, choo chee, jungle and roast "duck" curry even more. I have also enjoyed several of their stir fries and their excellent salads. Most meals (but not the salads) come as a quick meal with rice, for usually under $10 or as a larger meal without rice, which would probably be enough for two to share after entrees.

I did not have desert, but they have a good range of sorbets (including chocolate) and traditional Thai deserts.

As a Buddhist restaurant, they do not serve alcohol or allow for BYO. However, they do serve several vegan non-alcoholic wines and beers in addition to fresh juice and the usual soft drinks. Their prices are very good and the quality is consistently high. As you can tell, I am a fan.