Vegan munchies in Sydney part 1

Living in Sydney as a vegan has been nothing short of awesome. It seems everywhere is so much more knowledgeable, its not just limited to the fully vegan establishments. For example coffee (something that the Aussies take almost as seriously as their sport), in the UK, if you want a coffee with soy milk you’d either have to go to a vegan café or a huge chain such as Starbucks, but here all vendors be it a small hole in the wall at the station or a quirky hidden oasis, all carry soy and damn do they make good coffee. I don’t think I’ll ever be satisfied when I go back to the UK. And most restaurants seem to do at least something vegetarian that isn’t just a cheese loaded pasta. I think the Asian influence in Australia helps a lot. If you are stuck you can always find something like sushi or pho on nearly every corner.
The suburb where I live is Newtown and its famed for its quirky residents and vegan food. I love living here, if I had more money I’d probably eat out every night. You can get cheap Chinese and Thai food at Green Gourmet and Blossom Lotus on King St, both do hot plate buffets that you can take away as well as order from the menu. Vegans’ Choice supermarket next to Green Gourmet stocks lots of faux meat products in their freezers as well as cheeses, cakes and homemade tofu ice cream. There is Vina a vegetarian Vietnamese too. Your best choice for vegan pizza is at Basil Pizza, try the animal lovers its amazing! They also do a great brekky on the weekends. You can also get vegan pizza at Mad which is situated in Civic video, its not as good as Basil but you can get good offers when you rent a movie too. For weekend brunch APT in Berkelouw books on O' Connell St, is fantastic. They have different specials every week as well as staples such as pancakes and full breakfasts. Sadhana Kitchen does stunning raw foods, I love to go there for a coffee and one of their many raw cakes which are always very decadent. On Enmore Road close by, there is Spoons vegetarian butcher, they do hot snacks like ‘popcorn’ tofu bites to take away and you can buy packs of sausages, burgers and schnitzels to stock up your fridge. I am especially fond of the schnitzels. You can get vegan options in may other places too, like the Indian restaurants, they advertise their dairy-free options on the menu, you can veganise a couple of burgers in the chain store Burgerlicious, and Gelato Blue ice-cream parlour has a whole section of sorbets, but be sure to try the chocolate- it’s the best chocolate ice cream/sorbet I have ever had.
Bondi is remarkably vegan friendly. My favourite Funky Pies (not biased or anything!!) is situated a couple of streets back from the beach but well worth going to. A large range of fully vegan pies, (available with mash, peas and gravy if you wish) coffee, cakes, ice-cream and a small selection of grocery items such as vegan cheese and bacon, make this a winner. Close to Funky Pies there's also Sababba, which does the most amazing falafel pockets, and IKU Whole food where you will find lots of healthy options such as salads, macro burgers, millet balls and stews. IKU is a chain of stores, they also have locations in the city, Glebe, Rozelle and Neutral Bay. Close to the beach, ice cream giants Gelatissimo, do a large range of dairy free sorbets. Miss Chu, a popular Vietnamese tuck shop chain, has a spot on Campbell’s’ parade, they have a few vegan options such as dumplings. Laurie’s Vegetarian on Bondi road, is bit of a walk from the beach but they do lots of lovely fresh salads and burgers. I believe there is a new place near Laurie’s, called Bondi Organic café which stocks a lot of IKU whole foods items but I have not been in yet.

Phew! thats a lot of places and I haven't even started on the city centre yet! Sydney vegans sure are lucky. Sorry for the lack of photos but I don't tend to photograph my food, I just get stuck in!

Some Funky Pies to wet your appetite.

Getting here and starting out

We flew with Cathay Pacific (very recommended airline) via Hong Kong where we stayed for two days to break up the journey. Very worthwhile splitting the trip by stopping in Asia if you can afford it, as it helps reduce the jet lag and its a fantastic place to visit. I've been to most of the big stops such as Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and Hong Kong and they are all awesome (the first two are considerably cheaper though). We had pre-booked a private room in a hostel in Sydney for a full week so we could get settled in and have a secure base from which we could work from etc. The hostel was Billabong Gardens in Newtown, mainly chosen for location as Newtown has a huge subculture community and some great bars and lots of vegan food. Guess its worth noting that this is our second trip to Australia (first back in 2007) and so we purposefully chose to stay out of the backpacker realm of Kings Cross and Bondi Beach since we'd 'been there, done that'. 

As we had been to Sydney before we didn't need to rush off and pack in all the tourist sights. Our main plan was to find work as soon as possible. We had applied online for our Tax File Number before we arrived and had it sent out to the hostel. We also made sure we had our CVs printed out and bought an Australian sim card for our phones straight away. A great deal for smart phones is to get the Woolworths Optus pre pay sim which gets you a lot of credit and also 5gb of internet data for $29($27 with a Woolies card). We had already contacted a few places for work before coming, which we were interested in working for, but if you are not particular in what you want to do, the best place to look are on Gumtree and seek.com.au as there are hundreds of jobs posted on there everyweek. Hostels will also have a noticeboard for work opportunities and of course just walking into a place and enquiring- if you've got balls.

My partner Micheal was very fortunate in landing a job within the first week of arriving, at Funky Pies, a wonderful all vegan pie shop/cafe in Bondi. Perfect for him since he is a vegan chef!

Since he landed the job first we decided to centre our search for accommodation within reasonable distance of Bondi beach. Again we used the convenience of Gumtree which is great for searching for rooms and apartments for lease. However we did find it a bit tricky being in a couple, most flatshares only wanted a single in the room and obviously some people were a bit put off by our appearance and lifestyle. Luckily in the second week we came accross a large share house not far from Bondi Junction which was owned by the family next door and rented out to backpackers, usually for a 3 month lease. The room was large with two beds put together and best of all it was ensuite with a huge bath and huge built-in wardrobes. We paid a bond(deposit) of 4 weeks rent and got a signed receipt for this- don't ever give over a bond without paperwork!

I work in theatre arts, and having worked in the props department of Scottish Opera for 4 years in Scotland, I was delighted to be offered work at the Opera Australia props department. Really an absolute dream come true, and on the day before my birthday too!! Needless to say I had a great celebration on my birthday. For this we decided to do the Sydney Harbour Bridge Climb- not cheap by any means but totally worth it.

Looking totally hot in those jumpsuits!

 We headed to the kitsch Luna Park after the bridge climb, Sydneys' iconic historical amusemnt park. I totally loved the vintage posters and ricketty rides and it makes for some great photographs. 

I can't remember what we did for dining out that night, but I'm pretty sure it will have involved some vegan food in Newtown and lots and lots of Coopers Pale Ale! I will do separate posts on Sydney vegan eats and good bars.