Revisiting Fremantle and exploring the new Raw Kitchen

Ah, Fremantle. It has been featured quite a few times before on Bite-Sized Thoughts. As Perth's bohemian cousin, it sits at the ocean entrance of the Swan river and houses artistic types and those who like a laid back atmosphere with plenty of good food and drink. It is also very friendly to vegetarians.

Clockwise from top left: Fremantle markets;
casual seating outside the markets; street chess;  street art.

Some of you may remember my previous reviews of The Raw Kitchen, with its array of raw vegan meals and snacks. It is one of Fremantle's highlights and the original cafe overflowed with long queues at lunchtime.

This year, The Raw Kitchen moved to new premises, around the corner from the old shop but still in Fremantle. The new venue is a renovated 1920s warehouse building and must be at least 10 times bigger than the old location. Despite the increased size, it is still busy! When I showed Mr Bite the picture below, he expressed amazement that there were "so many people like you". It seems that raw food has well and truly taken off in Australia.

The new Raw Kitchen - still busy!

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Apple, beetroot and carrot salad with walnuts

You may remember me raving about The Raw Kitchen's Thai Papaya Salad and Tarragon Salad this time last year. I subsequently created a variation of the Thai Papaya Salad at home. Today, I bring you a spin off of the Tarragon Salad. There are a few differences to the original, but this version won me over in its own right.

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Returning to things much loved: Family, The Raw Kitchen, and a blackberry avocado chocolate pudding

It's been over 3 months since my last avocado-containing dessert, so I'm hoping it's acceptable to let another one grace these pages. It's hard to believe that only 2 years have passed since I discovered the wonder that is avocado in dessert form. I still don't like it in savoury dishes, but if you pair it with cocoa or fruit (or both!) and process it into mousse (or cheesecake, or ice cream!) then I am completely smitten.

My last avocado mousse recipe involved raspberries, and I have to confess that this version is not very different - except that instead of raspberries, we have blackberries, and instead of carob, we have cocoa. I wouldn't like to have to choose between the two options, and can see myself happily alternating between them for the foreseeable future.

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Raw Thai papaya salad

When I had lunch with Mel at The Raw Kitchen Cafe, I was introduced to the edible joy that is green papaya. I'm not even sure I'd heard of green papaya before then, never mind had the privilege of tasting it. 

Green papaya

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The Raw Kitchen Cafe, Fremantle - lunch with Mel

On Sunday, I was fortunate to have lunch with Mel from Veganise This! She and her family are currently travelling Western Australia, and we managed to meet up on one of her days in Perth.

This is the first time I have met a blogger friend in person, and there is something quite bizarre about meeting someone face-to-face after communicating online over months and years. There is also something a little intimidating about going to meet a new person you have only communicated with indirectly! As it turned out, Mel is as lovely in person as she is on her blog, and I really enjoyed the few hours we spent together.

When deciding where to go, I suggested Fremantle on the basis of its vegan-friendly cafes and merging of heritage buildings with a slight hippy vibe. It is a worthwhile place to wander if you aren't from Western Australia. We ended up choosing Fremantle's Raw Kitchen Cafe as our lunch destination, which I have mentioned a few times before but never actually eaten lunch at (my previous visits have been for snacks and/or drinks).

We arrived shortly before 12.30pm, to a queue of customers out the door of the cafe. It is a deservedly popular spot and I spent most of our time in the queue trying to decide what I would order. Every time a waitress carried a plate past, I would change my mind to the dish in question. Several bowls of zucchini noodles caught my eye, piled high with noodles under marinara sauce, as did raw nachos, pizza, and falafel balls.

Tarragon Salad on the left, and Thai Papaya Salad on the right.

In the end, I ordered straight from the glass-fronted cabinet within the store, asking for a mix of the Thai Papaya Salad and Tarragon Salad. Mel ordered the raw pizza, with sides of the same salads, and we both ordered coffees with nut milk that had been made in store.

My conversation with Mel would have been enjoyable in its own right, but set against this salad...it was a really great lunch. I wanted to dive into this salad bowl. I spent the first few minutes trying to work out what the flavours were, and the rest of the meal trying to work out how they made it taste so good.

Best salad of 2013.

As I couldn't fully decipher the ingredients, and the staff were quite busy on the day we were there, I actually sent an email to ask if they would mind letting me know what was in the salads. I received a helpful reply the next day, and so am able to tell you exactly what made these dishes so good.

The Thai Papaya Salad consisted of green papaya noodles, grated carrots, snow peas, cashews, and fresh coriander, mint and basil, with a dressing of olive oil, Braggs liquid aminos (soy sauce alternative), and various herbs and spices.

Even with the name, which really should have allowed me to work it out, I hadn't realised that it was green papaya that formed the 'noodles' of this salad. I was guessing zucchini, but am now keen to try papaya noodles at home - they were incredible!

The Tarragon Salad had grated beetroot, apple and carrot, walnuts, string beans and sultanas, with a dressing of tarragon, olive oil, cashews, garlic and other herbs and spices. I am guessing that the cashews gave this its slight creaminess, which worked well with the earthy beetroot base.

Despite being busy, our meals were served promptly and the coffees were hot and well made. Mel also reported enjoying her raw vegan pizza, but I will leave discussion of that to her should she wish to review it.

Thank you, Mel, for the opportunity to meet up, and thank you to The Raw Kitchen Cafe for a great lunch and for being so helpful in answering my email enquiry!

Other reviews of The Raw Kitchen can be found at Urban Spoon (our service experience was fine, unlike some of the reviews there).

Have you met any bloggers in person? 
Or eaten green papaya in salad form? 

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A low-key weekend of enjoyment

After the excitement of the last few weeks, it was quite nice to have a weekend that was thoroughly enjoyable in a normal sort of way. Don't get me wrong - I am still incredibly grateful and thankful for the bigger excitements of the last little while. Overwhelmed by them in fact. However, we all know that the 'big' things can't happen all of the time and sometimes the small-scale pleasures are all the more pleasurable because they are small.

The weekend started off with on a high note when I ran, miraculously and almost inexplicably, without pain. I mentioned my difficulties with plantar fasciitis earlier this year, but haven't been going into details on the ongoing, incredibly irritating hip pain I have been experiencing since late last year, with the working diagnosis of iliotibial band syndrome. On Saturday, I ran for 30 minutes with no pain and it was an experience beyond amazing. I hope it lasts! Perhaps being engaged has blocked my pain receptors?!

Saturday also involved a cafe visit with school friends, an increasingly challenging scenario as the six in our original friendship group scatter geographically. This year saw the first baby born to this particular group, and having a 10-week-old baby girl join the afternoon was remarkably fun.

The enjoyment continued on Sunday. Many, many posts ago I talked about Fremantle, with its arty vibe, organic foods, fresh bread, and raw and vegan meal and snack options, most notably at The Raw Kitchen Cafe. With Mr Bite happily settled at the football, I wandered Fremantle for a few hours and had a thoroughly fun time.

I found raw carob pieces:

I like them very much indeed. These are quite literally just the edible parts of the carob bean, meaning they are slightly but not too sweet, and don't have the palm oil that goes along with so many carob products.

I also found raw kale chips, seasoned with a barbecue spice blend that includes raw cashews and carrots.

If we're being honest, I liked these less than I was expecting, and will probably stick to fresh kale in future. However, they win points for novelty value and make for an easy vegetable-based snack.

With advance planning, I also settled myself at The Raw Kitchen Cafe with a book. It is a delightful place to take a book to, with comfortable chairs and non-matching furniture.

I took pictures of the menu on my phone, which means the quality is quite appalling, but I thought the menu's first page was worthwhile including anyway. As the following shows, this is a good cafe to visit if you want to find real, natural foods.

I had a green smoothie and a raw, nearly vegan (it contained honey) macaroon with acai and vanilla flavours.

 

My current book, Cutting for Stone, is set in Ethiopia and it is a book that is beautifully written. The language pulls you in and it turned out to be a perfect match for settling back with the smoothie and macaroon. The smoothie was cold and creamy and just slightly sweet from the banana. The macaroon was slightly too coconut-y for my tastes, but it isn't fair to hold coconut flavour against a macaroon. I did enjoy the texture, which was crumbly but dense, and the fact that it was sweet without being artificial in its flavours.

The lovely thing about these sorts of small pleasures, too, is knowing that they are possible again. My bank account may not welcome purchases of carob kibbles, kale chips, and raw cafe treats on a weekly basis, but they are accessible pleasures nonetheless. Friends and running and books - those too.

What about you - have you had any small pleasures lately? Do you have a favourite set? Books and food always seem to make it on to my list!

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