The Juicy Beetroot and The Greasy Spoon

Izzie's been on the weekly slink to Fremantle. Today was particularly decadent on the munchies front. Visited not one but two eateries as well as getting a take away for tomorrow. So much for New Years' Resolutions but our excuse is that four weeks withdrawal from Juicy goodness is a perfectly valid excuse to indulge

Izzie has a confession to make. Always been more than a bit strange and different and the serpentine incarnation is no exception. This python does not gobble whole pigs and deer or sheep. Not even children - tempting as it can be at times. It's not the sort of thing mentionable in serpentine social circles but Izzie is a ........... vegetarian

The Juicy Beetroot is our usual snack spot and can best be described as a hippy haunt in a time warp. It used to be a burger joint until a greenie German came along and converted it into an almost vegan whole food cafe
But what makes this place so unique - it's just so very old fashioned and unpretentious. Izzie can think of no place else that would have pine nuts and cold pressed virgin olive oil in their salads without proclaiming it from the roof tops and all over the menu and with exorbitant prices to match. But these folks don't even mention it. It's just part of the commitment to real food at affordable prices.
And it gets even more affordable between 3 and 4pm which is Happy Hour and all the salads and mains are half price. Years ago used to only visit at this time - cheap creature that the Izzie is. But eventually the pleasure of half price munchies became infinitely less than the pain of most of the stuff been sold out by then

They are also the only place with real chai made with tea and spices and none of the nasty mucky sickly syrup that passes as chai in the so called trendy cafes

While they were closed for four weeks over the Christmas break, made do with some seriously sad substitutes - both Chinese based and serving look alike meat meals made with soya beans or gluten
Wearing our food snob hat and fondness for whole foods with the minimum of processing - Izzie does not eat real corpses and would most certainly not eat fake ones. But our reasons for being a vegie have nothing to do at all with the taste of meat which we must admit we found quite delicious. Guess it is the ultimate expression of the taste that the Japanese describe as 'umami' and which is probably best described in English as 'savoury' Mushrooms, cheese and peanuts are probably the nearest vegie versions of this flavour. Some aged cheeses - Gouda, Gruyere, Appenzeller and such can taste rather like roast beef
And some of these fakes could quite easily fool anyone but the most committed carnivore


But the Greasy Spoon - the McDonalds of vegetarian eating is in a class all of its own. Of course - they don't really call themselves that at all but go by the rather sad and fluffy title "One World" and hide behind a green mission to save the planet to make up for the fact that their food is crap and the in store entertainment is even worse. The place is run by a crazy cult based in Taiwan and are even wackier than the Hari Krishnas. At least the Krishna cuisine is based on real food and not a whole pile of soya beans and tvp pretending to be meat

Many moons ago, they sponsored a vegetarian festival in the city. They had their silly leaflets everywhere with happy dolphins and cows. But apart from this sentimental schmalz, the thing that really pushed this serpent's buttons were some of their arguments for adopting a vegetarian diet
Not the sensible stuff like eating low on the food chain or not wanting to contribute to cruelty to animals and factory farming but because a whole bunch of famous people were also vegetarians
The silly little pamphlet listed loads of folks like various Greek philosophers, Gandhi and Paul McCartney
Izzie innocently pointed out to the organizers that they had forgotten to put Hitler on the list. Oh they got ever so uppity. One silly twit said that it must have been an oversight and another added that Hitler is not exactly good public relations material and not the sort of person they want pictured on their brochures
Izzie replied that if you are listing a whole bunch of saintly people as proof that vegetarianism gives you a guaranteed spot on the moral high ground, then the fact that Hitler was also one even if you don't care to be reminded of the fact or to remind others of it - then it sort of stuffs up your argument totally and makes you look either devious or stupid
It certainly confirms the suspicions that eating vegetarian rots your brain

Mean nasty Izzie also added that this sort of stuff was far more likely to do harm to the cause than good. After all - it just proves the usual stereotypes that we are a brainless bunch of sentimental slush pots. Did we mention smug and sanctimonious too?
Instead of getting folks to go veg by bombarding them with stupid and spurious emotional arguments and guilt trips for the rest of the reasonable case, it would make far more sense to simply serve delicious food and make the case that way
In the old days when Izzie loved cooking and inviting lots of folks around for dinner - most of the guests did not even notice that the meat was missing since there were so many interesting tasty nibblies to choose from

There's tons of yummy stuff out there and the really funny thing is - there's nothing written anywhere in the Carnivore's Constitution that chickpeas, lentils and beans are Verboten. It's just that most meat eaters get stuck in the rut of meat and two veg and never really get adventurous

But today's entertainment was so ridiculously silly that the Izzie eyes were just glued to the screen. There's a video screen constantly streaming snippets from The Supreme Master Headquarters. Today's stories included The Fearless Leader presenting a "Shining Light Intelligence Award" to some man with a parrot in Tokyo and an recording of her with her disciples discussing the lessons to be learned from Martian civilization.
Must go googling for the website so we can share the Fail

It is not her intention but a better site to promote the joys of the flesh could not be found

Supreme Madness
Maybe you too can meet with the Martians

Tomorrow will be munching lunch at Analakshmi - one of a handful of vegetarian restaurants with REAL food and no preaching