Orient East: 348 St Kilda Road South Melbourne

Carrying on from the theme of being transported to another place and time, we come to Orient East. It is an almost kitsch bar that somehow also manages to have a modern day expat vibe to it. I have stumbled across similar places in Vietnam and Singapore and always been overjoyed to find such an oasis.

Fittingly, Orient East serves South East Asian food, with small or large plates and lots of veggies. I got carried away eating and talking so I didn't take many pictures sorry.

We all ordered multiple small veggie dishes to snack on. The dishes were well suited to cocktails and company and weren't too westernised that they lacked spice or that lovely sourness that I like about SE Asian food.

What wasn't vegan could easily be veganised. I did really want to try the lamb ribs or the mandarin duck steamed baos but after hearing my newly vegan friend talk about animal cruelty for 30 minutes before I ordered I just couldn't bring myself to do. Sadly. With some space and time I'm headed back with some meat leaving friends to get my carmel pork on.

This restaurant is definitely a shining star in the wasteland that is St Kilda Road Melbourne (you otherwise don't reach the really good stuff until you get to St Kilda proper).

Two ticks. This is another restaurant that I'd be happy to go back to and show off to my out of town friends.

In order of appearance - the rice crusted smoked tofu with sweet potato crisps, mushrooms and pears (yum, love those enoki mushrooms with pear!) and the french beans with black olive and mustard greens (also perfect). We also had the mee goreng, the vegetarian spring rolls and something else from the specials menu.