![[Vegans Unite! Melbourne]](images/vu.gif)
December |
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Sunday 19th: Shakahari Christmas/Solstice Dinner |
201-203 Faraday Street
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A formal-looking (and formal-feeling) bunch of vegans got together at this, one of Melbourne's oldest vegetarian restaurants, to celebrate the season. We sampled all the vegan mains - too bad the famous lasagne was not vegan on this menu - and some of us dared the desserts, keeping in mind the fine dining, minimalist approach to the serving sizes. |
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Saturday 11th: Donkey Sanctuary's Carols
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139 Ironbark Road
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Christmas picnic with donkey's. |
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Sunday 5th: Picnic in Wattle Park |
1012 Riversdale Road
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Yahtzee, running around playing football, betting on kids races, purile jokes, sun, food and Masai.
It was all good.
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November |
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Friday 19 November: Enlightened Cuisine |
113 Queensbridge Street
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Enlightened Cuisine. Details of how it went up shortly |
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Sunday 14 November: Rock Climbing
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16 - 18 Varman Court
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Climbing fun. Belinda will fill in the details once I have finished exams !! |
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October |
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Saturday 23rd: Soulmama
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10-18 Jacka Bvd
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Vegans Unite! showed support for World Vegan Day's Major Sponsor. |
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Saturday 16th October: Laser Tag
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After stuffing our faces with yummy chinese mock meaty morsels 10 game vegans headed around the corner to Darkzone to work off our filling meals, and work it off we did in addition to sweating and stripping off layers as the heat, excitement and running around the multileveled maze kept us on our toes. Our vests gave us alias names such as Buffy, Astro Boy & Venom. Well done to Carolyn and Greg (experienced laser shooters and newcomers to the group) who took out top honours in the vegan group. So much fun was had that most of us stayed on for an optional third game and with Carolyn & Greg calling it quits it gave a chance for a new star to shine and it wasn’t hard to tell that this champion had real military/army training in his homeland where it’s compulsory, we nicknamed him the sniper! Since Sarah couldn’t stop dancing to the music in between shooting we thought she should get it out of her system so went back around the corner where she and Belinda took to the dance machine at the amusement centre. Overall it was a fantastically fun night with a few of us vowing to do some more Laser Shooting soon. |
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September |
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Friday 24th: Sampoorna Vegetarian Surprise |
73 Station Street
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How many vegans does it take to almost fill up a restaurant?
Sampoorna is a quiet, clean restaurant run by very friendly and accommodating people.
For a quick and easy overview of their food, try the $10 Thale experience - cheap yet very satisfying. |
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Saturday 11th: Ice Skating (disco evening) |
1080 Centre Road
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Only a handful of participants were adventurous (or stupid) enough to take this activity on. Due to ice hockey taking place before the skating we couldn’t get to the rink before 9pm so Belinda had most of the would be skaters over at her place for her to offer her first 3 course meal to before the departure time. Already a cold night outside it was colder inside which was a good incentive to keep skating all night to keep the blood moving, although the music could have been louder. Thankfully the skates were all vinyl so it was a completely vegan activity. All but 2 of us were first timers, whilst Craig was showing off his experience one of our ice skating virgins forgot that he wasn’t 7 years old like the kids he was copying and was overly ambitious speeding away in the centre of the rink gaining momentum and then realising he didn’t know how to stop, then splat and one broken arm later I hope he’s now learnt the very important lesson of staying within your limits! Hope the arm’s healed now Mark. Two cold hours later and one injury down I don’t think this is one activity we’ll be repeating again. |
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August |
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Sunday 22nd: Great Taste Vegetarian (Lunch)
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351 Springvale Road
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Can anyone say vegan kids ?? The mongolian beef was great, but don't order the Mikal way and the tea flasks, well they had some magical way of opening. Happy birthday to the twins Mel and Dermot. Lovely cake and muffins were enjoyed at Mel's house afterwards. |
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July |
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Saturday 31st: Karaoke in Chinatown |
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Thirteen vegan warblers turned up to a well worn karaoke lounge in sleazy Chinatown on a cold Melbourne’s winter night. Luckily for the rest of the patrons we had our own private room to block them off from our noise, screaming, partying and dancing. At the beginning people were shy to come up to microphone but it didn’t long before certain at first reluctant bodies were glued to the microphone and we were fighting to get our share of voice exposure, most of the time we just all stood up and sang the songs together. Being a Chinese venue the English songs were limited and some quite old but we managed to fill over 5 hours going through all the ones we knew once we worked out how to operate the system. The titles of the songs were in English but the artist who sang them wasn’t so there were a few surprises once it came on. Kudos to Dermot for being sound engineer for the night as we would have sounded even worse without his technical know how. The cost of the entertainment included a drink tab to that value, so overall there was $325 of drinks to be had with some having more than their fair share. There are photos of the night but a certain body has banned me from airing those, must be something to do with unflattering evidence of alcohol consumption. A birthday was also celebrated that night so Belinda made a delicious caramel cake (so nice that the birthday girl was only left with the tiniest piece) and orange cream filled biscuits to share around. People enjoyed this activity so much that there is a suggestion to hire a karaoke machine with more recent songs and have it at someone’s place, so stay tuned for that one. |
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Saturday 17th: Global Vegetarian
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499 North Road
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Ok, as far as cold nights go this was one of the worst Melbourne had this winter and a certain couple who had intentions to come ended up staying at home where it was nice and snug, but for the seven of us who braved the cold it was a fun night. After having such big numbers for previous dinners it was refreshing to return to the smaller numbers the group started off with and have a nice, intimate, easy and relaxed night. We weren’t sure how many would turn up as this was one of the few gatherings where you didn’t need to book. An advantage of having a smaller number was that we could all be included in the one conversation, and since it was one of Megan’s rare appearances we gave her heaps. The food as always at Global Vegetarian is satisfying and economical so it’s always a popular choice. |
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Sunday 4th: Mini Golf - Wetlands Golf and Games
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703 Wellington Road
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Fun, sun, wind and violence.
We fielded two teams of four. Dermot was the best player by far, but then he brought all his own equipment, Adam did well, though Thoron attempted to hamper his performance (with the effect of trashing his own round instead), Kelly joined the winners in the second round. Sarah managed two great hole in ones for the final round. As for the rest of the girls (and me) well lots of laughing was involved. |
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June |
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Saturday 26th: 'Supersize Me' Movie and Dinner at Blazes
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584 Glenhuntly Road
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Due to this event being organised at short notice we only had a few people but it gave us a chance to use the cinema vouchers we got from the CCF Expo showbag the previous year so we all only had to pay half price to view the movie. What better movie for vegans to see than one which is anti-McDonalds and did a sterling job of rubbishing them. If I wasn’t meatless before I watched this movie it would certainly have made me think seriously about giving up the evil habit. We all enjoyed the flick and it gave us plenty to talk about and review whilst we had a meal at Blazes just up the road afterwards. |
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Friday 25th: Vegetarian Nirvana Cafe |
486 Bridge Road
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This dinner was huge, well in numbers, we filled up a very long table in the back section of the restaurant right next to the warming open fire. Lots of talking and eating, the usual. |
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May |
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Saturday 29th: Vegans Unite! One Year Anniversary
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584 Glenhuntly Road
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A night of great food and lots of laughs at Blaze's marked the first anniversary of Vegans Unite! Once again, the evening saw us leaving the restaurant last - is this our new trademark? |
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Saturday 15th: Bowling
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938 Nepean Highway
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This was the first official Vegans Unite Social Event and what a great start it was. We met up at Sarah and Adam’s place and acquainted ourselves with their menagerie of companion animals whilst dropping off the food we had made to eat later. Then we walked to the bowling alley and divided up into two teams of four (there were also two spectating participants) which changed around over the 3 games we played. One game was girls against guys, the next was couples against singles and the last one was the winners (the 4 highest scoring players) against the losers. Mark D was the highest scoring player of the night (considering he hadn’t bowled for ten years he thrashed everyone) and was duly awarded a trophy at a presentation at dinner afterwards back at Sarah and Adams. |
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April |
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Friday 23rd: Asian Vegetarian Restaurant
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606 Station Street
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Eighteen !!
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Sunday 11th: Easter house gathering |
Camberwell |
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For those who weren't on holiday during the Easter rush, a vegan Easter house gathering.
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March
Friday 12th: Sharma Vegan and Vegetarian Restaurant
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257 Glenferrie Road
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An all vegan restaurant, yay!! We all went for the banquet (thali). The desserts were sweet.
Names starting with M continue to be popular, as well as beards for the vegan boys (with one exception and he was from Geelong).
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February
Saturday 28th: Picnic in Wattle Park
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1012 Riversdale Road
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As always for a Vegans Unite! picnic it started slow at 1pm and just kept getting bigger, until we finally left around 6pm.
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Natural and Healthy Vegetarian
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747 Doncaster Road
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The Yum Cha lunch attracted so many vegans that we took up half the restaurant! The food kept rolling in, and there was high interest factor throughout the lunch. Yum cha is very cheap when food is shared, and we paid around $9.00 each!
In case you haven't had it before, Yum Cha or Dim Sum describes a Chinese-style meal
during which small hors d'oeuvres are ordered and brought to the table, one after the
other. Natural and Healthy seems to be the only place in Victoria where most of the yum
cha menu items are vegan. There are mock chicken drumsticks, mock sesame prawns, and
delicious seaweed rolls. Rare treats such as marinated tofu skin are also available.
Prices for an order, being a serving of 2-5 treats (4 sesame prawns, 5 hot seaweed rolls, etc)
are a measly $3.30. This restaurant is also able to prepare more usual mock meat dishes,
such as mongolian beef.
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January
Sunday 25th: Picnic at Studley Park
Hummous galore, Dermot's hot dogs, alpha chocolates.
The picnic started out small and just got bigger and bigger.
Soccer, frisbee, cricket were all played.
Lots of talking, eating and running about.
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Saturday 10th: Picnic and Music in Fitzroy Gardens
A pleasant evening by any account. Melbourne put on a beautiful January sunset,
with vegans uniting on a collection of colourful picnic rugs. Entertainment was provided
by Soukous Ba Congo, an African band which had the audience dancing in front of the stage.
The conversation carried on long after the band wound up.
photos