Transformer x 3

Spanning November and December, surprisingly I managed to go to Transformer no less than three times. My one experience of the Vegie Bar was a little underwhelming, probably because of bad ordering on my part (necessitated by eliminating all the more interesting dishes that wouldn’t be appropriate for takeaway), but I was hopeful that the spectacular experience of the management plus a more sophisticated menu would spell excellent food.

I wasn’t disappointed.

Visit one was for brunch with my mother. I can’t remember what she had, except it wasn’t vegan and so probably had eggs, but I had the savoury crumpets. I don’t think these were particularly crumpety - more like a hotcake - but they were superbly hearty. Topped with herbs, coconut yogurt, sweetcorn, heirloom tomatoes, avocado and some welcome crunch from red quinoa, these were so good that even the portion size didn’t defeat my enthusiasm.

Visit two (no photos) came on graduation day, accompanied by my mother, and aunt and uncle who had graciously come down from Sydney to share in the festivities. Slightly incongruously, we drank a bottle of Perrier Jouet 1996 vintage champagne, which had been saved up for 15 years, intended for various celebrations that turned out to be anticlimactic when they came. This time there was real cause for opening the bottle.

I had agonised slightly about where we would go for dinner, since I am the only vegan and was outnumbered by voracious omnivores. Fortunately the Transformer dinner menu is so good that we were all satisfied. Indeed, there were exclamations all round for some of the dishes.

From memory, we had:

• organic popcorn (wicked)
• padron peppers
• roasted sweet potato, togarishi, coconut yogurt (we all agreed, this was exceptional)
• heirloom carrots (goat’s curd on the side)
• grilled king oyster mushrooms (consensus - even better than the sweet potato)

Visit three (again no photos) was a bigger family gathering with members from intra- and interstate, and international; diners were a mix of vegan (me), vegetarian, pescetarian and omnivore, with assorted food allergies. We went for the feed me option, and though I feel that as the GF vegan I had a slightly less sumptuous selection of dishes, everyone was very impressed with the food. Again, those sweet potatoes and the mushrooms were uniformly regarded as splendid.

So in summary. Transformer: a place you can take sophisticated omnivore guests for an excellent meal without any need to apologise for the food being vegetarian.

Cash for Comment

Fairfax, what has become of you? Granted I have been complaining about standards since 1997, and the partnership with HuffPo has resulted in a homepage wiggling with clickbait, so maybe I am expecting too much. Now the Good Food section is running advertorials. Even more irritating is that you have to get to the bottom of a rather long article to find this out.

Trying to compete with the monetised end of food blogging doesn't impress.