Almanac Food: Old Dog’s Bush Pub Vego Reviews

 

Being a vego for 45 years is easy. All it takes is a bit of conviction, not much. Just be prepared to miss the odd meal when out, and have a good diet at home. Of course, there’s a lot of morons out there, a WORLD of them, so there will be lots of repetition in your life, unfortunately. Dickheads, somehow threatened by what you eat, earnestly demanding you justify yourself, your beliefs, ready with their big ‘Gotchya!’ about the leather shoes you wear, or tallow in chips, or whatnot, as if you haven’t heard it one million times before, as if you bail them up in public and make them justify why they’re fuckwits, in a way that clearly implies they are dumber than you for it. These carbon copy drongos, booming “You know milk comes from a cow!?” then laughing, ‘HAR, HAR, HAR!”, wide-eyed in your face, because they are so original and funny. It’s not easy, putting up with lowest common denominators, but, really, not hard either.

 

I just wish them luck with their Triple M playlist.

 

In the bush it can be a weenie bit harder. Yes, when younger, I had a blue or two, just to be sure nobody thought they could own me over it. A monkey on the plantation crews shouting at me at the tucker shop; “Just take the ham out of the salad roll! Bloody snowflake!” So I nicked his roll before lunch and defecated in it. “Just, y’know, pick it out… Snowflake.”

 

But I digress.

 

Times change. Getting a meal at a local, these days, is far less hard than it used to be for a vego, most venues at least give you an option, but can still have its problems. The main one being; a lot of chefs assume because you’re a vego, you eat like a rabbit. Small servings are any bush worker’s counter meal heartache. A real tragedy. You’ve worked hard, you’re knackered and starving. The beer’s burned away the bush grime in your throat perfectly… and… they serve you up a leafy bloody fizzer.

 

But some pubs have changed with the times better than others, and are dead-set rippers. Here’s my review of some locals.

 

 

THE PORT CAMPBELL PUB; Eggplant Parma

The Port Pub is the best in the world. Killer bands, warm, inviting, great mix of locals and tourists on both sides of the bar. Comfy, a lot happening on the walls, no pokies, ripper dining area, corker beer garden, play-pit for the skid lids. Just heaven. Nobody judges you when you come in covered in bush and smelling like earth. Being in a district still full of young crew gives it great noise and energy. Surfies, tradies, musicians, people full of life!

 

The kitchen is famous for its tasty grub. A wee bit pricy for a bush pub, but worth it. Early days, I ordered the mushroom meal. Two came out on the plate with some token salad. Each one, I could wrap by pointer finger and thumb around. Didn’t put enough substance in my belly to get a fart out.

 

The eggplant parma tastes like a 10 goal win, as do the sweet potato fries – which are the best in the land. But the meal, as a whole, depends on who the chef is.

 

It’s weird. The eggplant parmas used to be hopelessly small, so I never bothered to take the 30 minute drive down to eat there, so no beers, either. Or bring the family. The pub would lose about $150 per non-visit, just to save one-bloody-dollar on an extra slice of eggplant! I’d look at the chicken parmas brought out to the young lads at the bar next to us, and they were as big as elephant’s poos. I was jealous!

 

It was dumb.

 

Then, they got a new chef! The vego parmas were brought up to speed, and volume. 21^st Century, baby! I didn’t have to order two meals just to be full, then feel ripped off I spent $60+ hard earned on a pub dinner – before beer. We ate there, as a family, every second Friday.

 

Lately, though, they’re like Gary Lyon’s career; peeked for a year or two, but faded. The memory of that year or two was so sweet, you remember it as him being a champion forever.

 

Last time I went, the two pissant pieces of eggplant came out ON TOP of chips to make it look like they’re bigger than they are, as if that would fool a 3 year old distracted by big screen reruns of Bluey!

 

It’s insulting.

 

One extra slice, $1. Why wouldn’t they? Madness.

 

The Port Pub is still the absolute pinnacle of pubness, but we mostly eat elsewhere. I love the place! Have coin to spend. It’s a bummer.

 

 

THE GELLIRBAND RIVER HOTEL; Vego Parma.

The Gelli Pub is the other best pub in the world. Set back from the road, on the old bridge crossing, in a lazy valley, a small front bar full of local bushies, dairy famers and odd crews, and a wide, grassy beer garden peppered by firepots, that bleeds easily into the paddocks and bush around it. Owners that are God’s gift to the country; hard working, friendly as hell, community minded. Local bar staff, not backpackers. They know ya, they like ya, they share the local language and casual banter.

 

HEAVEN!

 

The owners, Dot and Cory, turned an abandoned ghost of a building, and town, into a thing of life, without doing one fancy thing. They treated people well, and brought in good servings of ripper pub grub! Hell yeah! Now they’re packed most nights. People come from everywhere.

 

The vego parma tastes like a dream! The sauce on top is a great mix of tomato, cheese, cheese sause and avo. But you soon realize, for its base, the thing they build it around, they use potato cakes, not some type of vegi. So, if yer a mug vego, you’re eating cheese on top of battered spuds, with a side serve of battered spuds. (chips). If you want some salad, just to break up all that bloody yellow, its extra, taking the meal over $30.

 

Fair dinkum, with all that starch coming out of me, I could iron my shirts just by wearing them!

 

It’s an otherwise great, no fuss kitchen, and still the equal best pub in the universe, but I now rarely eat there.

 

It does have another vego option; a warm salad. My wife loves it, but it just doesn’t fill me. And I just can’t wrap my noggin around salad as a main, sorry.

 

 

THE AUSTRAL HOTEL, Colac.

The Austral has been through some changes, reflecting the change in Colac in general. It used to be a stripped bare place built around a TAB and Pokies, where all us footyheads would go to try and beat the shit out of each other and pick-up on a Saturday. Now, it’s had renos, and looks a treat – classy, even. It’s become a place to go for its own sake. Beers cold, staff solid, everything warm and inviting.

 

I went in there the other arvo with a mate for his birthday hoping the food would surely match the new setting. Ordered a Vegi Schnidda. What they brought out was just plain insulting.

 

Fair dinkum!

 

A McCain’s deep-frozen, $2 piece of flat cardboard with bread crumbs on it. Stiff as a board, no garnish, no toppings, just a thumbnail-sized tub of green snot, and the old fall-back, chips, to not make the plate look so empty.

 

I held up the schnidda by its edge, to show the boys; stiff as a highway patrolman! As one week old roadkill. Did not bend a milli. You wouldn’t serve it up in an end-of-night, leftovers, truck stop bain-marie for $4.20. (The sort where the attendant throws in some free rock-like dimmies just to get rid of them).

 

(Not that you can eat them, anyway, you’re a bloody vego!)

 

(Still, I’m not going to tell the attendant that – they’ve done you good – free grub! No doubt their day’s been long. Just thank them greatly, and feed the dimmies to the dog when they’re not looking, then watch it in the tray of your ute, on your way home, trying to naw through the crusty exteriors.)

 

But, yeah, I sent the vegi schnid back. Didn’t want a refund. Just didn’t want to be a participant in such bullshit. Why not simply put up a sign; NO VEGO’S WANTED.

 

More honest than having your eye pissed in.

 

It takes an hour to drive home across the ranges. When I got there, I kissed the wife and kid good-night, shut the kitchen door, cracked a few bourbons with the footy replay on my phone and had a good enough time cooking something.

 

 

THE COLAC RSL

The Colac RSL is a beaut. Big and full of dinkum people. The whole point of RSLs is the familiar. A place for the old timers to gather and have a home and remember those who served and the fallen. Shift with the times? I never expected it to update so much as a fork, for anyone.

 

There was pretty much nothing on the menu for us dirty, stinking vegos. No worries. Just to be sure, I asked someone, who pointed me to someone, who asked the chef, who came out, and insisted on improvising something, even though I said; “Nah, she’s right, don’t bother.”

 

Perfect.

 

No fuss, good people. The beer kept coming.

 

 

Let’s some of us stand to tides
and stay the same,
lest everything change
and we fade away. 

 

 

THE RICHMOND ARMS HOTEL, Tasmania. Vegi Parma.

Richmond, down south of Tassie, was once a dot worker’s town built by a meandering river. But the farmers who founded it must have been very British, very quaint. Like Evandale up north of the state, as times changed, they dusted off all the lovely cottages and gave it the feel of a well-polished boutique village.

 

Not my cuppa, but good for them.

 

The pub is a glorious fortress, crammed with mouth-breathing touros who like their country experiences quaint and photogenic, and prefer their servers generic. But the beer garden is just as big, with elbow room. The eggplant parma was huge, the misso’s vegie risotto nailed it for her. Happy wife, happy life. As for me; when I am full, I am safe. Our kid and my mate’s kids ran around like loons, the beer was cold, the arvo perfect.

 

 

LILYDALE LARDER, Tassie. Vegi burger.

Lilydale is the ultimate dot down in NE Tassie. I lived on a mountain out back of it for about 8 years, wood jagging and working on the plantations. The new owners dolled the pub up as if transforming Sir Les Patterson into Dame Edna. No longer a windowless cinderblock brick with chicken wire door, good only for loggers to fight with dairy boys. (I loved it! Haha). Like the town, with its new cafes, the Swinger’s Arms has changed dramatically. The big, wooden deck out front makes it an open part of a lovely district, with rolling hills and mountains everywhere.

 

More than enough space that the local barflies aren’t breathing on ya.

 

Being a barfly is fun. Killer stories. But it should be optional.

 

 

A pub Vegi Burger is a roll of the dice for a vego. Do they cook the patty, or, if a quality chef, big fat mushie, on a separate frypan, or on the grill with all the fat-sizzling meat orders? If it’s the latter, you can taste it like sagging hairy dog’s balls! When that happens, I just push it aside and drink harder. But I was starving. I took a punt on 50/50 odds, hoping for glory.

 

Yep. And nope.

 

I couldn’t taste the frier fat, but the patty had less flavour than Kyle and Jackie O, and zero fancy sauces to save it. Just some basic salad either side, un-melted cheese and a small bun to absolutely yawn over. Shaz, from the tucker shop across the road, makes one bigger, tastier, served with great local banter and personality, for less than half the price. Onya Shaz.

 

Eating my Larder burger was like trying to bite a void.

 

Everyone else I was with were meat eaters. They weren’t impressed either. Poor Lu’s carbonara pasta was ordinary, and the side serve of salad was just a few scoops of Coles coleslaw – her meal a soup of lumpy cream-colour on lumpy cream colour.

 

FFS! You reckon working class people can’t tell if something’s from the Coles $2 quick sale bin, tarted up like a Trump hairdo and sold to you for $32.50?

 

Beer is beer. Grubby lines aside, you can’t go wrong. Good grub is everything for a bush pub. Everything. My mates were local and said they wouldn’t go back. All six of them, and all the other locals, should have been eating there every Friday, then, a few sips, momentum, company… whoops, the pub just got my rent money! They’re still prying my fingers off the bar ten minutes past closing, the town’s half broke, but drunk and happy and full of life and social.

 

I really thought I didn’t have to phone anybody. I’d just rock up to the pub on a Friday and bump into people. But it was deader than an Elvis deep fried peanut butter, jam and bacon roll. And the man who invented it.  Doorknobs, baby. It’s such a shame. The place has the framework to being something amazing.

 

 

THE PUB WITH NO NAME, Outback Australia. Vegi Parma.

Once, while dragging the family, and all our belongings, from a job tree arboring in FNQ to oyster farming in southern Tassie winter, we cut through the Outback. As you do.

 

Life on the road.

 

I can’t remember the town, but it had a population of 14. 12 of which were lonely blokes, I’d reckon. And a pub on an inland trucking route, just before the road turned to red earth for a few thousand kilometres. It was a Tuesday night, but the place was PACKED! 40-50 truckies, making noise! Laughing, telling tall tales, carrying on like family.

 

The vegi parma was as big as boob jobs, and tasted like winning a trifecta, each horse at odds of 20/1 or better.

 

Nice. One.

 

The mood was electric. I parked wifie and baby upstairs and got drunk with the publican. My first night off the chain since we had the tacker. I asked the bar owner what the secret was?

 

“Serve truckie sized meals,” he said. “And keep the kitchen open all hours, so they don’t feel pressure to get here.”

 

Give

 

good,
get
good.
The bloke, and his wife, got it. Bet publicans ever.

 

“We don’t even discriminate,” he said, getting wobbly.

 

“Against the Indigenous?”

 

“Of course not. I meant against you vegos!”

 

Then he laughed like peanuts!

 

I woke under the bar. Best night ever.

 

Give good, get good. It’s such a simple formula.

 

 

More from Matt Zurbo HERE.

 

 

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