easy tiger

It has been a while since the last get together of our vegan dining group. We’ve had quite a few delicious dining experiences at East Elevation (twice), Smith and Daughters, Ezard, Maha, Monk Bodhi Dharma and Shu among others.

This time we settled on Easy Tiger, a modern, mostly Thai, asian restaurant in Collingwood that has been awarded an Age Chef’s hat for the last two years.

We booked their small private room which can hold up to 14 people. There were twelve of us, and I’d spoken with the manager Simon when I booked about the fact that we were all vegans. They were excited to have us. They produced fabulous food and were also very helpful in advising on which wines were vegan. The service was  excellent.

The meal was carefully balanced and beautifully considered vegan food, as opposed to vegetarian food with something removed, which is what sometimes happens when you ask for vegan food. Some very high end restaurants are guilty of this. It is just lazy.

But happily, I’ve found that when you take the trouble to give notice to a restaurant that you are a vegan most will make a more than decent effort.  In our case while most of the dishes were on the regular menu in some guise they had been modified with beautiful substitutions and no loss of flavour or texture.  The food was stellar.

We had a banquet at $80 per head which consisted of four small plates of street food bites followed by four larger dishes plus a dessert. It was nice to relax and let them feed us. I am hard pressed to name a favourite dish as they were all deliciously swoonworthy. If really pressed, it is a toss up between the betel leaf, the rice noodles and the dessert.

I can wholeheartedly recommend Easy Tiger. This is how brilliant vegan food can be.

If I could give it a score out of 10, I’d give it an 11.

Here is what we ate. My apologies for some of the photos, the light was great for ambiance, but a bit low for photography.

Peanut ball on pineapple

Delicious starter that heralded a great night of flavour to come.

Betel leaf with coconut, chilli, peanut, palm sugar

This was sensational, and a strong contender for favourite.

Bean curd skin roll with a chilli jam

Crispy, soft, filled with mushrooms.

Sweet potato ball with home made sriracha

The sauce was fabulous, as was the sweet potato ball.

Rice in a beautiful serving bowl

Massaman curry with potato and red chilli

Yummy.

Charred rolled rice noodles with cauliflower, salted black beans and garlic shoots

I loved this dish. Tightly rolled rice noodles, charred in the wok with salty black beans and cauliflower.

Green papaya salad

A classic, great as a sour refresher. Peanuts, chilli, lime.

Silken tofu with shallots

Apologies for the shaky photo, I was trying to capture it before the table devoured it. Brilliant. A wonderful contrast of texture and flavours.

Glutinous rice dumpling 

This was stuffed with sweet coconut that had been smoked over a jasmine candle, and swimming in a small pool of salted coconut cream with lemon basil seeds, young coriander and melon balls. Heaven on a plate.

We finished with some specially made hard rock candy that I didn’t try but I am told was HOT!

Easy Tiger
96 Smith St,
Collingwood 3066 VIC
9417 2373
http://www.easytiger.co/