The Clean Treats Factory

Decided to go here coming back from an airport drop off. Parking here is hard to find, since I think all the street parking is pretty much taken by the people who work in the warehouses in the area. This place is so spacious since it was an old warehouse, but they redecorated it and loved the sort of open feel and relaxed decor. It’s a plant based cafe with heaps of vegetarian and vegan options.

food spread

 

Blue dream latte-$4

Gypsy rose beetroot latte-$4

I decided to go with the butterfly pea latte with macadamia milk mainly to have more colour on the table, even though I know the powder is pretty much tasteless. Paired it with macadamia milk, which I think is the first time for me having it. It has a slight milky/nutty flavour, but I feel like the taste isn’t as prominent compared to almond milk. The rose latte was super fragrant, but the taste is pretty subtle.

Tumeric cinnamon pancakes, walnuts, mixed berries-$17.90

I feel like these days I’ve had one too many pancakes, but when the pancakes are one of the more popular dishes on the menu, I can’t help to order it. The pancakes here I feel like lacked both cinnamon and numeric flavour. Texture could be more fluffy and a bit more moist. I feel like it’s something I could make it home if I tried, or at least just chuck in more cinnamon and numeric in it. The pancakes here weren’t too sweet and the yoghurt helped not make the pancakes too dry.

Zucchini linguine with cashew sauce, spinach, tomato-$17.90

The linguine sounded nice on paper but tasted too healthy/bland in my opinion. I feel like the creamyish dressing was just missing some herb or spice flavour. The bottom was quite oily which doesn’t help since at the end you feel like you’re just eating olive oil at the end. Even like pesto or something would have helped elevate the dish. I’ve had vegan pasta before, and I remember the pesto dressing really made that dish really flavourful.

Didn’t get any desserts to take home even though they all looked good. Didn’t feel like the food here was amazing so opted against their vegan treats. 

Earth to Table

Vegan, healthy and delicious-really can't go wrong. This place was on my list to go ever since first year uni (just like many of my other places on my list to eat lol). I used to have a physical list 4 years ago, but the cafe craze kicked off way too fast that within a year I sort of ditched a physical list and just made a mental list.

Food spread

   

Give me beauty: fresh coconut mylk, berries, banana, macqui and vanilla to make you glow

Their drink menu is quite extensive, so I couldn't decide if I should go with a hot drink like a chai latte or which smoothie. I decided to play it safe with a berry based smoothie, which I tend to normally go for to 'compare' them between places. Loved the small details on sprinkled on top. It was probably a bit too safe since it tasted like other berry smoothies, just healthier with stuff added. It was thick without being too icy, and only a hint of vanilla. Maybe should've tried a cacao one next time, since even though I have cacao powder at home, I can never seem to blend it properly with other smoothie ingredients...The banana smoothie next to it was very bananary and quite thick.

  

Rainbow Seaweed Slaw: kelp noodles, beetroot, carrot, broccoli and red cabbage immersed in a ginger-miso dressing-$16.90

Super colourful and well dressed without being too salty, since it's easy to over use miso. Veggies were really fresh and had a good crunch. Interesting to see seaweed being used as noodles.

  

Kale Pesto Pasta: kale and zucchini linguini mixed with a superfood pesto spinach, rocket, basil, spirulina and hemp seed served on braised spinach with kale sprinkles-$18.50

This was my dish, and when it came out it looked massive with a large pile of pasta. I loved the crispy kale sprinkles on top. This dish was super filling, but would've have liked a more pesto flavour, and a bit less of the dressing since it ended up being quite oily (even though they used healthy oil), and I didn't really like too much of the acidity in it. There was heaps of spinach as well which helped to make this stack. 

Matching drinks and cheesecake 💜

Lemon and blueberry cheesecake: cashews and lemon blended with a blueberry swirl-$11.50 (takeaway $9.50)

This was unintended to make it match, since it sort of meant I can't try more flavours from the cafe cause the top of the cheesecake is pretty much the same mixture from the smoothie.. I definitely knew I wanted to get the blueberry cheesecake, because of the colour, although I also wanted to try their other raw desserts. I've tried making raw cheesecakes before, but my blender can't seem to blend the nuts finely enough to get a soft non chunky base, or the cashews being creamy.

I highly recommend the cheesecake. Not too dense yet still creamy without being too rich. There was a good amount of sweetness, but also a lot of zing from the lemon. The blueberries on top and berry layer cake it a nice acidity as well. Loved the chocolate and coconut cream spread on the plate.

I really recommend everyone to come here. Who knew vegan food could be so delicious?

 

 

cakeeee

Pana Chocolate

Finally made my way down here to try these raw, vegan, handmade chocolates without going all the way down to Melbourne. There's some seating to have your cakes and chocolatey goodness, but most people generally buy things to take home. Unfortunately it was a warm day, and the cakes would've melted by the time I got back home, so decided to share a slice at the place.

Lime and lemongrass cake-$9.50

It's actually tiny in real life, around 6/7cm, and for that price, yes, it is very expensive. Well life is too short to not eat cake, especially when it's made with organic, health and guilt free ingredients. It is good quality as you would expect for that price. It was fragrant with a good hint of lemongrass and lime, and super smooth texture from the coconut oil. A little bit of crunch from the nut based biscuit base but wasn't too hard to bite into. Worth giving a go.

Chocolate block-$6.90

Yes, almost $7 for 45g chocolate is normally not worth, but this was super smooth without the richness/creamy/buttery/fatness you find in normal choc or even in some dark chocs. There were some tiny fig seeds in there and little bits of orange pieces for texture. It wasn't sweet at all and not overly bitter. I would actually buy blocks of this if they weren't so expensive...The foil wasn't sealed which I thought was odd.