Anne-Marie Peard

Highett is known as a sleepy suburb near the beach – there isn’t even a pub here. But as the inner city keeps sprawling, the milk bars and discount stores of this bayside spot have been replaced with restaurants and cafés worth the half-hour train trip.  Look for Typhoon’s fairy lights and busy street-side tables. Inside, the original Art Deco shop has had a Hanoi chic makeover with bar seats around the open kitchen, bamboo walls and contemporary South East Asian art. The restaurant serves North Vietnamese street food that starts with family recipes and offers vegetarians and vegans so much more than a token vegetable stir fry. As tradition dictates, start with cold rice paper rolls (tofu and vermicelli) or deep-fried spring rolls  (chewy mushrooms and vegetable) that both come with fish-sauce-free nuoc cham dipping sauce – but don’t miss the eggplant chips. Twice fried in a cornflour batter, they come with a generous serve of spicy lime aioli (there’s also a vegan option) and their super-crunchy outside and silky inside has us (nearly) ready to abandon the potato version. But really it’s all about the huge bowls of pho here. Head chef Thai Nguyen is from Hanoi and makes his secret family-recipe broths fresh every day for the pho bo (beef), pho ga (chicken) and pho rau (vegetarian) and we are here to tell you that his meat-free soup is an absolute winner. If you’ve been continually disappointed by the broken promises of stock-cube faux phos, prepare to be happy. The vegetable

Simon Fisher learned to make tortillas in Mexico and when he came home he decided to take the Trippy Taco party to music festivals. It was so popular he opened a permanent shop in Collingwood, which then moved to Fitzroy because the queues were too long. And now there’s a second restaurant in St Kilda. And just in case you’re worried you might miss it, look for the bright orange “tacos” sign that points to Trippy Taco Southside at the beach end of Acland Street.  Don’t feel bad if you can’t snag an outside table because inside is filled with natural light and bright piñatas, tikis and prints (including a purple and avocado-green print by pop-surrealist Shag). It’s like hanging out in a groovy 1960s beach house. Your hosts for the evening are welcoming and the food, which is all vegetarian and can be taken away, is made in an open kitchen where you can watch them rolling out the tacos and squeezing the limes – good things take time. The best way to approach your meal here is to order based on texture and hunger levels because the fillings are pretty similar across the board – black beans or spicy chargrilled tofu with salsa, salad, cheese, sour cream and guacamole. If you’re hungry, the soft tortilla burrito is  as wide as your wrist. For crunch, order the nachos with house-made corn chips layered with mozzarella cheese, smoky sauce, tangy salsa, beans, super-fresh guacamole and enough sour cream to count as a daily calcium shot. You should also add jalapeños. Got dietary requ