Green Gourmet : Vegan Yum Cha

Okay Okay, so it’s been a while since we have updated this modest little blog. Life just seems to have gotten a little out of control with wedding plans and working and Christmas preparations. Seems like there has been barely time to speak to one another let alone cook delicious vegan meals or blog about them. We leave tomorrow for 6 weeks of sun and fun (and a wedding too) so there won’t be much cooking going on for the next little while. I will do my best to keep up with some restaurant reviews while we are gone though, and in that spirit:

Green Gourmet – Newtown

We are big fans of the Green Gourmet weekend yum cha. There was a stage a while ago where we visited this lovely little place in Newtown every weekend. This was our first visit in a while and it was just as good as I remember. Unfortunately I didn’t remember my camera so I didn’t get any photos but when we come back from our honeymoon we will be sure to go again so that I can get some nice pics.

This place is really lovely, the decor is basic and nothing to write home about but the service is fast and there are always a bunch of people here. Yum cha is served from 12 – 3 on weekends and it’s our preferred way to enjoy the Green Gourmet, we are yet to try something we haven’t liked but our favourites are: Mushroom Steak – meaty enough to fool even the most devoted meat fan, Not Pork Buns – better than the real thing and Seafood Rolls wrapped in bean curd. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

They serve tea all through the meal – you just pay once, refills are free – but if you’re not a tea fan they have a variety of organic soft drinks available in the fridge as well. Meals are bought out as fast as you can eat them and you can either load up the table for a vegan feast (as we tend to do) or just try a dish or two for a budget lunch.

We have taken many omnivorous friends here over our time, all of them entering with trepidation, and all of them loving it. We struggle to spend more than $25 per person, even after we eat so much we are practically rolling out the door.

Best of all, they even have the vegan choice grocery next door so you take home your favourite dishes and put them in the freezer.

We love this place (did I mention that?)

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Naked in Newtown – Breakfast the vegan way.

This morning darling chef and I headed out to try a newly discovered vegan cafe in Newtown. I heard about it on the Happy Cow website (link to the right) which is where I get most of my vegetarian/vegan restaurant suggestions from. Anyway, we are pretty familiar with the Newtown area so we didn’t have a problem finding the place, although the signage left a little to be desired. The biggest sign out front was for ‘Basil’ which is a pizza place. From what I can tell, the cafe is a coffee place combined with a vegan breakfast cafe in the mornings and early afternoons and then a pizza place at night. Seeing the meat-lovers pizza advertised in the same shop where we were eating from an all vegan menu was a little odd but I guess it works for them!

It’s only a small place and there was only 1 other table taken in the place, but it was almost at the 1pm cutoff for breakfast so that could explain the lull. We were seated and given a paper menu with 6 vegan dishes listed, including a ‘morning after fry up’ with vegan sausages and bacon & ‘organic pancakes’ – buckwheat pancakes with fruit and maple syrup. The waitress came by and asked what we would like to drink, Chef ordered a latte – no problem – and I ordered a peppermint tea. It wasn’t on the menu (I didn’t think to look) but instead of asking me to choose something else, the waitress told me she would organise it before running out the front door of the cafe and going upstairs to her flat where she raided her own personal stash of organic peppermint tea! How about that for fabulous service!

Meals ranged from $7 – $16. We both ordered the “Big Aussie Vegan Feast” which came with fried, smoked tofu, hash browns, tomato, organic baked beans, mushrooms, spinach and organic sourdough toast. The meal came out quickly and everything was fabulous, a pet hate of mine is soggy hash browns but these were lovely and crispy! The sourdough was fabulous and seedy – and served with nuttlex – the beans were delicious and the tofu was wonderfully smoky. We will definitely be back to this great little place! Next time I’ll be ordering the scrambled tofu!

And, best of all it is even right across the road from the Vegan’s Choice grocery so we were able to dash in on our way home and stock up on vegan chocolate for our baking day tomorrow!