Tofu Shop II

Cheap Eats 2006, a decade on

January 25, 2016

We were heading in to Richmond for a gig on Monday night, so decided we'd take the opportunity to revisit The Tofu Shop as part of our Cheap Eats 2006 project. This place has been trading since the early 1980s, so it's no real surprise that it's still going strong.

The basic ordering process hasn't changed since our first visit in 2008 - you pick your plate size and then select from the bain marie dishes until they've filled it up for you. The prices have gone up, but not by a ridiculous amount - a small plate costs $12, a medium $17 and a large $26 (compared with $8, $15 and $17 back in the day).

I ordered a medium dish and let the staff work out a selection for me - there was lots of good stuff in this bowl, including: broccoli with sweet chilli tempeh, potato and black-eyed beans, chilli jam tofu, chickpea curry, baked zucchini with paprika, feta and garlic (this was the only non-vegan dish) and pickled cabbage salary with celery.

Cindy had a small bowl and picked out her own flavour combo, topping things off with a big dollop of tofu dip and pickled ginger. The food is excellent - fresh, healthy and loaded up with vegetables. It's very reminiscent of Munsterhaus (which originally had some sort of Tofu Shop connection), right down to the same tempeh broccoli dish. Smooshing all the dishes into one plate makes the flavour combinations a little tricky, but it somehow seems to work okay.

We left enough space to try dessert - a piece of the apple crumble with a serve of vanilla malted soy ice-cream ($9). They've ditched the soft-serve that they used to offer, but still have a selection of five soy ice-cream flavours (4 of which are vegan). I quite liked the ice-cream, but it was a bit too tofu-y for Cindy. The apple crumble was pretty bland, sadly.

The Tofu Shop is a reliable source of healthy, flavoursome food. It's been dishing out the goods to Richmond people for decades and the steady stream of people dropping by to grab takeaway suggests that things are still going strong. The prices are a bit steep, and the space itself is nowhere near as nice as the otherwise similar Munsterhaus, but it's a speedy and delicious option if you're in the neighbourhood.

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Read about our first visit to The Tofu Shop here. Since our visit, it's been positively reviewed on vego blogs In the Mood for Noodles and Veganopolous, plus non-veg visitors Poppet's Window, Gastrology, I Talk Too Much My Mouth Hurts, New International Students, Who Told You That?, mochii eats, Olive Sundays and MEL: HOT OR NOT (although there are a few complaints about the prices). KT Eats the World and Sweet and Sour Fork were less impressed.

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The Tofu Shop
78 Bridge Rd, Richmond
9429 6204
price list, our dishes, ice-cream
facebook page

Accessibility:  The door has a small lip owing to the street-level incline. Things are pretty spacious inside, with only high stools to sit on or a lower outside table (see top photo). We ordered and paid at a low-ish counter. We didn't visit the toilet.