Lunch in Hoi An

September 1 & 4, 2019

There were abundant vegetarian restaurants for us to try around Hoi An! While many were clearly targeted towards tourists, some were frequented equally by locals and by veg*n visitors. We noticed a variety of customers at most of the banh mi vendors we tried, and the same goes for the following two restaurants - both places with local staff speaking limited English, offering clearly translated menus and fantastic food.

____________ 

Quan Chay Dam is centrally located in the ancient town, although it's tucked into one of the narrower laneways. It opens into a simple but sizable space with a buffet up front and laminated menus available at the table. Yearning for the cơm chay experiences of our last Vietnam holiday, we both ordered the mixed fried rice (30,000VND ~ AU$1.90) and were treated to so many different flavours! A small nest of noodles as well as rice, a spring roll and stir-fried vegetables, samples of four mock meats, and a few pickles. Like the market meals we remembered, it had all been prepared earlier and so was just a little warmer than room temperature but still an absolute delight.

____________

Quan Chay An Lac is a kilometre or so further east along the river; we looked out for it on the day that we borrowed bikes from our hotel and explored the beach. With both pictures and translations on the menu, it was easy to point out what we wanted.

There was pretty much just one staff member running the place, so after she took our order she set to work on our dishes one at a time. We were in no rush and didn't mind sharing so this worked fine for us. First to arrive was the chicken rice (30,000VND ~ AU$1.90); we liked that little yuba strips were used to imitate chicken, and we were most taken by the fresh and distinctive herbs all through the dish, including one we've never encountered in the Vietnamese restaurants we've visited in Australia.

We'd pretty much finished the rice by the time the banh xeo (30,000VND ~ AU$1.90) arrived. It was very thin and crispy with oil, stuffed with more of those gorgeous fresh herbs and veges, and topped with sesame seeds.

Michael ordered a lemonade, and we were initially puzzled that it was the last to arrive of all the dishes... until I figured out that our chef had sent a family member out to purchase ice to make it with! We were so grateful for the hospitality, and for these unique renditions of dishes that we thought we knew well.

Hoi An restaurants

August 31 - September 8, 2019

When we weren't eating banh mi or exploring some casual lunch places (post to follow), we were eating our way through Hoi An's more tourist-oriented vegetarian restaurants. There are plenty of vego places to choose from - this is a quick run down of the places we tried roughly ranked from our favourite onwards.

Annen

Annen already featured in our banh mi post, but the rest of their menu is definitely worth your while - we went three times! It's a yoga studio with a courtyard restaurant, friendly staff who speak excellent English and a good range of local dishes to choose from. Cindy couldn't get enough of the quang noodles with Vietnamese pesto (local basil, peanuts, oil and garlic), a deceptively simple dish loaded up with fresh veggies and the tastiest noodles we ate all week (60,000 VND, $3.80). When I wasn't eating the banh mi, I tried the Annen verson of pho - it wasn't the oily mock-meat feast I was imagining, but it was loaded with mushrooms, tofu, fresh herbs and the perfect amount of chilli (60,000 VND, $3.80). With a friendly courtyard cat wandering around and a lovely laid-back vibe, this was probably our favourite restaurant in Hoi An (we're slightly biased 'cause it was ~500m from the hotel).

____________

Am Vegetarian

Am was a little bit further away, but well worth the effort. The courtyard was beautifully hung with lanterns and the atmosphere was a little trendier than Annen's hippie vibe.

On our first visit, I adored the braised tofu in tomato sauce (55,000 VND, $3.50), even if Cindy said the sauce kind of reminded her of tinned spaghetti. We both loved the traditional fresh spring rolls with mock sausage (60,000 VND, $3.80). The fried rice with vegetarian fish (55,000 VND, $3.50) didn't come with chunks of mock fish unfortunately, but worked well alongside our other dishes.

Second time around we got a zingy papaya salad (60,000 VND, $3.80), which came with a side plate of crackers to start things off.

We also tried a serve of Am's version of beef in lá lốt leaves (betel leaves), which were dense little cigars of absolute deliciousness. We got properly stuck into the mock fish this time, with a hot-pot full of braised fish with Vietnamese mint (60,000VND, $3.80) - this was some very fine mock meat in a week where mock meat proved harder to find than expected.

____________

Nu Eatery

We got a couple of recommendations from friends for Nu Eatery, an omni place in the ancient town with a good range of vego options. It feels a little higher end than most of the other places we ate - still casual, but there's a bit more emphasis on presentation and atmosphere. The food is excellent too - we split three savoury dishes: a serve of the fresh rolls (filled with tofu, jicama, young coconut and toasted peanuts, 45,000VND, $2.90), the cumin carrot (with tahini, spring onions, puffed rice and sunflower seeds, 75,000VND, $4.80) and the vegetarian rice (with charred eggplant, braised tofu and chayote, 100,000VND, $6.40).

These were all really fabulous - the cumin carrots in particular stood out with a fantastic mix of textures and flavours. This is almost the entire set of vego options on the menu, otherwise we'd definitely have been back for a second round.

____________

Minh Hien

Minh Hien is a mini chain of vego places in Hoi An - there are 3 different branches dotted around town. We went to Minh Hien III, which was the closest to our hotel and had a lovely outdoor garden vibe going on.

In contrast to Nu, the menu here was an overwhelming array of options - all vegetarian and mostly vegan. Over a couple of visits we tried some vegetarian versions of Hoi An specialties - white rose dumplings (top left) and cao lầu (bottom left). I was a big fan of cao lầu (49000VND, $3.10) - a simple noodle dish with plenty of trimmings. The white rose dumplings (79000VND, $5) were good too - cute little flower-shaped dumplings filled with a minced tofu mix rather than the traditional pork.

The two highlights though are in the right panel - the grilled tofu in banana leaf (top right, 69000VND, $4.40) and the banana blossom salad (bottom right, 69000VND, $4.40). The tofu was stuffed with onion and mushrooms and loaded with chilli and was easily my favourite. The salad was Cindy's favourite - filled with fresh flavours and interesting textures. There's such a lot on the Minh Hien menu that we could easily have gone back for a third trip.

____________

The Fisherman

We did a day trip to An Bang Beach one day and stopped off for lunch at the only vegan place on the beach - The Fisherman.

It's a lovely setting - opening up right onto the beach. The menu is a bit all over the place - you can get all kinds of non-Vietnamese food: burgers, falafel, scrambled tofu burrito as well as pho, noodles etc. Cindy ordered the sunrise smoothie bowl (mango smoothie base with oats, fruit, chia seeds, shredded coconut, toasted nuts and coconut yoghurt, 90,000VND, $5.70), while I tried the bibimbap (tofu, spinach, carrot, mushroom, zucchini, bean sprouts and rice, 95000VND, $6). Both were fine: the bibimbap had lots of different pickled veggies with a few nice tofu chinks for protein and the smoothie bowl toppings were an excellent mix. In general though, The Fisherman was a bit underwhelming compared to all the fantastic Vietnamese food we'd been eating - it's worth a visit if you're at the beach, but I wouldn't make the trip just for the food.

____________

Vegan Zone

Vegan Zone was just around the corner from our hotel - a cute little place with a much more vegan-oriented philosophy than most of the other places we'd been eating.

We ordered four small dishes to share - clockwise from top-left: eggplant crepes (55000VND, $3.50), vegan fried rolls (45000VND, $2.85), mustard rolls (45000VND, $2.85) and potato cakes (55000VND, $3.50). This was a bit of a mixed bag - the eggplant crepes were a bit too chunky for my tastes and the two sets of rolls were fine without really standing out. The potato cakes were the star - crunchy exteriors with puffy potato fillings and a lovely mustardy dipping sauce.

____________

We ate exceptionally well in Hoi An - Cindy will follow this up with a few of our outings to the more locally-oriented vego places.

Banh mi in Hoi An

August 31 - September 8, 2019

We didn't have too many plans for our week in Hoi An: take a cooking class, go birding for a day, swim in the pool and eat as many banh mi as possible. We went wandering on our first day in town and found our way to the central market. We'd had breakfast at the hotel and it wasn't yet lunch time, but there's no harm in a wander through the food court, right? We didn't find an entirely vego stall like the ones we feasted at in Da Lat, but we did find a couple with vego menus, including Mrs Ha. I decided a second breakfast was in order and grabbed a vego banh mi - it cost 20,000VND (about $1.25) and was a pretty basic tofu, veggies and sauce roll. Nothing fancy, but a good way to get a week of sandwiches underway.

We had to visit Banh Mi Phuong, made famous by Anthony Bourdain's endorsement. It's become a go-to place in Hoi An and there are usually queues out the door. We somehow hit a quiet patch, which meant we didn't have long to wait for a pair of tofu and avocado banh mi. This is a good sandwich - rich and creamy with avo and stuffed full of slightly sweet tofu. Add some chilli for optimal results. It's also vegan (although everything's cooked and served using the same implements), and just 20,000VND ($1.25).

One of the other hyped-up banh mi places in town is Madame Khan. They have an off-menu vegan option (tofu), but we ordered the regulation vegetarian roll: tomato, cheese, egg and veggies (20,000VND, $1.25). This was really great as well - probably my favourite bread of the week - worth your while if you want a break from tofu-based sandwiches.

Happy Cow pointed us to the one entirely vegan banh mi in town, a street stall that sells out by about 10am each morning. We went for 2nd breakfast one morning to try it out. This was pretty classic - nothing fancy, but a great combination of tofu, crushed peanuts and veggies on a crunchy roll. It's also the cheapest on our list, at just 12,000VND ($0.75).

Our last day in town was a two banh mi day, starting at Phi Banh Mi with a vegetarian special, that combined spreadable Laughing Cow cheese with crispy tofu, cucumber, fresh herbs and carrot (25000VND, $1.50). I wouldn't have guessed that cheese and tofu would work together, but they were a surprising hit here (you can sub the cheese for avo if you're vegan).

We signed off with a visit to the fanciest vego banh mi in town at Annen, a yoga studio and vego restaurant that we visited repeatedly. The banh mi comes with  crispy lemongrass tofu, mushroom, tomato, cucumber, papaya/carrot salad, greens and a big slab of nori. It's fancy, and you pay a premium for it - 55,000VND (a whopping $3.40) - but it's definitely worth it. I would eat this every day if I could.

It's hard to go too far wrong with banh mi - we had a great time exploring all that Hoi An had to offer. We'll have to make do with Trang and La Panella until we can go back.

Red Bridge Cooking School

September 2, 2019

We saw winter out with a wonderful, relaxing holiday in Hoi An, Vietnam. A week or two before we set off we made sure to book in a couple of outings: one centred around bird watching (with an excellent lunch rolled in) and the other, a cooking class. There are numerous cooking classes around Hoi An, and my online reading suggested that Red Bridge Cooking School would suit us well. 

Their half day tour (US$34 per person) took us and about a dozen fellow students through the central market to learn about ingredients and tools (it wasn't a veg*n class, so that included visiting the meat and [sometimes live] seafood). From the market, we took a boat along the Thu Bon river to the cooking school itself. The school has a lovely herb garden, and covered open areas to cook and eat.

The class is structured as a series of short demonstrations and do-it-yourself. We started with banh xeo, turmeric-tinted rice pancakes that I was already fond of. As we rolled our pancakes in rice paper, we learned that it's stored and softened in banana leaves rather than hydrated in a water bowl.

An even bigger revelation was to come, when we made our own fresh rice paper! It's formed from a simple batter, spread and steamed over boiling water for just one minute, before it's quickly but gently prised off the cotton sheet. We weren't good at the manoeuvre, but nevertheless we were rewarded with the freshest, most special rice paper rolls we've ever eaten. I'm not sure that we'll repeat this at home, but we'll keep this memory for a long time. 

A short lesson in food decoration was fun but produced mixed results: I sliced my cucumber a little too thick for it to bend into the loops we were aiming for. Surprisingly, our tomato-skin roses turned out pretty well!

We also made a neat little tofu-mushroom claypot, and received tuition on papaya salad. While everyone else shared a steamed whole fish, Michael and I were treated to eggplant in a thick peanut sauce.

We had a great experience at Red Bridge Cooking School. They're very well organised, with lots of staff on hand to assist and ready to tidy around us. The tour guides and chefs were charming and upbeat, cracking plenty of jokes along the way. The pace was reasonably fast, and our contributions to the cooking were often more a brief practice of a technique (e.g. cooking ready-made batter and adding pre-chopped veges, julienning vegetables for the salad) rather than seeing a dish through from market to plate. 

While we received many handy tips throughout the class, we weren't individually tutored on the techniques - the couple of times that I stumbled, the nearest assistant tended to just take over and keep things moving rather than coach me through an improved attempt. This is a small quibble, though - overall, the approach enabled us to try and eat many different dishes, and feel equipped to repeat them at home. I reckon the banh xeo is on the top of our to-make list, with the papaya salad a close second.

Sichuan House II

August 21, 2019

We recently met up with a big gang of vegans for a weeknight feast at Sichuan House. There's nothing very fancy about the venue - it's been pumping out amazing spicy food for years and the decor could easily have come straight from the 90s. It's a surprisingly veg-friendly place - we ordered 9 vegan dishes to share and we still had more options on the menu we could have tried. We kicked off with one of my absolute favourite dishes - Sichuan cold noodles ($7), a gloriously spicy treat that zaps your mouth and sets you up for the rest of the meal.

Someone in the group insisted we try the spicy cumin cauliflower ($20.80), and I'm glad they did - we'd never had this before (although we ate very similar dishes in China last year) and it was one of the best dishes of the night. As the name suggests, it's spicy, it's cumin-y and it's cauliflower. The spicy dried tofu ($11.80) is more of an old favourite - chewy tofu strips, slathered in more zingy sichuan pepper sauce.

We added a plate of greens with the Chinese broccoli with garlic ($16.80) and an order of Cindy's dish of choice: fish-fragrant eggplant ($19.80). The lightly battered eggplant has a sweet, vinegar-y sauce, along with a good hit chilli of course. It's always a winner.

The stir-fried five-spice tofu and chives ($19.80) is another old favourite, although it didn't quite live up to our memories this time. The tofu was a bit lacking in flavour alongside all the other dishes - it's usually great though, so we'll probably order it again next time. The absolute show-stopper of the night was the mapo tofu minus the pork ($16.80) - a rich and spicy dish that I will dream about for weeks.

The spicy and sour potato threads ($19.80) and stir-fried tea-tree mushrooms with five-spice tofu ($19.80) were both just okay - the potato lacked a bit of sourness this time around and the tea-tree mushrooms are an acquired taste.

On the whole though, this was an incredibly good meal - it's so great to go somewhere like Sichuan House with a big group so you can really delve into everything they have to offer. Sharing this food around is delightful, messy fun - it's got to be one of the best big-group options in the city.

____________

Read about our first visit here. More recently, Enlightened Decadence enjoyed a selection of their tofu dishes, while there are positive meaty reviews at Foodie About Town and streaky eats.

____________

Sichuan House

22-26 Corrs Lane, Melbourne 

9650 8589

menu samples 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

http://www.sichuanhouse.com.au/

Accessibility: Entry includes about six steps, and we didn't see a more accessible alternative. Tables are densely packed. We ordered at the table and paid at a high counter. Toilets were gendered, flat-floored and narrow.

Rice Paper Scissors

August 18, 2019

We went hard at the Melbourne International Film Festival this year! I was expecting this to mean hasty stops for dumplings, street-side crepes and Lord of the Fries between sessions but we actually had several more leisurely sit-down meals. Our friend Jess organised a booking for Rice Paper Scissors, which we hadn't previously bothered investigating for veg*n options. As Jess well knew, there's actually a clearly marked vegan section to their menu (with gluten-free dishes also marked), and were able to sample almost all of it between the three of us.

The two things I most liked about the menu arrived up front. First, there's a list of six mocktails on the drinks list - I ordered a Yuzu Can't Touch This ($9.50). Second, the roti is vegan-friendly! We ordered two of them with peanut dipping sauce ($7 each) to celebrate.

Half the vegan menu includes the word 'salad', but they proved to be varied and substantive dishes that do the word proud. The tempura eggplant salad ($14, above left) arrived first, with the battered pieces keeping crisp alongside julienned green mango, chilli, coconut and herbs. The Asian greens ($13, above right) looked pretty salad-y too, with wood ear mushrooms, bean shoots and ginger sauce.

The smoked tofu had us doing a double-take - its density and texture was more like a mock-meat (or even possibly a real meat) than regular bean curd! It popped up in generous, marinated chunks in both the crisp, tangy green apple salad ($14, above left) and the sweet, saucy bao (~$7 each, above right). These were probably my two favourite dishes of the day.

The mushroom salad ($14) featured all sorts of barbecued funghi; I overlooked the banana blossom and rambutan here as a consequence.

We had a big wait after our salads were done. We were full, took a while to notice that we were missing a dish, and weren't inclined to remind the staff about it. Actually, they'd deliberately paced the ma hor ($12) for us. It was great to receive fresh fruit at the conclusion of our meal, piling it with a caramelised five-spiced tofu and peanut 'mince' as best we could.

The dessert menu's an interesting one, though sadly not so vegan-friendly. No matter - we were well looked after by a vegan staff member and clearly had no end of sweet, sour and savoury vegan mains to enjoy. The only downfall we experienced at Rice Paper Scissors was its interior design - it's densely packed, its seating doesn't include back support, and it's noisy. We'll choose carefully when and with whom we make reservations there.

____________

Rice Paper Scissors has been popular in the blogosphere! It comes recommended by Bunnybloggers, grazing panda, Expensive delicious habit., Eat & Be Merry, Sweet & Sour Fork, Eat Like Ushi, The Melbourne Glutton, Snow Crab Nebula, EATINGDIARIES, Foodie Moments..., dining with simmybear, The New Fave, Olive Sundays, The Melbourne Fussy Eater, Nona Tukang, Adventures in Winterland, Skinny Glutton, trading plates, DONUTSAM EATS & TRAVELS, Ferris Wheel Flights, Lyv to Eat, That Foodie, A to Za'atar and Love at First Bite. Reviews are more mixed on Mon's Adventure, A Hedonist's Love and 2WO FAT GIRLS, and decidedly unimpressed on DAMMIT JANET I LOVE FOOD and kT eats the world.

Yoshiko has attended a vegan degustation at the Fitzroy restaurant - it looks like these still occur with some regularity.

____________

Rice Paper Scissors
19 Liverpool St, Melbourne CBD Now at 15 Hardware Lane, Melbourne CBD
9663 9890

omni menu, vegan & desserts, cocktails & mocktails, wine, beer & other drinks

https://ricepaperscissors.com.au/

Accessibility: Not high! It's loud and crowded, with a mixture of high and low tables and stools (I don't think any of the chairs had backs). We ordered at our high bench and paid at an adjoining high bench. We didn't visit the toilets.

Bodega Underground

August 16, 2019

We had a big Melbourne International Film Festival this year, which gave us a chance to catch up on a bit of CBD eating. Towards then end of MIFF, we rocked up for a post-movie dinner late on Friday at vegan-friendly Mexican dive-bar Bodega Underground. It's buzzing on a weekend - you absolutely need to book - with lots of big tables throwing back cocktails and tacos. It feels as least as much a bar as a restaurant, so don't head there expecting a quiet, low-key vibe. We kicked off with drinks - a margarita for me ($20), a tequila, elderflower and aloe cocktail for Jess and a pineapple, mint and lime mocktail for Cindy.

The three of us shared a bunch of dishes, including one serve of each of the three vegan tacos: frijoles (black beans, salsa verde, shaved vegetable chips and pickled jalapenos, $11), ejotes (green beans, apple and mint vegan slaw, salsa roja and guacamole, $12) and batata (sweet potato, pickled beetroot, vegan jalapeno crema, toasted pepitas and coriander, $11).

These were a great selection of fresh and interesting tacos with a good range of different flavours.

Our other pair of dishes were the vegan mole chilaquiles (pulled mushrooms with mole sauce, tortilla chips, jalapeno crema, queso catija, pickled onion and coriander, $16).

This was probably my favourite dish - a big, smoky nacho-style mess with some excellent creamy jalapeno mush and tangy onion bits.

Finally, we had the charred cauliflower (salsa verde, salsa de dos quesos, annata pepitas and radish, $16).

You can't go too far wrong with a charred cauliflower the combo of sauces and extras on top of this one added some bite and creaminess to the tender cauli.

Bodega Underground is a buzzing, boozy option for a late night dinner, with an excellent array of vegan Mexican dishes. Service was friendly and pretty efficient, even with hordes of people there on a Friday night - book in and check it out.

____________

We found positive reviews for Bodega Underground at The New Fave and Aussie Coeliac (although they didn't love the noise), and a more unenthusiastic one at far fetched & fanciful.

____________

Bodega Underground

55 Little Bourke St, Melbourne

(03) 9650 9979
menus: drinks, food

https://www.bodegaunderground.com.au/

Accessibility: Bodega Underground is down narrow stairs and is cramped and loud. According to their website, children are not welcome(!). We didn't visit the toilets.