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.

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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.

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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.

Lanzhou Beef Noodle Bar

Update 14/01/2023: Lanzhou Beef Noodle Bar is now replaced by Master Lanzhou Noodle Bar Express on Swanston St in Carlton; we more regularly visit the outlet on Elizabeth St. 

September 16, 2018

Located on the edge of the University of Melbourne campus, I've passed Lanzhou Beef Noodle Bar and not paid any attention to it on countless walks and tram rides. But it unexpectedly turned up in our recent googlings of youpo mian, so we stopped in for an early low-fuss dinner after watching a movie at Nova. It was surprisingly tough to claim two seats at 5:30pm!

As the eatery's name suggests, this isn't really a spot for vegos. The one-page menu starts with three beef noodle soups, two beef noodles, and a cold noodle plate featuring - would you believe it? - beef. Then there's the youpo noodle ($11.80), helpfully labelled as vegan in green lettering! There appear to be a couple other veg options too, though they're not labelled: the 'capsiegg' noodle with soybean paste and a selection of sides.

I was determined not to order the lesser veg dish for a third time, so we doubled down on youpo. This one has the kudai/belt noodles we missed at Xi'an Famous! And there was no shortage of garlic and oil. I liked the chilli level, and there was more to hand at our table for Michael to dig into. In short, this had everything we've fondly recalled from the couple of youpo mian bowls we enjoyed in China! And all the more wonderful that we can revise the best noodle-pulling technique from the chefs while we wait.

We didn't dare imagine that we'd be accessing these noodles again so easily in Melbourne, but Lanzhou Beef Noodle Bar also has outlets in the city and in Caulfield as well as Carlton. They really couldn't be more convenient.

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The only other blog review I've found is about the Caulfield outlet, on far fetched & fanciful.

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Lanzhou Beef Noodle Bar
Shop 3, 743-751 Swanston St, Carlton (entry on Grattan St)
0452 596 756
menu
https://www.beefnoodle.com.au/

Accessibility: There's a shallow ramp on entry. Furniture is densely packed high tables with backless stools. We ordered and paid at a high counter. We didn't visit the toilets.

Xi'an Famous

Update 11/08/2022: Xi'an Famous is now closed.

August 19, 2018

As we expounded upon our new love for youpo mian, Laura Jean McKay suggested that we give Melbourne's Xi'an Famous a go. This mini-chain has outlets in the CBD, Carlton and Caulfield, and we figured the CBD one would be a convenient dinner stop before settling in for a MIFF movie.

Online reviews warned us that this isn't a place for vegetarians, but we noticed a solid choice or two in each section of the menu: hot and cold rice or wheat noodles with chilli or sesame; a vegetable or egg burger; little fried pancakes and pies; vegetable dumplings; and cold dishes like chilli oil bean curd and shredded potato.

But we were here to test out the big bowls of noodles! Ensuring we had some variation on the youpo mian, I ordered the tomato and egg noodle ($12.80). It was enormous, with a very mild and almost milky broth, plenty of tomato and egg fragments floating through, and a large submerged mass of noodles (the same as the ones below). The overall effect was a bit bland and soupy, and yet again I was jealous of Michael's superior order!

He had, of course, the youpo mian - called spicy hot oil seared hand ripped noodles ($12.80) in English on the menu. The garlic-chilli dressing was exactly what we fondly recalled from our couple of bowls in China. I was again tentative about the chilli intensity, but it was well within my tolerance. The noodles, though, were a bit of a let-down: far from the wide flat belts we loved, these were more thick and slender and thus, much chewier.

This eatery has a casual, help-yourself style; the staff confirmed with us what was vegetarian and were quick to turn around the food. While this wasn't quite the youpo mian we're yearning for, I'd gladly return to order it (and maybe some of the other fried things!) again.

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Xi'an Famous
260 Russell St, Melbourne
9663 3993
noodles; noodles & fried things; soups, noodles & dumplings; cold dishes & drinks

Accessibility: There's a small step on entry. Inside, furniture is a mixture of low tables with backed chairs and high tables with stools; they're densely arranged with a clear corridor through the middle (see photos above). We ordered and paid at a low counter. We didn't visit the toilets.

Din Tai Fung

July 5, 2018

Cindy and I spent Thursday night at the movies and decided to check out Din Tai Fung for a quick pre-Incredibles meal. Din Tai Fung comes with a lot of hype - the Hong Kong restaurant has had a Michelin Star and they've gradually conquered the world, with branches in the US, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Malaysia and beyond. The Melbourne outpost opened at Emporium a few years ago to massive queues and lots of enthusiasm (see the blog review list at the bottom of this post). Either the hype has died down a bit or we picked a good time - either way there was no queue when we turned up early on a Thursday evening.

The menu is huge, with a decent number of vego options spread across it. We made our selections, ticked the boxes on the menu form and got stuck in. There's beer, but the non-alcoholic drinks are more interesting - I went for a lemon iced tea ($4.50), while Cindy went for the Thai bubble milk tea ($6.90).

Food-wise we started with two vegetarian buns ($3 each) and a serve of the spicy vegetarian wontons ($11.90). The buns were puffy and soft and filled with a combination of tofu, mushroom and spinach. They were decent, but were outshone by the wontons, little parcels of goodness served in a zingy Sichuan sauce. My dish of the night.

Next up was a serve of the spinach with garlic ($14.90) and the vegetarian dumplings ($10.90). The dumplings were delicately made and filled with the same mix as the buns. The spinach was fine - heavy on the garlic, which is crucial. 

We had a pretty decent meal at Din Tai Fung - the service was super efficient and the food was solid. It falls short of our go-to dumpling place Shandong Mama - their vego dumplings are both more interesting and better value ($15 for 12). Still, Din Tai Fung is a good option if you're looking for a speedy city dinner around Emporium - just be prepared to pay a bit of a surcharge because of the restaurant's reputation.

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There are heaps of blog reviews of Din Tai Fun - see Hungry Cookie, Daisyum, Awwum Productions, BLK's Food Blog, Jojo and Lili, Gastrology (freebie), The World Loves Melbourne (freebie), The Dear Luncher, The Penguin Eats, Melbourne Culinary Business District, That Foodie, Short and Stout, Espresso and Matcha, BLK's Food Blog, Ferris Wheel Flights, Life's Little Temptations, The G Bear, Let's Omnom, Linnie Eats All the Food, Mango Macarons, The Food Joy, Melbourne Glutton, Delightfully Tasty, New International Students, Barley Blog and MEL: HOT OR NOT for positive write-ups and some more ambivalent reviews on Howie's Melbourne Food Blog, The Epicurist, Wander Wonder Wanton, The New Fave, Melbourne Food Paparazza, Sweet and Sour Fork, Wandering Mint, The Escort and the Thief, Gastronomic Gems and Tian Ming.

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Din Tai Fung
Level 4, Emporium, 287 Lonsdale St
9654 1876
menus: one, two
https://www.dintaifung.com.au/stores/emporium-melbourne

Accessibility: There's a flat entry and a spacious interior. We ordered at the table and paid at a high counter. Toilets are gendered and accessible.

Vegie Kitchen

Update 04/01/2023: Vegie Kitchen is now permanently closed.

April 18, 2017

We were saddened late last year when the news broke that Enlightened Cuisine was closing down. We'd been visiting there on and off for a decade, enjoying their mock-meaty Chinese food. Their closure, hot on the heels of White Lotus' shut-down, left a big hole in Melbourne's veg restaurant scene. Luckily 2017 brought good news: Enlightened has reopened under a new name, Vegie Kitchen. We checked it out for a quick meal before heading off to see the amazing Patti Smith at the Arts Centre.

Aside from the new name, almost nothing has changed. The menu appears to be exactly the same, with more than 100 mostly mock-meaty dishes to choose from. We started off with an old favourite, a serve of the delicious prawn toast ($5), which remains a deep, deep fried delight.

We followed up with a couple of mock mains: kung po fish ($19.90) and ginger duck ($19.90).

These were both great - the fish had a really great chilli kick and the ginger duck was tangy and delicious. Both dishes broke up the mock meat with a generous serve of veggies. They're big meals too - we ran out of steam before quite finishing everything off. 

It's great that Vegie Kitchen has picked up where Enlightened Cuisine left off. There's no sign of innovation here and the ambiance isn't anything special, but it's a reliable veggie restaurant to satisfy your old school Chinese-food cravings. Long may it continue.

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You can read our old reviews of Enlightened Cuisine here, here, here and here. Nobody else seems to have blogged about Vegie Kitchen just yet.

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Vegie Kitchen
113 Queensbridge St, Southbank
9686 9188
drinks, food: one, two, three, four, five

Accessibility: The entry is flat and wide; there's a reasonable amount of space between tables. There's table service and bills are paid at a high counter. From memory, access to the toilets is narrow and includes a step.

Turnip cake (lo bak go)

February 21, 2016

Steph hosted a potluck on Sunday night to mark the end of Chinese New Year celebrations, with dishes needing to be vegan and on-theme. Last time we had a CNY potluck I had a memorable dumpling failure, so I was keen to come up with the goods this time around. I still aimed high - deciding to make a first attempt at turnip cakes for the occasion.

It's a bit of a rigmarole - you need to grate and cook daikon, fry some fillings and then make a big loaf that you steam for an hour or so. Our situation was made a bit harder by the lack of a proper steamer in our house - the saucepan/colander solution we came up with worked okay in the end, but it increased my anxiety substantially. Our substitutions: mock jerky for sausage and vego belacan for dried shrimp worked fine, and these fried up a treat in Steph's excellent frying pan (they stuck pretty badly when I tried a couple of test ones at home).

I didn't trust the texture to hold up if I made traditional rectangle-shaped cakes, so I went for slightly smaller shapes, which held together well. They turned out a complete success - the high ratio of daikon to rice flour meant that they had a nice rich flavour and they were an absolute delight once dipped in veggie oyster sauce. 

Turnip cake (lo bak go)

(adapted very slightly from this recipe on The Woks of Life)

1 daikon (~700 grams - we got ours from Preston market), grated

1 cup water

2 tablespoons peanut oil

1/2 teaspoon of vegetarian belacan powder (from the big Asian Grocers store near Preston Market)

2 packets of soy jerky, diced (we used two of these - 50g of any vaguely smoky mock-meat will do the trick)

5 shiitake mushrooms, diced

3 garlic shoots, sliced fine

1 cup rice flour

1 tablespoon cornflour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon white pepper

Cook the grated daikon with the water in a large saucepan for about 20 minutes. The daikon will leech out some liquid - you want to boil it off as best you can, so there's only about 3/4 of a cup of water left.

Put the daikon aside to cool for a while.

Heat the oil in a frying pan and stir-fry the jerky, mushrooms and garlic shoots for 5 minutes or so, until everything's nicely fried. Stir through the belacan.

Once the daikon has cooled a bit, stir it together with the rice flour, cornflour, salt, sugar, white pepper and fried fillings. Leave to sit for 15 minutes and then pour the filling into a baking dish - we used a square one about 20cm x 20cm. 

Steam the mixture in the tray for 50 minutes to an hour - even after an hour ours didn't seem like it was quite set, but once it cooled down it was fine. 

We left our loaf in the fridge overnight to set properly, although I imagine it would have been fine after half an hour or so. 

Slice the loaf into small pieces for frying. Fry in a generous splash of oil for about 5 minutes, until everything has browned up nicely. Serve, with a bowl of vego oyster sauce for dipping.

Sichuan House

May 16, 2015

On Friday night we were in the city for a gig at the Forum, and keen to try something new for dinner. I pulled up a year-and-a-bit-old bookmarked post from vegawesome! and suggested we give Sichuan House a shot. I had no problem snagging a table for two at 6pm, but they steadily filled up as we ate. I've since discovered that this restaurant is a favourite of many chilli-loving Melbourne bloggers (see link list below).

The menu's generally very meaty but we were able to spot several veg options that correspond closely with the Dainty Sichuan menu: cold noodles, potato shreds, garlicky cucumber and the two dishes we ultimately ordered, stir-fried spicy dry tofu and chives ($19.80) and fish fragrant eggplant ($17.80).

The dry tofu is firm and smoky, stacked high with lots of wilted greens and a few dried chillis. It was the right counterpart to the slippery battered eggplant, as sweet as it is spicy. A bit of steamed rice on the side ($2 per person) and we were well sorted. In fact, it was far too much food for the two of us, and they would have boxed up the leftovers if we'd been able to take them.

Sichuan House is BYO, and we contented ourselves with some of their cooling non-alcholic drinks - coconut juice for Michael and aloe vera drink for me ($3.50 each).

Sichuan House didn't distinguish itself strongly from our past Dainty experiences, but it didn't suffer badly from the comparison either. Service was friendly and fast, and we enjoyed our meal. Our only regret was that we didn't arrange to eat with friends and order more from the menu. 

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A review from fellow veg blogger Vegawesome! inspired our visit to Sichuan House. It's also won many omnivorous fans, see Couture Foodie, Eat And Be Merry, For Tomorrow We Die(t)!, From The Cockroach Trap, A Spotted Blog, Spoonfuls of Wanderlust (twice), DolceBunnie, Let's Get Fat Together, Foodie About Town, Sweet & Sour Fork and The City Lane. There's just one ambivalent review, on Diary of a Pampered Housewife.

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Sichuan House

22-26 Corrs Lane, Melbourne 

9650 8589

menu samples 1, 2, 3

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.

Ren Dao II

August 22, 2014

We've been making a good go of the Melbourne Writers Festival, starting out with a Book Club taping over in Elsternwick. It was a lot of fun, and a great excuse to revisit Ren Dao for a late dinner. They agreed to serve us after 9pm on a weeknight without a hint of annoyance, and a few more Book Clubbers trickled in after us to make it worth their while.

We did our best to be decisive, in spite of the seventy (!) items on offer, and our food was served in good time. The Assam Pedas ($23.90) was a little sour and a little spicy, with plenty of zucchini, carrot, capsicum and celery adding variety to some slightly homogeneous mock fish strips... and a canned pineapple ring on top. While we gladly polished off the lot, it didn't have quite the panache of their Kung Po Chicken.

Roti ($4) arrived too hot to handle and thicker around the edges than we prefer, but it was great for mopping up the Assam Pedas sauce.

The night's victor was the Hainanese Roasted Chicken Rice ($12.80). Michael was utterly enamoured of the thin and crispy bean curd skin 'chicken' strips, and the back-of-the-tongue heat of the chilli sauce took us both by surprise. The rice mound had a nice whiff of galangal about it, too.

While we finished up and paid the bill, our waiter shyly recommended a few of her favourites for next time (watch out, roast duck and coconut butter chicken!). It was a nice gesture that reflects the understated, welcoming atmosphere of Ren Dao and it had us looking forward to a future visit before we'd even finished this one.

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Our first visit to Ren Dao is blogged here. It turned up on Veganise This! soon after but doesn't seem to have scored any recent blog attention.

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Ren Dao
275 Glenhuntly Rd, Elsternwick
9523 0150
menu: one, two

Accessibility: The restaurant's entry is quite flat and wide, tables inside are moderately spaced. We received full table service. The toilets are unisex but located up a narrow, bending staircase.

Nha Hang 5 Sao

Update 17/06/2023: This restaurant has now closed and been replaced by Song Huong - Bun Bo Hue.

August 3, 2014

We've been hoping to visit Nha Hang 5 Sao in Springvale ever since Brianna discovered it a year ago, so an invite from some friends to lunch with them there was eagerly accepted. The restaurant is really close to the train station, so it's not a particularly arduous journey. It's also the kind of place you could easily walk by as a vegetarian looking for food - there are ducks hanging in the windows and a general vibe of meatiness. We investigated further. The regular menu looks like it's got very few veggie dishes on offer but the second, vegetarian menu more than makes up for it, with nearly 100 dishes to choose from.

We had the benefit of Bec and Clamps' previous visits here and let them recommend some key dishes, starting with two serves of the deep fried chicken wings ($4 a serve). This was a big mistake - we should have ordered at least four serves. The 'wings' are a mix of tofu and crispy fried tofu skin and are ludicrously good.

The other mandated dish was the fried kuey teow ($10.80), a smoky wok-fried medley of rice noodles, slivers of mixed mock meat and some veggies. This was my favourite dish of the day, with the mock adding texture and flavour without completely dominating the plate.

We took Vegan Bullsh*t's advice and tried the Kung bo soy chicken ($12.80), assuming we'd have the spice tolerance to do it justice. It had a pretty decent kick, but as long as you steered your way around the dried chillies it was fine. The mix of mock chicken and veggies was great and the slight sweetness of the chicken pieces was a nice match for the hot sauce.

We branched out into some unexplored portions of the menu after that - unable to resist a taste of sizzling venison in XO sauce ($16.50). The 'venison' turned out to be some sort of mushroom-based meat, which I didn't completely love, but the spicy sauce and fresh veggies complimented it well.

We completely embraced the mock meat experience and tried to order the green beans with soy beancurd sausage ($13.80) as our 'veggie' dish, but sadly they were all out of sausage and we settled for some stir-fried Chinese broccoli ($13), which did provide some respite from all the mock.

Nha Hang 5 Sao offer a good line in non-alcoholic drinks - I enjoyed a cooling coconut juice ($3), while Cindy loved her grass jelly and coconut milk concoction ($3)

Nha Hang 5 Sao isn't a fine dining experience - the fit out is basic, the service a little haphazard and the atmosphere very suburban Chinese restaurant, but the food is excellent, cheap and plentiful. It puts the likes of Enlightened Cuisine and White Lotus to shame price-wise, and I don't think either have served up dishes to compete with the chicken wings or the kuey teow (OK, maybe the tamarind fish at White Lotus). It's a definite winner, and well worth making the trip out to Springvale for. It's probably best to visit with a group of people so you can sample widely - we're keen to return and hunt down some more menu highlights.

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Brianna and Vegan Bullsh*t have enjoyed the mock meat experience at Nha Hang 5 Sao, while Gourmanda liked its meatier options.

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Nha Hang 5 Sao
4 Balmoral Ave, Springvale
8555 0106
menus: one, two, drinks

Accessibility: There's a small step on entry and a fairly spacious interior, including a ramp between rooms. The toilet is unisex, although there was something wrong with the latch when we visited - it was probably too accessible.

Vegie Mum II

December 8, 2013

We gathered up a posse of veg*n food bloggers (featuring Rachel, Steph, Hayley and The Simple Eater) on Sunday night and headed out to Doncaster for a return trip to the popular mock-meat restaurant Vegie Mum. It's very much a typical suburban Chinese place - plastic tables, plastic plates, friendly staff and a ludicrously long menu. The only difference is that it's all vego. The manager was out and about the night we were there, organising birthday songs, suggesting dishes for us to order and generally being charming. We put our faith in Steph and The Simple Eater to do the ordering, and they put together a very impressive spread for us. A brief warning: not everything on the menu is vegan - eggs pop up in a number of dishes, so keep your wits about you.

They got us started off with a complimentary bowl of this tomato-y broth, which didn't really do a lot for me.

As part of the ordering process, The Simple Eater managed to negotiate this off menu delight - a mixed entree platter (the price is lost to the ages I'm afraid). It was made up of deep fried taro, chicken drumsticks, a fake abalone salad and a surprising batch of scrambled eggs. The taro balls were super starchy and really needed heavy saucing to really work, but the real highlight were the little chicken drumsticks, with crispy 'skin' coating some excellent mock chicken. I was already starting to get full as we finished this platter - good thing we'd ordered 8 more dishes I guess!

We also ordered a couple of roti ($4 a serve) to dip into the saucier dishes - they were thin and flaky and helpfully pre-shredded for sharing purposes.

The first main dish to arrive was the combination fried rice noodle ($10) - thick rice noodles, fried up with broccoli, carrot and a whole bunch of different mock meats (at least char siu pork, prawns and chicken). The sauce was mild and a bit sweet and the noodles fried enough to have just a hint of wok hei.

The lemon chicken ($15) was slightly different than the classic Oz-Chinese dish - rather than the usual soggy, sweet mess, this was a dish of crispy friend 'chicken' pieces with a tangy sauce to pour over. Excellent.

My favourite dish of the day was the assam fish ($18) - battered chunks of fishy tofu served alongside a tangy and slightly sour tamarind-based sauce loaded up with beans, carrots and tomato.

The Sichuan eggplant hotpot ($18) was tender and oily, with lovely sweetness but minus the chilli hit that I'm looking for in my hotpot.

The curry chicken ($15) had a bit more heat to it and had a nice balance of coconut fattiness and fresh veggies as well as plenty of chunks of soy-based chicken. This worked particularly well with the roti.

The mapo tofu ($14) was probably the most disappointing dish of the night - the tofu, veggie and mock-pork combo was ideal, but the sauce was completely lacking in chilli, leaving the whole dish a bit bland.

We ordered a serve of Chinese greens ($15) to break up all the mock meat - just wasted calories as far as I was concerned.

The final dish was the Char Kuey Teow ($10), which had been delayed via the initial inclusion of egg. This remade version was solid - smokiness from the wok the dominant flavour (the side of chillies was good idea to add a bit of punch).

For those of us who could still fit more in, things were wound up with some refreshing orange slices and little jellies.

I'm still stunned that we managed to work our way through most of this food - it was a ridiculously big meal, with lots of highlights. You can see why Vegie Mum is so popular (it was heaving with people the whole time we were there) - the service is friendly and the food is decent. You get more out of it if you go in a group and can order widely - it's definitely worth putting together a gang and paying it a visit.

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Read about our first visit to Vegie Mum here. Since then it's been given the thumbs up by vegan about town, melbourne with the rocket, egg tarts and apple pie, The Food Society and The Good Hearted.

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Vegie Mum
27 Village Avenue, Doncaster
9816 322
entrees $3.00-12.00, mains $9.50-25.00

Accessibility: There are a couple of steps up at the entry, then things are flat and relatively high density inside. We ordered at the table and paid at a low counter. We didn't check out the toilets.