February 17, 2024
We had a house party to attend in the south-eastern suburbs and took it as a chance to try a new restaurant for dinner on the way over. Veggie Chef popped up as a nearby option, and also came recommended by Will L on twitter. It's a small, casual, mostly vegan Malaysian Chinese restaurant with several dozen dishes to choose from, the majority of them featuring mock meat.
It was tough to choose across all the noodle soups, dons, fried noodles and bentos, plus two temptig nasi lemak specials. Michael settled on the sambal chicken don ($18), which had precisely the spice level he was after and a few good veges for balance.
I slowly worked my way through a lemon chicken bento ($22), which included a lovely miso soup, edamame, spring rolls, sushi rice balls, seaweed salad, a pickle-topped mound of steamed rice, some steamed broccoli florets and, of course, the feature dish! This was a wonderfully textured crisply battered mock chicken with a lemon wedge and sauce bowl considerately served on the side. My ideal feast!
The staff were lovely and our food arrived incredibly fast. We'll take any excuse to head back and try more of the Veggie Chef menu.
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Veggie Chef
53 Portman St, Oakleigh
0433 525 326
Accessibility: Veggie Chef has a flat entry. Furniture is densely packed and regular height, with sturdy backed chairs. We ordered at our table and paid at a high counter (visible in the last photo). We didn't visit the toilets.
