Brisbane tips

I know I asked this a while ago, but in case there are any changes or other recommendations.

Where are the must eats and must sees for Brisbane?

We leave in less than 2 weeks. We will also be traveling via gold coast so if there are any must eats there please pass them on.

Chinese food x 3

I just realised that this draft hadn't been posted.

It was just coincidence that we had Chinese food 3 days in a row over the weekend and Monday (not this weekend just past but the previous one) but I'm not complaining.

First up, Mr T and I had planned to go to yum cha at Natural and Healthy Vegetarian Restaurant on Sunday but couldn't get through on the phone on sat so we drove to Doncaster to discover that it was closed down and we were starving so we stopped at Vegie Mum for lunch and shared two noodle dishes (the cheapest meals on the menu). They were both quite tasty and reasonably well priced at under $10 but one of the waitresses was kind of rude. If you happen to be in the neighborhood I also suggest the Iranian supermarket (i think it was Iranian) on the same shopping strip which sells three different types of Iranian candy: lemon, rose water and saffron and lots of other interesting products. Anyway, here are our noodle dishes:

Roasted 'Duck' noodles with rice noodles instead of egg noodles

'Beef' with Vegetable rice noodles

The following day we went to what appears to be the only remaining veg restaurant with yum cha in Melbourne: Vegie Hut. They do yum cha on sundays and have 22 yum cha items to choose from. We probably had something like 16 different types of dishes shared between the 10 of us. We still don't have a camera but Mr Took a couple of pics of his camera phone. Favourites included BBQ 'pork' buns and the 'ribs'. You also get free congee (which is like savoury rice porridge) every 2 yum cha items which really excited Mr T who hasn't had congee since he moved from Hong Kong. We will definitely be back for it another time, we ate for about 90 minutes and just kept ordering more dishes and the bill only come to $17 each and we had so much variety. I recommend: the 'BBQ' pork buns which appeared to be everyone's favourite, the turnip cake and the 'ribs' which are not very rib like but are super tasty. Here's a look at some of the dishes:

Congee which was tasty not bland like other congees I have had

Vegetable dumplings and pieces of turnip cake (which is a savoury slice made from parsnip not turnip)

'Ribs' and 'shrimp' rolls. With the shrimp rolls you have to ask for it to be made with soy milk.

Lastly, we went to Shanghai noodle house for dinner with my family on the Monday. Mr T and I shared fried vegetable dumplings, rice cakes and spinach buns. Sadly, I was disappointed with the dumplings I much prefer the dumplings next door at camy's and it actually felt more tacky than camy's and camy's is super tacky. My family weren't very impressed with their dishes either and they said that their fish dish was too chewy. It did have much better service compared to Camy's and I did enjoy the rice cakes which are not what you think. To see a pic of the rice cakes check out the first pic of Cindy's review. We didn't take pics since Mr T didn't have his camera phone and we still don't have a camera.

Chocolate Mill

Ok so I lied about posting, but this will be quick.

Somehow I have been to daylesford a couple of times without realising that the chocolate mill is quite vegan friendly and visiting. On Sunday we went on a daytrip, I'm hoping Caroline will blog and post her pics of our lunch since I forgot to take any but here are a couple from the chocolate Mill.

First up here the soup bowl sized hot chocolate:



And then they sell all sorts of individual chocolates and have V's to show which ones are vegan. Here are my choices:

Cardamom disc, ginger, cherry lips, cinnamon stick and peppermint leaf.

Here is a closer look:

Cinnamon stick

Inside cherry lips.

The cherry lips were a bit too artificial cherry tasting for me but I strongly recommend all of the others and the hot chocolate.

As for the vegetarian Himalaya Bakery and Cafe, I recommend the cherry pastry, sugar less apple pie and smoked tofu and vegie pie.

Daylesford I heart you!

Will blog a proper post soon

For some reason every single type of social event imaginable has been squeezed into the last couple of weeks and the next week or so. Lots have been food related like veg yum cha, another potluck and lots of dinners/lunches. There will even a day trip to daylesford tomorrow. So blogging will just have to wait. But I have lots to share when I get more than 5 minutes to blog about it. I will start commenting on everyone's blog then too. I don't even have enough time to keep up to date with all of my fav blogs, bloglines tells me that I currently have over 200 posts from blogs that I regularly in read.

But right now Button is screaming for attention.

Choc melting moments

These are my first trial from the new Aussie dessert cookbook called vegan indulgence.

These are super easy-the type of thing you can bake on a weeknight and they melt in your mouth. I'm pretty sure that I used more margarine that the recipe asked for though and didn't do the fork imprint to make it look prettier because they were just for us and we don't mind ugly cookies.