Sunday 2 August 2009

vegie hut, box hill

Ventured out to Box Hill this morning with (part of) my Melbourne posse for a belated birthday excursion. In reality, this was just an excuse for me to finally visit the much talked of Vegie Hut Sunday morning yum cha. This has previously been talked about by Cindy here and by Lisa here.

We started with some congee, which was one free bowl for every two items from the dim sum menu. Next was a roast duck noodle, which was very good, the soup was delicious and the duck was quite tasty.

roast duck noodle

The grilled dumplings were delicious, and as always so much better than steamed dumplings. The filling in these ones were especially tasty.

grilled dumpling

We ordered some pumpkin cakes, which I didn't end up trying, and some ribs in black bean sauce, which I also didn't try. Some people didn't like it, but happily SJ took one for the team and devoured them. The siu mai (sadly no photo, it was very blurry) was excellent, so we shortly ordered a second serve.

ribs in black bean sauce

We ordered some crispy noodles (originally destined to be flat rice noodles, sadly no longer served) and some fried rice (for Es, who apparently loves it). The noodles were really tasty, and the fried rice was okay.

Next was the crispy tofu skin (delicious!) and the prawn cake (disturbing but delicious).

crispy tofu skin

We rounded that out with some char siu bao, two delicious serves of om nom noms.

char siu bao

We sat around nursing our stomachs, and I declared that I was nowhere near full enough, so to go with the second serve of siu mai we ordered some choi sum in ginger, and some soy nuggets in pepper sauce from the lunch menu. The choi sum was excellent, it is my favourite way to serve it, and a great way to end a meal. The soy nuggets were okay, and the pepper sauce was very peppery, so if you are into pepper sauce that is definitely the dish to pick.

Things we didn't try that I wish we had: spinach dumplings. Things they didn't have that I really wanted, so if they're available anywhere else in Melbourne please tell me: chee cheong fun, four seasons buns.

Afterwards we went to the vegie bakery, but I wasn't feeling in a browsing mood so sadly didn't take advantage of any vegan baked goods they might have had! (allegedly indicated by winnie the pooh stickers)


Vegie Hut
984 Whitehorse Road,
Box Hill

4 comments:

Richard said...

Do you know what the duck was made of?

steph said...

Hi Richard - sorry, I don't know!

Anonymous said...

Are you positive everything you ate there was vegan.

I went to enlightened cuisine the other week and i noticed all the packaged mock meat products they sell for you to cook at home contain whey (milk product)....was very disappointed and has kinda scared me away from ever eating there again

steph said...

Hi Anonymous.

Having had a similar experience in the Perth vego restaurants, I try to check out the stuff they have for sale to work it out. If they don't have it for sale, then I default to the pattern I worked out in Perth - mock chicken and seafoods only (in the Perth vego restaurants, their chicken and seafoods were ok, and their beef and porks contained whey).

Because Vegie Hut has been reviewed extensively by other vegans whom I personally know (who I know are super conscientious), I assumed it was all ok, but thanks for the info re: ECuisine. I will check it all out to find out.