It’s local. It’s close. So, you go down there and try it out. Well, you cannot try everything out as they’re out of a lot of things on their menu.
To be honest, I don’t know how many times the waitress came back to our table to say that they’re out of this and that. Wasn’t really impressed. But here’s what we managed to have…
another opportunity to dine at our beloved yellow…
Our friends took us to Cabramatta yesterday to show us around, have lunch, do some grocery shopping and experience the culture there. It was my first time in that part of Sydney and I must admit I thoroughly enjoyed it!
Cabramatta is like Little Vietnam! I felt like I was travelling and enjoying some Asian sites and smells. It was brilliant!
Being close to a big Buddhist Temple, there is a huge vegan food culture in Cabramatta. You get all kinds of mock meats from local shops. On top of that, you can get vegan specialty shops around the shopping district. I immediately noticed a huge Lamyong sign outside of one vegan grocery stores.
Our friends picked a place to have lunch for everyone and it was Loving Hut. We had been to Loving Huts all around the world before. They are usually pretty consistent and act like life savers if you don’t have pre-researched and pre-planned day out in a foreign country. However, it was our first time at Cabramatta Loving Hut.
Here’s what we had:
As for starters we ordered Peking Duck Rolls, Vegetable Spring Rolls and some dumpling. Dumplings never arrived though.
As for the mains we ordered Stuffed Rice Noodle Plate, The Vietnamese Pancake and Loving Hut Stir-Fry.
Stuffed Rice Noodle Plate or BÁNH CUỐN (above)
Thin rice noodle sheets filled with a mixture of our seasoned vegan mince + wood ear mushroom. It comes with a dipping sauce and mock meat pieces.
The Vietnamese Pancake or BÁNH XÈO (above). Greens which was served with the pancakes (below).
Crispy Vietnamese Savoury Pancake made from our famous turmeric rich rice flour. The pancake is cooked crispy with slices of tofu + vegan prawn. Cabbage, carrot, wood ear mushroom and bean sprout filling is folded into the pancake. You cut the pancake into strips, grab yourself lettuce leaves, mint and purple basil, wrap the pancake in and dip it into the sauce and eat it.
The Famous Loving Hut Stir-Fry (above). Wok stir fried vegetables in Loving Hut special sweet soy sauce with sweet potato noodles. I must admit, this was the winner: voted by everyone.
Loving Hut Cabramatta can be found in this address:
227 Cabramatta Rd W, Cabramatta NSW 2166
Phone: (02) 9755 4410
Website
Email: [email protected]
After having lunch at Loving Hut, we did some grocery shopping. The quality of the fresh produce in Cabramatta is quite impressive. I bought the biggest, freshest dragon fruit from one of the local shops.
I would like to thank our friends: Linda and Victor for their special efforts to introduce us to a new area and making us incredibly welcome, too!
They came all the way from St Petersburg, Russia. Art Gallery NSW informed me months ago about it. So, I knew they were coming. I knew how how they were going to stay. What did I do? Waited till the last day of the exhibition to go and see it. Again! Missed my chance of getting the exhibition catalogue because they ran out. Again!
Masters of modern art from the Hermitage exhibition at Art Gallery featured quite a few notable artists such as Monet, Kandinsky, Matisse, Gauguin, Pissarro and Cézanne. It was a completely different set of paintings we didn’t see anywhere else.
My favourite one was Sketch for ‘Composition V’ by Wassily Kandinsky (below).
Here’s a gallery for the other paintings:
After not being able to buy the exhibition catalogue, we headed off to Bodhi to have vegan yum cha. We were lucky as they had a table outside for us even though we didn’t have a booking. And, as usual, the yum cha was delicious. Here’s what we had:
Makan by Chef Tan is an incredibly convenient place for us to have dinner as it’s only walking distance from our place. It’s located in Neutral Bay village, at the top floor of The Grove.
We have made several attempts to go there but they were closed. They are actually closed on Sundays which is odd for a restaurant but that is only the first sign of less professionalism.
Chef Tan has over 50 years of experience as the website says and was featured in Food Safari as well. The food is Malaysian and they have a vegan menu using mock meats. That was the reason we were interested in going to Makan in the first place. Also, one of VegFusion Facebook page followers who lives in the area recommended it. However, Makan did not deliver, at all.
Makan is a family run restaurant with all the family members waiting on the tables, wearing casual clothes like t-shirts and sneakers. The tables are not set up; you sit down and they bring everything in batches and handling your cutlery at the wrong angle and leaving fingerprints on your spoon because they can’t reach your side of the table. They bring an ice bucket to the table with not so frozen ice. It turns into a soup in 5 minutes and there is no napkin around. Every time you fill up your glass, you end up having water dribbled on your plates. Not professional at all.
Here’s what we ordered last night:
Vegan Cereal ‘Prawn’ Vegan ‘prawns’ served in batter of Nestum ceral with chilli and curry leaves as seen below:
Salt & Pepper Mushroom Oyster mushroom in spicy salt and pepper mix (below)
We also wanted to order water spinach stir-fry but they didn’t have it. An okra dish was suggested but we decided to have mixed vegetable stir-fry with beancurd instead.
And it took about an hour for all of that to be served! Some of the tables arrived after us were fed in no time but by the time our food arrived, we didn’t have much wine left in the bottle. On top of that, the food wasn’t all that good. We thought that the flavours were muted. It’s a shame because we live close by and Makan would have been another place to go and they seem like a nice family but we are not in a hurry to go back.
By the way, if you want a doggy bag (although we didn’t think it was worth taking anything home last night) there is a 50 cents surcharge for each container you use.
There is a lot I love about Yotam Ottolenghi. I’m telling you, it’s not just his appreciation for vegetables. He’s an incredibly non-assuming and humble person, too. Just pure coolness.
We were at Sydney Opera House last night for an Ottolenghi talk. An Evening with Ottolenghi. When I saw that he was going to be interviewed by Adam Liaw, I was quite happy about that as well.
As you may know, Ottolenghi’s new cookbook, Simple, recently came out. My ticket included a copy of it but I wasn’t sure if it was going to be signed or would there be a book signing at the end of the event. Usually, you find out when you’re there, not before. That’s how these events are organised.
Yotam Ottolenghi in conversation with Adam Liaw at the Sydney Opera House was a sold out event. As you can see above, the Concert Hall was packed before the event.
My problem here is all of my Ottolenghi cookbooks are signed. Especially, Jerusalem is signed by Ottolenghi as well as Sami Tamimi. I didn’t want Simple to be sitting next to those ones, feeling like an orphan, to be honest. So far, I have been very lucky. Because, John was in London at some stage and he brought back a few signed copies with him for me. So, that covered a large portion of the books. When Plenty More came out, this time we were both in London. So, I had a chance to buy it directly from Ottolenghi’s restaurant in Islington. Now, Simple is out and I am lucky again because there was a book signing at the end of the event, even though, I picked up my book just before the event started.
Here, Ottolenghi is just about to sign my book. And finally, I had a chance to tell him how much I appreciated his work. He took my VegFusion card to look at the stuffed pepper recipe. Do you think he’ll leave a comment?
Simple came with a lemon. Because I hadn’t seen the cover of the book until last night, I couldn’t make the connection when someone handed over a lemon or the t-shirt Ottolenghi was wearing.
The whole conversation with Ottolenghi was personal, warm and quite inspiring. Especially his view on cauliflower was quite interesting: “Cauliflower is more versatile than meat. You can eat it raw, deep fry it until crunchy, you can roast it so the centre is soft. Everything yields different results. I’m fascinated with how far you can take vegetables, and it’s very far.” No wonder, I find him incredibly inspiring. And on another personal note, he is the only Westerner chef who gets preparing Turkish style eggplant for stuffing right.
We absolutely love Meyhanee! Were were there last night again and it was, once again, an exceptional experience. It’s also a great place to catch up with friends. Here’s what we had:
We were invited to our friends’ place for dinner. Linda went out of her way and bought some vegan products for us so that she could cater for people like us. It was really lovely.
OK, here’s what Linda cooked for us:
We had an incredible time with Linda and Victor. Thank you guys, for making our evening so special 🙂
