Get ready for one amazing day of eating. Breakfast started off w/ the usual soy hazelnut latte from the Paddington Grind along w/ a couple of yesterday's peanut butter banana cookies.
I met James on his lunch break & we went to the local Paddington Fresh foods which has a little grocery store, a deli, and a cafe. As the name implies they have amazing fresh foods.
I opted for this wrap...
Delicious! Despite hunger pangs in the afternoon I held off until dinner because James & I had a little date planned in Newtown. We went to this restaurant Green Gourmet that I have been dying to try. They have a 100% vegan Chinese restaurant along w/ a grocery store next door, Vegan's Choice. Even though I am not the biggest fan of Chinese food when I read their creative menu I knew I would have to go check it out. First we looked next door at the grocery...
they had homemade soy ice cream...
& lots of other vegan desserts including pretty cupcakes & brownies.
I was overwhelmed by the menu; 118 choices, all vegan, can you believe it?
I went to the buffet to try a bit of everything. The prices were really good too, $2.40 AU for 100 grams, I ended up spending $13.40 on my meal (about $11.30 US).
On my plate there was- steamed vegetable bun, steamed whole wheat BBQ not pork bun, steamed pumpkin cake, soy drumstick, steam chao zhou dumpling, sticky rice, BBQ King Roast 'Pork', sweet & sour pan fried nori tofu roll, crisp not chicken w/ shangtung sauce.... at least that is what I think was what was on my plate, I'm sure there was other stuff too. I was in heaven!! Everything was so good especially for 'mock' meat which normally freaks me out a bit. My boyfriend too was blown away, he swore that the 'pork' dumplings tasted like the real deal (he is part Chinese too so he knows his stuff).
They also had great tea. We just had what they gave us but they also had lots of other options on the menu. FYI the service was seriously lacking we had to wave down the servers, but the food made up for it. .
Even though I was more stuffed than I have been in ages we had to try some of the dessert. We had the organic raw chocolate & strawberry 'cheesecake' w/ homemade vanilla soy ice cream. I didn't eat much of the cake because I don't like chocolate but James loved it. The ice cream was amazing though, different than regular ice cream.... dare I say almost chewy?
The highlight of the meal were these adorable steam vegan custard coconut dumplings. The epitome of deliciousness. Crunchy coconut on the outside w/ chewy dough & gooey sweet custard on the the inside. I saved one to bring home.
In the end our whole meal w/ 2 desserts was only $45 AU which is amazing especially for Sydney. After having to be rolled out by the waiters because we were so stuffed our night ended w/ a couple of movies (Julie & Julia and A Serious Man) & some chardonnay for me & Cooper's Green for James.
Loved this new wine, Andrew Harris Highfields Chardonnay .I like trying local Australian wines while I'm here visiting.
I'm already looking forward to my next visit to Green Gourmet, I've heard they have great Yum Cha during the weekends ; )
Posts
