Vegan & Vegetarian Restaurants
Funky Pies 144-148 Glenayr Avenue, Bondi Beach We hate the name but love the food. Small and friendly vegan cafe at Bondi serving a range of freshly made pies and coffee. Worth heading down to Bondi for the ‘Funky Chunky’ pie alone, quiet possibly the tastiest vegetarian pie in the country.
Green Palace Thai Vegetarian 182 King St., Newtown 9550 5234 Newtown’s latest vegan establishment serves a wide array of Thai dishes with an emphasis on mock-meat and vegan desserts. Similar to Green Gourmet they have both a menu and bain marie. Recommendations include Crispy ‘Duck’ Salad from the former and Crispy Soy with Black Pepper from the later. They are cheap, open late and even do delivery to the local area if you order over $25 worth of food.
Green Gourmet 115-117 King St, Newtown 9519 5330 Without a doubt one of the best ‘mock meat’ restaurants in the country. Featuring fresh vegan Chinese meals, desserts and Yum-Cha which is to die for. Green Gourmet offers an ala carte menu and also a buffet (cost by weight) Personally I prefer to order off the menu cause the food in the warmer is not as good, and actually more expensive (but then again you get more variety if eating alone!)
RIP Purple Lotus Vegetarian Shop 2, 15 Goulburn St Haymarket/Chinatown Vegan deep fried oysters…need I say more and the best vegan yum-cha in the city.
Iku Wholefood 25a Glebe Point Road Glebe 9692 8720 62 Oxford St, Darlinghurst 9380 9780 168 Military Rd Neutral Bay 9953-1964 A franchise of all vegan macrobiotic, mostly organic eateries, that serve a wide range of things from burgers, casseroles, lasagne, nori and rice paper rolls, muffins, black sticky rice and vegan cheesecake. great for take away or a healthy quick snack, thou the flavours can all start to taste the same after a while.
RIP Sydney Pitt St. Vegetarian Shop 7, 238 – 242 Pitt St Sydney 9283 3398 Located opposite the Pitt St Monorail Station, in a part of the city that has now become over run with ghetto fabulous bargain stores, this is another Chinese vegan mock meat places. The Yum Cha at this place is really tasty, definitely one of the best in Sydney! Rumour has it that the chef is formerly from Bodhi -when it was good that is! PS. This place is quite good value, especially the lunch time specials.
Bodhi Cook/Philip Park Corner of College & William St, Sydney 9281 6162 Pseudo-Buddhist, pseudo-vegan Chinese restaurant, run by a capitalist, sweatshop queen. This, like all the other Bodhi enterprises, without trying to sound like the vegan police, it is staffed by illegally paid workers. Overpriced, yuppie bullshit that is riding the vegan and Buddhist bandwagon while serving fish based sauces and alcohol. Moreover, the restaurant looks like the inside of a bathroom and the waiters use PDA’s to take your orders. This place blows!
Joy Vegetarian Illawarra Rd Marrickville This is what ‘Aussie RSL Chinese’ would be like if it was all vegan: they don’t serve brown rice, most things are fried and drenched in sweet sauces (I don’t necessarily think this is a bad thing either!) and the place has fluorescent lighting. However, what the place lacks in atmosphere it makes up in mock! They serve everything faux animal under the sun from fish to duck, chicken and beef. This place is worth the hike out to Marrickville for the crispy soya roll entree alone, which kinda of resembles a vegan chicko roll, but filled with fresh vegetables and crispy tofu sheets. While not everything on the menu is as tasty as the soya rolls and the eggplant parcels I know I’ll be back!
Vegan’s Choice 115-117 King St, Newtown 9519 5330 Vegan’s Choice is located next door to Green Gourmet, so when you finish 11 rounds of Yum Cha you can pop next door and stock up on frozen mock meat, tofutti, organic Chinese vegetables, condiments, homemade tofu ice-cream, books and other vegan propaganda.
Mother Chu’s Vegetarian Kitchen 367 Pitt Street Sydney 9283 2828 This is another Vegan Buddhist Chinese restaurant in the heart of downtown Sydney. Heaps of ‘the kids’ swear by this place but I’d prefer Green Gourmet any day, though much better than the Bodhi Corporation. A large range of mock meat, gluten and tofu Chinese style dishes. A nice family run restaurant that serves the best wanton noodle soup in Sydney.
Maya Indian Vegetarian Eatery Cleveland Street, Surry Hills 9699 8663 Returning from India an avid fan of Indian food, especially Masala Dosas, I was on the hunt to find this cuisine in Sydney, and I am not talking about North Indian Diner chain. I found it all at Maya, the most authentic South Indian restaurant I have so far found in Sydney. Featuring on Maya’s menu is South and North Indian Thali, Dosas, Uttapam, Idli and on the weekend they have a Chat house. And for desert they feature a wide selection of mostly not vegan Indian sweets. Most things are vegan, or will be made vegan upon request. Watch out for ghee (clarified butter), paneer (cheese), and Raita (yogurt based sauce). This place is fucking cheap and tasty!
Govinda’s 112 Darlinghurst Road, Darlinghust 9380 5155 All you can eat Krishna vegetarian buffet, for under $20, watch out for things cooked in ghee as well as the dogmatic bullshit. The best thing about this place is the movie cinema upstairs that for a few extra dollars you can see a movie. Get rid of the ghee and dogmatic bullshit and this place would be a winner.
Laurie’s Vegetarian Take Away Bondi Rd Bondi A small cafe with a big variety of fresh and healthy salads, casseroles and a choice of 5 wicked burgers (vegan on request) that come with a large side salad for $6 bucks!!! Holy bargain basement!!! They also have a choice of vegan and vegetarian desserts but if these don’t tempt you then the gourmet chocolate shop directly across the road may satisfy any dairy-free sugary desires you may have. Located on Bondi Rd, this has become a summer favourite on the way back an afternoon at the beach.
Zenergy 68 Druitt Street Sydney 9261 5679 Zenergy is an all vegetarian office city lunch type place. It is only open weekdays for lunch and snack type food. It serves lots of yummy sandwiches and rolls, hot food, smoothies, coffee, fresh juices and cakes and muffins. It is pretty good value and the food is wholesome and delicious. Last time I went there I got a tofu scramble sandwich, upon confirmed that it was tofu not egg the guy who served me told me how people come back almost everyday and ask for the curried egg sandwich none the wiser to fact that they are eating tofu!
Badde Manors Glebe Point Rd, Glebe 9660 3797 Badde Manors is a 20 year old vegetarian cafe, serving typical cafe food like soups, foccacia, cakes, coffee, and burgers and has a specials board. The highlights for me are the tofu breakfast (you have to request that this is made vegan- beware of rolling eyes). Badde Manors is not particularly vegan friendly, and you must also request if you want your food made vegan. Badde Manors is like that cool kid which everyone likes and keeps hanging out with but is actually not that cool or nice, and you think to yourself why is he/she so popular?
Tian Ci 1006 Victoria Road West Ryde 9874 9197 This place was one of my faves when I first discovered mock-meat. Tian Ci is another Buddhist vegetarian restaurant, largely focused on Chinese mock meat dishes such as Lemon ‘Chicken’ and ‘Beef in Black Bean sauce’. Although this restaurant is good value, and definitely serves good mock dishes, it actually lacks vegetables!! Pretty strange for a vegetarian restaurant I know, but the food tastes quite greasy, sweet, fried, salty, with the only vegies tasting like they came out of a tin! They serve Yum Cha at lunch, which is better than the menu food! Because this place is not strictly vegan- they sometimes use egg and margarine – make sure you confirm that its vegan when ordering. Aussie RSL Chinese at it finest, except vegetarian!
