In my last post I wrote three places to eat vegan food, in this one I will write another three. They're: Yellow, that caters creative vegetarian food, with vegan-options; Green Gourmet Kitchen, a Chinese restaurant that is 100% vegan and also serves ice-cream; DARE, which is a cafe that serves vegan-option in the most touristic area.

Yellow

Yellow is located in a lovely neighborhood, very close to where we stayed, so we decided to walk there on a lazy Saturday morning.

The restaurant is housed in an old yellow building, which used to be an art gallery. The interior gives an industrial feeling, but cushions scattering around make it cozier. In summer it’s excellent to sit outdoors and dine under the lush green leaves. The atmosphere is simple, casual and relaxed. Most of the dishes on weekend lunch menu are vegan, with a few options vegetarian. We decided to try several and here are what we had.

Heirloom zucchini with thinly sliced zucchini, cooked slightly with crunchy pumpkin seeds and juniper, served with creamy mustard sauce. This was definitely our favorite of the day.

Chargrilled asparagus with sesame and black garlic, in creamy sauce. The asparagus was cooked in a right way that’s soft yet crunchy enough. The black ashes mixed with the other two black ingredients added the interesting color to the dish.

Broccoli, partially raw and partially deep fried, with mustard sauce. Although I am a big fan of broccoli, I don’t particularly like the raw taste of it. However I do like the cooked ones, they tasted very good with the sauce. Unfortunately I didn’t detect the “pickled muntries” which was stated on the menu, as that was the major reason for me to order the dish as I was curious about it. Perhaps they just ran out of the ingredients?

Overall it’s a very nice dining experience, although it’s slightly pricey as portion tends to be small. For lunch the more filling dishes are not available as vegan, so big eaters like us don’t feel very satisfied after three dishes of purely vegetables. Perhaps they have more to offer at dinner? I don’t know. If you feel like pampering yourself a bit, this is a nice place to enjoy an elegant presentation of the food in a relaxed green environment, perhaps better choose the dinner time.

• Address: 57 MacLeay St, Potts Point NSW 2011, Australia
• Website: https://www.yellowsydney.com.au/

Green Gourmet Kitchen

Green Gourmet is a Chinese vegan restaurant located close to China town in Sydney. We wanted to visit the White Rabbit gallery featuring the contemporary Chinese art in nearby area, so this one was naturally our choice to eat lunch at.

On the weekends the full range of yum cha is served here. Yum cha originates from Cantonese cuisine culture which means a brunch serving various dim sum with tea. Since Honey is keen on the turnip cake he used to like before he went meat-free, we decided to go on the weekend so we could savor the vegan version of it.

The restaurant seems to be family run, and waitresses are very attentive and friendly. They came out with trays of delicious dim sum dishes to showcase what was served at the moment. The environment is very simple, Chinese-style wooden table and chairs, with warm lights and some Chinese inspired decoration, such as abstract calligraphy works on the walls or happy Buddha statues on the shelf. Besides dim sums, they also have various dishes, desserts and ice-creams, however those dishes weren’t our focus today.

Pan-fried turnip cakes. This was surprisingly good. Crispy edges with crunchy and soft inside, with bits of vegan ham. There was sweet and sour tomato sauce and peanut sauce to go with it. Long time ago I tried turnip cake but it was very sticky to the teeth, so I didn’t like it. Now I know it’s possible to make it taste good! Well done!

Shanghai fried dumplings with tofu and bok choy. Back in Shanghai this is one popular little snack on the street, although unfortunately I never found the vegan version on the street when I was living there, so I am happy to eat it here again.

Satay skewers. Those were vegan meat chunks served with home-made satay sauce and peanuts. One of our favorites today! The vegan meat was chewy and crispy, the satay sauce was very flavorful and rich with toasted crunchy peanut on the top. We wanted more!

Rapeseed greens in soy sauce. This was a rather plain and delicious dish, nothing unique, but we wanted to add some green in our pastry mains. It wasn’t on the menu but we saw that on the tray, so we ordered one dish.

Tasty tofu layers marinated in salt and ginger, then deep fried and cut into slices, served on a bed of deep-fried rice noodles (correct me if I am wrong) with sweet and sour sauce. Those were chunky bites, although the inside was a bit mild on the flavor.

After all those little dim sums we felt quite full already, so we ended our brunch with a slice of vegan blueberry raw cheesecake with free ice-cream on the side. The cheesecake was very dense and creamy, definitely one of the best I’ve tried so far! It’s served with their colorful home-made macaron bits and home-made tofu ice-cream of vanilla flavor.

We were very satisfied and full after our meal and we already looked forward to coming back soon.

Update: when we came back to Sydney again from Canberra we decided to try the buffet at Green Gourmet. They served various of stir-fries, deep-fried dishes as well as steamed buns or dumplings, some of which can be found on their menu as well. It’s a good way to sample some dishes when you don’t know your favorites yet. Although unfortunately some dishes, such as deep-fried ones, are best served and eaten hot, when served at the buffet the taste got a bit compromised as they went cold and lost its crispness. That said, I still loved most of what I picked up, Honey complained a bit more on the deep-fried stuff.

As always we ordered a mango cheesecake with home-made ice-cream. It was good as we tasted them the first time we ate here!

If you want some hearty and yummy Chinese vegan dishes and aren’t fuzzy about presentation or fancy interior, Green Gourmet is a very good choice. By the way, next to the restaurant they also run a grocery store called Vegan’s Choice, where you can buy frozen vegan meat substitutes, snacks, their home-made frozen dim sums, bakeries, macarons (flavored with natural ingredients instead of artificial colors!) and ice-creams. The store is nothing-fancy as the modern healthy food store, but the stock looks quite nice.

• Address: 115 King St, Newtown NSW 2042, Australia
• Website: https://www.greengourmet.com.au/

DARE

DARE, which stands for Delicious and Responsible Eating, is located right in the heart of The Rocks, an area close to the Sydney Harbour Bridge, Sydney Opera House, The Rocks Museum and the Sunday Market here. After a whole morning’s walking around those places, we were ready to eat some lunch soon. So we came to DARE as they offer some vegetarian/vegan options.

The restaurant is serving in a ready-to-eat style, food is mostly inside the counter so you can see and order. Then you choose your own table and seats close by.

We ordered some simple salads, falafels and curry. The falafels were unfortunately a bit dry, salads were fresh but the dressing was too scarce so it didn’t taste that much. The curry was ok. The presentation was nice and the portion was big enough. The best part might be that service was quick and it’s nice to eat outdoors when weather wasn’t too hot.

So in a word we weren’t very impressed on the food, at least the vegan option we were having. Though judging from the location, it’s convenient to eat here when you’re touring around.

• Address: 27 Playfair St, The Rocks NSW 2000, Australia