Aunty Menas (again) - Wellington - New Zealand

We found ourselves in Wellington during the day on New Years Eve when it was freezing cold & bucketing down rain.  After we had enjoyed our first visit to Aunty Menas, we decided to go back for a bowl of laksa to warm ourselves up which ended up being the perfect idea.

We were pretty hungry by the time we got there so ordered vegetarian nuggets to start with.

Vegetarian Nuggets $7.50

These were trashtastic mock chicken nuggets that tasted very similar to their non vegan counterparts (from what I remember of them.)

Dumpling laksa $11.50

I ordered the dumpling laksa.  Oh my goodness this was so good.  It was absolutely the perfect thing to sit down to while it poured rain outside.  It was creamy & mildly spicy & filled with dumplings, tofu & vegies.

Chicken laksa $12.50

Greg ordered the mock chicken laksa which was the same as mine but with mock chicken instead of dumplings.  He very much enjoyed his laksa as well.

We chatted to one of the owners before we left who was very friendly & coincidentally a former Melbournite.  I really liked Aunty Menas & will definitely be heading there next time I find myself in Wellington.

Aunty Menas - Wellington, New Zealand

Greg's family are all in New Zealand & somehow I have never been over there so we decided to go over for 2 weeks for an NZ Christmas.  Firstly, let me just say that from the little I saw of New Zealand it is absolutely beautiful.  The food I ate was great, the wine I had was fantastic & the vintage clothes shopping is incredible!
We were mostly based in Wellington as we were staying with my mother in law who lives in a suburb of Wellington & although we didn't eat out heaps as we cooked for ourselves a lot I did have a few places that I wanted to eat at in NZ.
After reading this post by Carla I was pretty keen to check out Aunty Menas, so our first day checking out Wellington we headed to Aunty Menas for lunch.  Aunty Menas is based on Cuba Street which is a very vegan friendly part of town & I absolutely loved that part of Wellington.
It is a very unassuming restaurant but the sign out the front proclaiming it as a Vegetarian & Vegan Restaurant was a pretty happy sight to see.

We were greeted by a brusque, efficient man who advised us that must of the items on the menu are vegan.  We ordered, dumplings for Holly, Chow Mee for me & Dumpling Soup for Greg.

Dumplings $8.50

Holly's dumplings were really good.  Steamed & then lightly fried on the bottom & filled with vegetables.  Holly loved these!

Chow Mee $13

This was so delicious, I want to eat it again now!  It was a delicious, charry stir fry of noodles, mock chicken & vegetables.  The one vegetable that Holly flatly refuses to eat is broccoli & even she ate the broccoli out of this because it was so tasty!

Dumpling Soup $11.50

Greg is a big fan of dumpling soup & he really enjoyed this.  It looked quite bland when it came out but it was actually quite well flavoured & was filled with dumplings, cauliflower, broccoli & carrots.

I really enjoyed my meal at Aunty Menas & thought it was extremely well priced (especially when converted to AUD!)

Aunty Menas

167 Cuba Street

Wellington

Vegan MoFo - Udon Noodle Stir Fry

I don't often make stir fries because I don't think I make them particularly well, but this was really nice.  Of course I didn't measure anything so I will never be able to replicate it again.

In my stir fry was:

• Garlic
• Ginger
• Tofu
• Broccoli
• Asparagus
• Snow peas
• Mushrooms
• Chopped peanuts as a topping

For the sauce I used:

• Vegetarian mushroom oyster sauce
• Soy sauce
• Mysterious seasoning sauce that is in my sauce cupboard
• Sweet soy sauce
• Water
• Cornflour

Vegan MoFo - Dumplings

There is a lot of love for dumplings in my household & we usually just buy the frozen ones, but on the odd occasion I do make them as well.  The one thing that makes dumpling making a whole lot easier is a dumpling press, it seals the edges really well so that your dumplings stay together & you don't get filling leaking out everywhere.

For the filling of my dumplings, I chopped up some button mushrooms, shitake mushrooms, silverbeet & water chestnuts which I cooked off in a frying pan with garlic, ginger, some silken tofu & a splash of veg oyster sauce.  Once it was all cooked through I put a teaspoon of the filling in a dumpling wrapper & pressed - easy!  They were then steamed for around 5-10 minutes until the wrappers were looking translucent.  I drizzled them with a mixture of soy sauce, black vinegar & chilli paste & served these with scallion flatbread which I also made last MoFo.

Where's The Beef Week - Day 6 - Sort-of Spring Rolls

These were my only kind of fail for the week, but I think it was more my fault rather than the recipe.  I made up the sort-of spring rolls which use rice paper & then left them on my wooden chopping board while I fed Holly.  Then I came back half an hour or so later & they had stuck a bit so when I cooked them quite a few had holes in them & completely fell apart.  They were still really tasty & I really liked the rice paper rather than the usual spring roll pastry.  I think I need to try these again.

Where's The Beef Week - Day 5 - Vegetarian Hor Fun

This was originally a recipe by Pip, which I found on Where's the Beef here.  I normally have issues with making stir fry type dishes because they just don't work that well for me but this was great.  I halved the amount of stock & increased the amount of cornflour & my sauce thickened up beautifully.  I also just used extra firm tofu rather than the fried tofu puffs & added in some chopped almonds before serving.  I always have the ingredients for this on hand & it is quick, easy & tasty so this is another meal that is now going on regular rotation.

Vegie Hut

We had a family dinner on a Monday night recently. The original plan had been to go to Enlightened Cuisine but they aren't open on Monday nights, so in the end it was decided to go to Vegie Hut as it is pretty much in the middle of the 3 locations that the 6 of us were coming from. 

There were a couple of issues - first of all, there was a big table with way too many people around it right behind us which made those of us on the side of the table next to them really squished in although there were quite a few empty tables. Secondly, the service was pretty much non existent, we had to flag down waitresses to order, to clear the table & to get the bill & no one was ever offered drinks. Thirdly, and maybe this is just because I love the Enlightened Cuisine banquet, but for the most part I found the food very meh. I am guessing that my family felt the same way because there were heaps of left overs & no one took any.

So, the food. We got a banquet which was pretty reasonable at $139 for 6 people with far more than we could eat.  Apologies for the awful photos.

Oriental Entrees Platter - in the middle were pickled vegetables which were really good, definitely the highlight of the platter

Shark Fin Soup - it was very gelatinous, but the flavour was gingery & quite nice

I think these were chilli prawns although they were not at all spicy - they were good though, deep fried prawniness

Lamb hot pot - quite nice with big pieces of mushrooms in it

This was some sort of fish, I wasn't a big fan of this at all

Black Pepper Steak - This was really good

Bamboo string on Chinese veggies - I don't even remember what this tasted like, but there was a lot left over

Dessert - this was delicious, my highlight of the meal!  It was like a lychee juice with jelly, sultanas, goji berries & lychees in it - I could have eaten a lot of this.  Note a crashed out Holly in the background getting cuddles from her Aunty

I think the meal would have been better of we chose our own food, I just think the banquet might have been a bad move.  I am still a huge fan of their Sunday yum cha.

Other Melb veg bloggers who have been to Vegie Hut are: Where's the Beef, Lisa & Vegan About Town.

Vegie Hut

984 Whitehorse Road

Box Hill

03 9898 2287

Laksa of fire

I love laksa & haven't made it since being vegan, but when I saw that you can now buy a soy version of evaporated milk I thought that it would be perfect for a healthy laksa meal. When I was at the supermarket it seemed that all the laksa pastes had shrimp in them so I bought a curry paste instead - a curry paste that I have never used before & it was apparently the hottest curry paste that I could have bought! This laksa would have been delicious but it was waaaaay too hot for me & I couldn't eat it. I will definitely make this again but will give it a go making my own curry paste.

Recipe

• Small onion finely chopped
• 2 cloves crushed garlic
• Red curry paste (use as much as you want & not as much as I used!)
• 100 grams sliced mushrooms
• 320 gm pack of extra firm tofu sliced into thickish rectangles
  
• 1 1/2 tsp peanut oil
• 1 tin soy creamy cooking milk
• 1 tsp coconut essence
  
• Rice noodles
• Beansprouts

Cook rice noodles as per the packet directions
Heat 1/2 teaspoon peanut oil in a saucepan & fry onion & garlic
When the onion has softened add the curry paste & heat until aromatic
Add soy milk, coconut essence & mushrroms & cook on a low-medium heat until mushrooms are cooked through
Whilst this is cooking, heat 1 teaspoon of peanut oil in a frypan & fry tofu until lightly browned
Place noodles in the bottom of a bowl & top with a handful of beansprouts
Pour soup on top & top with tofu