Eating Out: New Chinese Garden Seafood Restaurant

You wouldn't think that a place called New Chinese Garden Seafood Restaurant would be a place that vegans would run to, but here we are. With more and more restaurants in Brisbane catering to vegans, this restaurant launched a separate vegan menu earlier this year. I headed there with my best friend one lunchtime to try it out, and boy did we try things!

Chicken Corn Soup is one of my favourite soups, something I have always loved ordering. This one had lovely flavour, with chunks of 'chikn' and corn. Be careful not to burn your tongue!



The Steamed Dim Sims (uh, my baby!) were more like dumplings than dim sims, with a much more delicate wrapping. Not being the biggest fan of the food dim sim (but the biggest fan of the cat Dim Sim), I preferred this.



I love Char Kway Teow, and this Beef version did not disappoint. It was my favourite dish of the day. They use those Lamyong beef strips that I absolutely love! Not too oily, and full of flavour.



The Vegan Fried Rice was a bit of a letdown. I feel like so many places just serve steamed rice and vegetables mixed together, and it lacks any of that really great fried rice flavour.



The Duk In Plum Sauce took us a bit by surprise, being deep fried. We had skipped over some of the a=obviously deep fried chicken dishes, but other restaurants I have eaten at have not usually served the vegan duck deep fried. I just have a low tolerance for too much fried. But even this was really good, not too much batter, nice and crispy, in a tangy plum sauce.



Our final dish was the Eggplant and Fried Tofu, which says subject to availability but thankfully was available that day. Again, a surprise in that it was almost like a stew, rather than a stir-fry. But a delicious, super garlicky stew!



So that is what we ordered (and also took home, we didn't finish it all but we sure wanted to try a lot). There are heaps more things on the menu, including a fun feature where you can build your own stir-fry by choosing your base (a range of mock meats, tofu, or all veggie) and your sauce (eight to choose from!), and then adding extra vegetables or mushrooms or noodles depending on what you feel like, so the options are endless! Oh, there is also dessert, with my beloved So Good soy ice cream on it.

I am keen to get back to here! If you go, be sure to ask for the vegan menu. Another note, when we were there they had several large tanks, the sort you would normally see live aquatic animals in to be chosen for death and eating. But the tanks were all empty, and this was on a Saturday, so I hope that this is the norm.

New Chinese Garden Seafood Restaurant - 385 Gympie Rd, Kedron, Queensland - (07) 3359 2111

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



It's a sparse week of blogging this week, there won't be any midweek munchies as the week got away from me a bit. Partly because this baby girl has had more bladder issues. Urine results still show no infection, and yet she seems to respond well to antibiotics. So who knows. She's OK now, but Monday afternoon she was very distressed for a while until I got some drugs into her. Oh, my love.

Recipe Round-Up: Vegan Fire & Spice

I was gifted this book by my lovely friend Amy. She had this on her shelf, as well as Hot Vegan, which is the renamed and newer released version of Fire & Spice, and she kindly gave me this old copy. Both are by Robin Robertson. I was thrilled, because I love Robin Robertson but was understandably weary about purchasing a book devoted to spicy food. I can hear you right now wondering what I would even do with such a gift. Well, I just make things but not spicy. And most of the time it works out great! The book is divided into sections of the world: The Americas, Mediterranean Europe, The Middle East & Africa, India, and Asia. As always, the Asian section is the one that has drawn me in most. But I have made a couple of things from other regions. Anyway, please enjoy my version of 'Fire & Spice'... without the fire or the spice. This is the first time I have posted about this book on my blog!

Penne Arrabbiata: This is a simple dinner of penne in a tomato sauce. The recipe calls for it to be spiced up with either dried peperoncino chiles or red pepper flakes. I gave a teeny sprinkle of some fancy fruity Sicilian chili powder my brother brought home once, which gave it just the slightest warmth. I also decreased the amount of pasta, using 8 oz instead of one pound, and I added a tin of red kidney beans.
Rating: :)



Vindaloo Vegetables with Mint Chutney: I left out the chili and the capsicum in this, instead adding extra cauliflower. Other vegetables included green beans, carrots, and potatoes. This gave bit serves over some spinach, I didn't need any rice. Overall the flavour was a bit bland though, I guess it really relied on the chili! I served it with yoghurt, some mango chuntey, and the mint chutney. The mint chutney I was not a fan of, it was too minty and made everything taste like toothpaste, though again I had left out the chili. There is a much better version of this recipe in her other book Vegan Without Borders.
Rating: Vindaloo :|, Chutney :/



Five Spice Tofu and Vegetable Salad: Cubed tofu is pan-fried with garlic and ginger, then cooled and mixed with vegetables to make a refreshing salad. The dressing is made from vinegar, five spice, and sesame oil. It is meant to have chile oil as well, but I left that out (if people wanted extra heat there was some sriracha at serving time). The recipe calls fro the tofu to be mixed with carrot, blanced snow peas, and capsicum, I left out the capsicum. I also did not drain the salad before serving, instead using that as extra dressing to toss with some cos lettuce. I would have liked a bit of a stronger five spice flavour in the dressing, I am a five spice fiend!
Rating: :)



Gingered Broccoli: This was delicious! To make it a main, I doubled the sauce and added some diced Soyco Japanese flavoured tofu, and served it over spinach and rice. The only sad part was that I didn't have enough broccoli! Make sure to get a big head so you have a lot to soak up all the sauce!
Rating: :D



Szechuan Vegetables: Szechuan without the heat? YES! I go there and I do that! I made this with zero spice at all, leaving out the hot red chiles the recipe called for. I also left out the capsicum and replaced it with some celery for crunch. The rest of the vegetables were carrots, shiitake, and wombok. Without the chile, it was a very nice sauce! I got two serves out of this,s erving it with some rice and some steamed gyoza.
Rating: :)



Slivered 'Seitan' and Vegetable Stir-Fry: I used slivered Soyco Japanese flavoured tofu in this rather than seitan, because I didn't feel like making seitan and I really just love tofu, so why not. I changed up a few things with the vegetables, using broccoli stem and diced carrot instead of red and green capsicum and using celery instead of water chestnuts (I'm just not a big water chestnut fan). And of course I left out the red pepper flakes for a heat-free dish. This was delicious! I got three serves from it with rice and baby spinach.
Rating: :D



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Dim Sim's kissable little toe beans. We have had a whole week of stable health, so go Dim Sim!

Midweek Munchies

Welcome to Midweek Munchies!

There is a chain of health food stores called Market Organics, and a while ago a new one opened up near my work... actually two of their locations are near two of our clinics! I stopped by on their opening day to have a look and pick up a few goodies, and brought this little haul home. As you can see, some fun stuff. And also a giant bottle of the magnesium supplement I take.



Each of these stores also had a cafe run by Evolve Cafe in it as well, a vegetarian cafe with lots of vegan stuff. It turns out that Evolve has closed down due to financial difficulties, but Market Organics continues the cafes as their own. Unfortunately they have decreased the menu, and now serve meat as well. I haven't been back since to see if the cabinets full of vegan sandwiches, salads, and sweets are still there. When I was there, I didn't eat but I did grab a super fun smoothing, that tragically they have taken off the new menu. It was called Miso Happy, and it has miso, maca, peanut butter, banana, vanilla protein, and almond milk. The miso was a subtle salty taste that I liked. Though after a few sips it all just kind of became peanut butter and banana.



One of the things I got was this Primal Jerky. It is quite sweet, even the original, though I enjoy it a lot. I really like the texture. My favourite flavour is the Teriyaki one, not pictured here. But it is AU$10 for a bag, and while they look big it is a case of big bag and tiny amount inside, so only sometimes.



I bought these Tigernuts because I had never heard of them and was intrigued. I really like them. They are a little bit nutty, a little bit sweet, kind of chewy. Also filling, so they make good snack.



And now, for a tragic tale. Funky Fields mince hit Woolworths a while ago. A vegan mince that was sold in the dead animal mince section, you know the drill. I wasn't that interested, but I grabbed a packet for super cheap on sale one day and stuck it in my freezer.



The day came to use it. It was weird looking, very meaty, right down to chunky white fatty bits in the mince. The mince hit the pan... what was that smell? Oh no. I hadn't checked the ingredients. Sure enough, they proudly announce on their website that their fat comes from... coconuts. Those little white fatty blobs? Coconut oil. I continued making it, and made quite a nice looking bolognese, but I couldn't eat it. One mouthful and I felt sick. My omni dad ate it, and even without coconut oil issues he wasn't a fan either (he is a big fan of the Beyond Burger). I packaged it up and froze the leftovers to give to a friend.



And then I had this for dinner. As well as some peanut butter toast. Oh well.



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Check out this goofy face in the sunshine! Dim Sim has been pretty good the last few days!

Eating Out: PingAn Veggie Time

I popped by PingAn Veggie time again for lunch a while ago on my way between clinics, a 100% vegan Thai place in Brisbane. You can read about my previous visits here.

First up, a silly fun drink! They had Thai Mylk Green and Thai Mylk Pink on the menu. Flavoured, coloured, soy milk drinks. Green was creaming soda flavour and pink was bubblegum. Even though I love pink, I went for green for flavour reasons. But honestly, it was all just pretty sweet. It could have been bubblegum flavour, who could say.



I ordered the Crispy Bean Curd Rolls for my started. Apparently this is one of their personal favourites! It was fun, not the sort of bean curd roll my heart sings for. But tasty, crispy, not too oily.



I also ordered a side of their delicious roti bread. Because bread. They had it on the starter menu as well with peanut sauce, which is delicious, but super filling for one person who is also eating other things, so I just went with some on the side.



Finally, I ordered their lunch special Pad Thai. This was a great pad thai!



Normally this is where I would give you the details for the restaurant. Except... PingAn Veggie Time has just closed down. They are moving to Adelaide. Apparently some of their friends will be re-opening it soon, still a vegan Thai place but with a different menu and a different name, so I look forward to trying that out when it happens. I hope it does!

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



A sweet and sleepy bean. She's had a few good days in a row now. Here's hoping they continue.

Recipe Round-Up: Vegan Eats World

Vegan Eats World by Terry Hope Romero is a fantastic book full of amazing and delicious recipes from across the world. However, it sat on my shelf unused for a long time. I don't know why, considering there are so many things in there I want to make! Sure, some of the recipes call for specialised ingredients. But there are also lots that don't or you can make subs for. I have only posted about one recipe from this book before, but today I rectify this by sharing some of my tasty adventures through this book.

Golden Tandoori Tofu and Lightly Seasoned Indian Basmati Pilaf: This is lovely, fragrant combination. The tofu is slathered in a soy yoghurt-based marinade with tomato, lime, garlic, and lots of spices (I left out the cayenne). It is baked alongside some sliced onion until it is all golden and delicious. The pilaf has a beautiful, subtle flavour with carrots, cardamom, and cinnamon. Normally I cook rice dishes in the rice cooked, but I did this one on the stove top and the timing was perfect. All served with some steamed broccoli.
Rating: Tofu :), Pilaf :)



Scrambled Tofu Breakfast Bahn Mi: The base of this sandwich is a delicious tofu scramble, full of mushrooms (I used a mix of white and shiitake), shallots, scallions, lime juice and spices. I decreased the amount of curry powder in it and used a mild one as well. The recipe called for one pound of tofu, I used a 375g block and scaled down accordingly (approx 3/4 of the rest of the ingredients), which was still more than enough for my four rolls (the recipe does say it makes overstuffed rolls). This was served on a bun with Vegenaise, coriander, tomato, radish, and delicious Star Anise Daikon Pickles. The pickles are a separate recipe in the book, and are so easy to make. I left out the chiles in them, and also decreased the amount of salt. The bahn mi recipe says the pickles are optional but awesome, I say they are awesome and essential.
Rating: :D (pickles get an extra :D as well )



Pumpkin Coconut Curry: This is a simple, fragrant curry. I used butternut as my 'pumpkin', which was joined by toasted shredded coconut, as well as pureed garlic and red onion. It has lots of lovely spices, the recipe says to grind whole but you can simplify and use pre-ground if you want. The recipe also calls for curry leaves and pandan leaves. I used some frozen curry leaves, but used some pandan essence instead of those leaves because I couldn't find them. Served over brown basmati rice and some baby spinach as well.
Rating: :)



Red Curry with Kabocha and Potatoes: With this recipe, I bravely dipped my toe back into using chile, given that you have to make the red curry paste from scratch. But of course instead of 6 to 8, I used one that had been well scraped out of seeds and pith. I also skipped the chile powder in the paste and used paprika instead. The curry is full of baked tofu (I used a pre-bought one), kabocha squash, potato, and bamboo. The recipe suggests soaking the bamboo for 20 minutes in cold water to mellow any briny flavour, but I skipped that. I had to sub regular basil for thai basil, and regular soy sauce for thin soy, because I couldn't get either of those at the time I made this. The paste is blended with coconut milk (I used a 270mL tin of light coconut milk made up to 400mL with water) and stock. I ended up adding a bit of extra lime juice and brown sugar to the end result to get it to my tastes. But overall this was lovely, with only a very slight hint of heat. The recipe says it serves 2-3 with rice, which is true to what I got.
Rating: :)



Tofu and Potato Adobo Stew: Simmering in soy sauce and vinegar (I used regular white vinegar as I didn't have any of the other fancy vinegar options listed) is a trademark of Filipino adobo style dishes, which I learned from reading this recipe. The recipe calls for a full 1/2 cup of vinegar, but my dad is a bit vinegar sensitive, so I used a 50:50 blend of vinegar and water. The stew is full of firm tofu, potato chunks, eggplants, and lots of garlic, and they soaked up the flavour of the broth very well. The potato was especially nice. The stew is served over rice and topped with coriander, scallions, tomato, and banana. Look, I'm not sold on the banana and would leave it out in the future. But that is just my own personal preference. Try it once!
Rating: :)



Eggplant Shakshuka with Green Tahini Sauce: But Susan, how can you make a shakshuka sauce without the capsicum? Pffft. I just left them out. The stew is already thick with eggplants, onions, and tomatoes. I also added some white beans to bulk it out a bit and some spinach because greens. I used the turmeric option instead of saffron because I always have heaps of tumeric around. The stew is then topped with Green Tahini Sauce, from the sauces chapter of the book. It is green because it has coriander and parsley blended into it. It is a very quick and tasty sauce to make, and it turns up in a few other recipes. But back the the stew, this was fantastic. The combination of stew plus sauce plus pita... so perfect.
Rating: :D



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



It has continued to be a rough week with Dim Sim. No more seizures, thank goodness. But on Friday afternoon her cystitis came back. I settled it a bit with pain relief, but woke up to a wet bed very early on Saturday morning (she sleeps under the sheets tucked in between my side and my arm) and a very distressed little cat. If you have ever had a kitty with cystitis, you know how miserable it is for them. I got her settled again, and picked up some extra medication for her from work as well. Thankfully she had a really good night last night (Saturday night), and seems back to herself this morning. Fingers crossed for no more episodes of anything bad! This photo is of her sleeping on my lap.

Midweek Munchies

Some more random munchies! A lot of ice cream in this post, plus a couple of other things.

So I know everyone has been losing their mind over the vegan Magnums. I was more cautious - they have coconut oil in the chocolate coating and the ice cream is based on pea-protein, which I am not overly fond of. But I got a packet of both the original and the almond on sale, and shared them with my parents (three in box, three people in the house, worked out well). I thought the original was a bit meh, I could taste the coconut oil (though it didn't make me sick), and the ice cream was just fine. I preferred the almond because of the crunchiness of them in the coating. I suspect I am in the only vegan in the world who won't be buying these again, though I'd eat one if I was somewhere and they were handing them out.



The vegan Cornetto's, however, are a completely different matter. I LOVE THEM! I love them so much. I always want them in my freezer. I love how the cone is so crunchy, but to crumbly, and when you get down to the bottom they have that little bit of chocolate. The ice cream is soy based, which some people don't like but I love a soy ice cream. I will happily keep buying and eating these.



While you are poking around in the ice cream section in the supermarket (which now includes several brands of vegan ice cream and sorbet, though most of them coconut based), don't forget about fruity ice blocks! Especially in the heat of summer, I much prefer a frozen fruity treat to a creamy one. I grabbed this box on a half price sale. Both flavours are refreshing and not too sweet, and they are the perfect size for a quick cool down treat.



Here is a little ice cream sundae I made one afternoon for a snack. It had So Good Almond Chocolate Ice Cream, some honeycomb crumbles from the bottom of a bag I had gotten in one of my mystery boxes, and some fresh blueberries. It was a great combination.



Moving on from ice cream, I like to make overnight oats for breakfast before work on the Saturdays I have to go to the clinic. I often make up my own combinations, but I love looking for other inspiration. I made these Vanilla Overnight Oats from Plant Crush and they were lovely. I doubled the recipe of course, because I am a hungry person, and that was a great amount to fill me up. I didn't have vanilla milk, but I did my normal trick of regular oat milk and some vanilla essence (which I also like doing because most vanilla milk available here is very sweet, and I didn't need to add any other sweetener either). I topped mine with peanu tbutter, blueberries, cinnamon, and almonds. Recommend!



And finally, a cute package from the lovely Cadry. With my very favourite food in the world, Justin's Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups. Also a bag of Little Secrets - this flavour is like peanut M&Ms! It was fate, because the day before (I didn't know the package was coming) I had been talking to someone about these and how I wish we could get them here... and then I got some! Also some cute pickle toys for Dim Sim. Thank you so much Cadry!



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Those that follow me on Instagram and Twitter will know I had a bit of a scare with Dim Sim the last few days. I mentioned in my last post we were waiting on some culture results to confirm a UTI. They came back negative... so why the bloody urine in a senior cat? She had a bladder ultrasound yesterday, to rule out tumours or stones, and it was all clear. This is good news to rule out lurking badness. So we chalk it up to idiopathic cystitis... which is medical talk for we ruled out all the stuff we can for your bladder inflammation, and we don't know why it happened. Cats are big fans of idiopathic!

Edit: Last night Dim Sim had a seizure! I am pretty sure it was caused by the sound of my opening a foil packed right near her while she was on my lap. Feline Audiogenic Reflex Seizures are a disease that occurs in older cats. We have seen a few at work. Even though I know what was going on, I still called my feline specialist boss to cry and confirm that I didn't need to rush her down for a CT scan or blood tests today. And now she is all back to normal. I need to be careful what sort of noises we make around her from now on. This all sounds like I am talking with my vet brain, but I assure you that my mother brain was hysterical. Seeing your baby have a seizure is terrifying and awful. Thankfully they are not aware of it when it is happening. But she is acting like everything is fine now.

Eating Out: Flora by Greenhouse

A few meals from my beloved Flora. I realised as I was making this post that I hadn't been there for ages! This is shocking, and I must rectify it! Until then, enjoy this post and the previous posts I have made about eating there.

I tend to visit for lunch. On one visit, I tried the Pineapple, Grapefruit, Turmeric, Ginger, and Orange juice for a vitamin C boost. It was OK, but a bit overpowered by the orange flavour. My friend got this one one of my first visits here, and her juice looked much darker. So perhaps they have changed the proportions?



I wanted a lighter drink because for my food I had picked out their Reuben Sandwich and a side of Pesto Olive Potato Salad. This was all very yummy, but also very filling. My one gripe with the Reuben is that it does get a bit overpowered by mustard. It is strange they don't make a russian dressing to put on this, as should be the case with a Reuben. They have a lovely seitan, pickles and kraut, cheesy sauce, but then the mustard just overpowers it all.





Another visit I tried their Stuffed Croissant - spinach, scramble, rice paper bacon in a croissant, then toasted. These are pre-assembled and toasted on demand. This was something I wouldn't get again as the fillings stayed cold and it was weird. If they had been hot on the toasted croissant, it would be awesome.



I did hit them up early for a pre-work Saturday breakfast once, when they announced they were having a $15 all you can eat breakfast. WHAT? Yes please! It wasn't the usual buffet style. They had a staff member serving from the hotboxes behind the counter. You could go back as often as you wanted. This is my savoury plate with scramble, mushrooms, chilli beans (that had zero heat), rice paper bacon, hash brown, toast, and one of their vegan egg things. I also went back for some waffles and fruit salad, as well as an extra hash brown. I was pleasantly full after this, especially having a turmeric latte with it as well, but you could have gone back for a lot more!







Flora by Greenhouse West End - 239 Boundary Street, West End

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



My poor girl got a UTI on Sunday morning. She was very uncomfortable. Thanks to pain relief and antibiotics, she is much happier now. We're still waiting on culture results for her urine, but she's 100% better in herself already.