Vegie Hut, An Experience

Last Thursday night, we met up with D's family in Box Hill for a night of no-meat meals at Vegie Hut. For those who know me, you would know that this would certainly not have been my choice and it would've been a less than ideal dining out experience for me.

But I went with an open mind anyway. At least, as open a mind as a meat-lover can be.

D decided we were going to order a few things from the menu, to make sure I was able to eat something.

For starters, we ordered satay sticks and curry puffs. The satay sticks were actually not bad as the sauce was v yummy. The faux chicken was made out of tofu and you could tell it was tofu, especially with the after taste. The faux beef was made out of gluten (? i think) and wasn't as good as the "chicken." But douse it liberally with the satay sauce and it was quite good.

The veggie curry puffs were okay as well. Not the best I've had but certainly palatable.

The mains came next and that's when it all went downhill. We ordered mee goreng, rendang 'mutton' and 'beef' stir fry. For vego food, these meals sure weren't healthy. You could see the sheen of oil on the surface of all the meals and I could taste the artificialness (maybe it was just me) of everything.

The mee goreng wasn't good at all. It was oily, bland and had different kinds of fake meat interspersed with the noodles. Give me a packet of 2-minute noodles (Indomee, of course) over this restaurant meal anytime.

The stir fry wasn't too bad, if you can get past the fake meat taste. The veggies were good but every mouthful I ate made me drink Coke to alleviate the oiliness and not-very-pleasant after taste.

The rendang mutton was completely not what I expected. Not at all. As curries go, it wasn't too bad and the fake meat was actually close to real meat but still not really. (Why would you order fake meat anyway when you can easily buy the real deal? I still don't get it.) However, when you mention rendang to me, I have this vision of the mouth-watering rendang served in my favourite Singaporean restaurant, Wild Ginger. I tell ya, once you've had their rendang, all others pale in comparison. Hmm, just thinking about it makes me want to go eat there again. For those interested in Wild Ginger, leave a comment and I might give you their details. I don't want them to become too popular, now do I? Anyway, I digress.

It seemed that I was the only one having a not-so-good experience as everyone else was raving about their food. Either they like oily, greasy, Chinese style meals or I'm just way too picky. Maybe both.

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By the way, the satay in the picture looks way better than the satay I had. Picture courtesy of google image search and this site.