Enlightened Cuisine, Southbank

It is not easy to find a good Chinese vegetarian restaurant in Melbourne. Nowadays, it is easy to find a few dishes on the menu in any Chinese restaurant that caters to the vegetarian taste, but I have been trying to find a restaurant that serves only Chinese/Cantonese vegetarian fare. This includes mock meats, tasty meat substitutes made from mushrooms, gluten and soy.

There are a couple of restaurants nearby our place that I have tried, only to find the food too greasy (somehow vegetarian restaurants always seem to try to compensate for meat with oil!) or not reasonably priced.

So when we happened to be around the Crown Casino area, I did not think twice about dining in Enlightened Cuisine. I have had my eye on this place for quite some time. In fact, the restaurant has been opened for a long time, but since the timing has not been right we have not been able to visit this restaurant at least one year since I knew about it's existence.

 The interior of the restaurant is bright, clean and neat. Big plus sign!! We ordered two dishes:

Duck with Mushrooms - Pieces of mock duck in a claypot with three types of mushrooms (enoki, straw and shitake). It was really delicious. There was a good balance of 'meat' and mushrooms. The mushies were fresh and really tasty. I really liked this dish.

Stir fried fish - We expected a whole 'fish' fillet but these 'fish' tofu were quite good. The tofu was not laden with msg, and it retained some tofu flavour which was fresh on the palate. Again, we really enjoyed the balance between the mock meat and the vegetables.

The prices were very reasonable, however we were informed (on the menu) that there is a 5% surcharge during dinner time. In a way, this is a 'tip' for the efficient waiters and waitresses who served us during the night.

I really like this place and would return in a heartbeat. However, as the Driver does not want to travel too far away for dinner, I am at his mercy!!!