During our recent roadtrip to Wollongong, NSW (read full blog post on our roadtrip here) we visited the Nan Tien Temple in Berkeley and had lunch at the Dew Drop Inn Tea House located just at the Ground Floor of the Temple. The Tea House only serves Vegetarian dishes – so I was very intrigued and was looking forward to tasting some classic Chinese meat dishes but using “fake meat”.

I didn’t try the Spring Rolls but the Curry Puffs were actually pretty average. I wasn’t very impressed with the pastry and the filling is just standard and nothing to rave about.

The Five Spiced Roll was a little bit better. I loved the texture as it actually tasted as if it had some meaty texture in it, but the flavours were not outstanding.

The vegetarian drumsticks were a little bit disappointing as I actually expected them to be “Fake Chicken Drumsticks” but I was wrong, it was called “Vegetarian Drumsticks” and they didn’t promise me a Chicken-like taste so why would I expect to eat something that would taste like chicken? It LOOKS like chicken though, which was quite disturbing for my vegetarian sister in law, haha.

Onto our main meals which were so much better than the appetizers. Hubby ordered the “Mince” Rice which was actually pretty good. I’m not sure what the fake “mince” is made of, possibly soy, but it actually came pretty close to tasting like actual mince even though the texture is slightly different.

The “Noodle Station”

I ordered a Noodle dish so had to go to ANOTHER QUEUE at the “Noodle Station” to collect my freshly prepared meal. The queue moved reallyyyyyy slow at the Noodle Station. How very annoying. There were two ladies preparing noodles and they were quite slow in getting the orders done. I think I waited close to 30 minutes in that queue!! Also didn’t help that it was such a busy day with so many people having lunch at the Tea House. It was quite frustrating…

“Char Sao” Noodles

Was it worth the wait? I’d say UHH YEAH! My “Char Sao” aka Char Siu Noodles were spot on. The “fake pork” was extremely tasty and I loved the soft texture possibly more than the real thing! It just melts in your mouth and the sauce was spot on too. Finally something GOOD to really say about the food we had here. Perhaps it was just way too busy for us to really enjoy our lunch experience, perhaps it was the slow queues, perhaps it was the hot and uncomfortable weather.. but eventually this noodle dish made the decision to try vegetarian food worthwhile.

Green Tea Milkshake

We finished off our meals with a Green Tea Milkshake. Mmmm.. any milkshake is good anyday so I can’t complain. This was very yummy and we drank it way too quickly. Nuts, just as I am writing this now and looking at the photo of the milkshake I am suddenly craving for another milkshake.