Hoa Nghiem Buddhist Temple — Attraction in Melbourne

Very spacious cafe in the temple precinct, with delicious and reasonably priced food. The spicy fried tofu dish was a standout, but they have a great range of veggie delights - surely enough to please the most recalcitrant carnivore! Our friend's green papaya salad was also a cracker (not a prawn one :)). Only downside was confusion about payment - where they were totally convinced we hadn't paid (when the person we did pay mysteriously disappeared from the scene!). It took a lot of convincing and receipt searching, and was awkward. However, the Buddha (and a good few other avatars) preach forgiveness - so we left with no hard feelings, and would return at the earliest...

I had taken friends here for lunch and dinner. Last night, my friend crispy noodle was half hot and cold. My noodle soup was NOT a bit hot. The spring roll entree took forever. I ordered sugar cane drink and precisely said no ice as I do not like cold drink. I was told $16 which I happily paid. The drink arrived ice cold. It didn't taste much of the sugar cane. As we were leaving, I noticed a customer ordered the sugar cane drink. I walked over to see how they make it. One cane was squeezed into a big cup full of ice. This was then pour into another small cup full of ice. This is deceiving. If this is happening now at the temple. I will...

Super tasty mock meat dishes of Vietnamese classics, my favourites are the 'pork' chop broken rice and pork skewers with vermicelli. The prices are excellent compared to other vegetarian restaurants and it's just generally a lovely place to be at the Hoa Nghiem temple. The dining room/cafeteria is spacious, the vietnamese iced coffee is super strong (only for the brave!) and the extra goodies that you can buy to take away for home are always...