Sunflower Thai Vegan Restaurant — Restaurant in Waitematā

A little hard to find but they serve some decent food. We were visiting from Australia and needed some vegan food after our flight and long day exploring. We ordered four dishes:

Money bags entree: Peanuts and something else wrapped in a dumpling wrapper then deep fried, served with sweet dipping sauce. Not particularly interesting or tasty, just a crunch with a soft filling. It was too sweet with the dipping sauce and too dry without it.

Sesame pancakes entree: basically a roti. Flaky pastry with a mild sesame flavour. I didn't really enjoy it but my partner loved it.

Noodles with sour and spicy soup: a huge bowl of noodles in a spicy and oily soup. Make sure you are hungry if you order this! Not much vegetables in it but the flavour was decent.

Soy duck with rice and veg: really nice faux duck, very sticky and moist, strong flavour and nice texture.

Overall we left very full and I wasn't disappointed with the food, but I wish we'd ordered more vegetable dishes as I felt quite heavy from all the starch and gluten. Maybe we just ordered the wrong things.

Oh yeah we also got the smoked plum tea... That was disgusting. Must be an...

This is a Thai vegan restaurant, I ordered their Pad Thai lunch special ($16).

This place is on the ground floor at the end of the hallway next to CHIMAC the Korean chicken place. This place is vegan and vegetarian. I felt like eating something healthy, decided to give it a go.

Ordering I know I’m going to order lunch special, so I went to the counter straight away. Staff is not always there which is a good news for serial eye contact avoider. Just ding the counter bell🛎️ . Staff came to me and I ordered my food. I didn’t get my receipt or table number stand whatsoever, then I just grabbed my seat and wait.

Pick your autistic seat Check my video for the restaurant layout.

Water & Napkins They are both self-service.

Food I didn’t give it a score cuz I think I accidentally squeezed too much lemon juice on my Pad Thai😭. Anyway it’s like any Pad Thai you find from other Thai restaurants but tastes healthier(doesn’t mean it tastes bad). The protein is tofu and it’s chewy and tasty.

Overall I will give this restaurant 4...

We have been to the Sunflower twice now and the food was wonderful again. They were very busy, and although it was a while before our order was taken, service after that was quick. We were spoilt for choice and the food was fresh and tasty. We came for the food, not the decor and were not disappointed.

All meals are vegetarian (contrary to one of the reviews). The menu appears to be full of meat dishes because that is how the food is described and presented. But it's NOT meat. I suppose they wanted to attract customers who would normally eat meat, which was 90% of the population here. That may change.

We would eat here once a week if we lived locally. I'm sure there would be favourite meals, such as the Green Curry, chock full of fresh veggies. My starter and mains cost a total of $22 - and this for a restaurant off Queen Street! We highly...