this is how lunch with kiong and mumsy compare:

kiong: went to dong ba - take my advice and never go there. he decided he wanted to got there cos they have three bags of bean shoots delivered every morning (in comparison to the usual two for a popular restaurant, one for an average restaurant). no vegetarian, let alone vegan (pretty much the same thing is asian food with the exception of egg and fish sauce). he got some duck pho thing which had a funky taste and as a result he left most of it. i slurped on four colours (grass jelly, mung bean, red bean, coconut milk, gula and shaved ice - otherwise known as che ba mau i believe) for half and hour. didn't end up eating anything and the four colour was nothing special.

maureen: went to thien an, the most westernised joint (and coincidently constantly toted as genuine asian footscray food by the age) in all of footscray - took mum there cos, well, she's pretty darn westernised (i-atai food was banned from her house as a child cos it stunk up the fridge, she also grew up with 'don't pick things up from the side of the road, a filthy chinaman might have touched them' and 'touch a chinaman for luck' - they also for a point believe in the existence of the malaya monkey mail service). ate rice paper rolls and lemon grass chilli tofu. it was alright, definitely westernised, had better had worse. point is i ate food which wasn't rank.

for better food (but less vegan options than thien an) and better four colours (thien an is too sweet), i would suggest the place we've been going to for years and since i went vegan the guy asked why he sees me less - can't remember what is called but if you go to the corner with to's bakery and the pharmacy, its the closest place on the side of the pharmacy, on barkly street.

why i wrote that all out i have no ideas, cos who reads khams blogs who would ever eat in footscray, other than samuel who i tells anyway.

ps/ the vegetarian, mock meat place it footscray is bad, they just make bad asian food. its well priced with good service and a nice atmosphere and everything, if only they learned to cook.