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| - Lemme do a Carnac the Magnificent thing here...
1) Peace in the Middle East.
2) Johnson being in a vegan/vegetarian restaurant.
3) Canucks winning the Stanley Cup.
Answer: Things that will *NEVER* happen. Point #2 was true until my visit to Yuan. And I say this with a staunch and unblemished record of carnivorism. As one of my 'laws' state, "The more animals that had to die for your meal, the more delicious it is."
But seriously, I was feeling guilty that I dragged my vegetarian friend to watch me eat at aPdC the night before while she tried to enjoy her salad as I moaned in pleasure with my mouth full of dead animals and foie gras from tortured ducks. So to atone, I figure we'll go to a vegetarian joint. Good choice - because she said this was her personal aPdC.
This joint specializes in faux meat and this was quite interesting as I have a good idea of what they were up against. It's $20 for all-you-can-eat dinner menu. And for the most part, the food was good and was eerily similar to the 'real' thing. Some highlights:
1) Japanese Eel - must order - the skin is simulated with seaweed and the tofu resembles the texture of unagi - it was spooky close to the real thing.
2) Curry pork - the curry is too watery and mild (even for katsu curry), but the 'pork' katsu was pretty close save the density
3) General Tso's Chicken - okay, I must admit this is first time I've ever had 'General Tso' chicken. I'm Chinese and I'm from Vancouver - so no, I don't have a lot of exposure to faux-Cantonese items. It's like 'spicy' & sour pork - so like Mark S. - I can also say this is the *best* existing General Tso chicken I've ever had. I can scarcely believe I wasn't eating meat. It was so crunchy and light - it's actually better than the the deep-fried pork/chicken nuggets typically used in Westernized Cantonese dishes (ya, I *said* it!). It lacks that usual 'chew' you get at the end - but this is seriously good - vegetarian or not.
Those were my favourite dishes - and there were many more 'pretty good' vegetarian dishes including some pretty realistic sushi/sashimi. Not all the dishes are realistic - but the ones three I listed: if you served them to me without telling me, I probably won't be able to tell it was meatless. But let's not get too hung out on how 'realistic' it is - food was good, bar none.
Of course, I'm not going to go vegetarian anytime soon. As one of my idols says, "Vegetarians are doomed to a barren, joyless existence" and my degenerate gambling idol lost a $1 million proposition bet on giving up meat for a year. I'm not a rich man - but even for a $1 million - I don't think I can do it. I would want to do it for the money (still a lot of money after paying for a personal world-class vegetarian chef) - but my body would breakdown without dead animal. It's a physically impossible.
But when I meet omnivores with vegetarian significant others - I used to look at them with scorned pity. But hey - now knowing joints like Yuan exist -- that's true love... or at they have at least $1+ million on the line.
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