I am excited about eating in vegetarian restaurant. This one seems to be affiliated with a Buddhist organization.
The decor is actually very grand like other Chinese restaurants, but with a religious theme
Today they offered the Chinese new year menu so they didn't even present their regular menu. We found our waitress abrupt but attentive. Could just be the way she spoke.
WE like the cream pumpkin soup the best. The soup is very smooth and the corn kernels provide some sweetness. There's a surprise element with the crunchiness from the white fungus.
The fruit salad was just okay. While it was nicely presented and we liked the dumplings, the salad itself was lackluster- mainly all you could taste was the nice sour and sweetness of the dressing but the fruits (dragon fruits and melons) flavour was lacking
I do like the 2 stir fry dishes with the shan Yao and the unknown type of fungus that smells like truffle. The asparagus add a nice touch but I would like to have more shan Yao please lol...
We were not so sure about the fry rice in the lotus leaf. According to the waitress, they make the fry rice first, then steam it in lotus leaf. I don't know why they'd do that second step because the steaming process totally change the texture of the fry rice and the whole dish just taste like regular rice dish...soft and gooey- not that it's not good, but just that when you order fry rice you expect the bouncy texture of individual rice grain on your tongue lol
For dessert we got the red bean soup which is a free given. We tried to see if we could try their other dessert (and willing to pay) but tonight they only had one type left.
I like the food overall. It's rare to get to eat Chinese food without a heavy feeling settle in your belly. Perhaps I just need to go back more frequently to figure out which dishes to order...