Dinner at a vegetarian restaurant

A friend treated us to a vegetarian dinner at a Chinese vegetarian restaurant not too long ago. I’d never eaten in one before and I think for many in the group that night (only one true vegetarian was in the group), it was a first too. We didn’t know the names of the dishes served, neither did our host as he said the names (in Chinese) were rather elaborate and he had no idea what they meant haha :)

Yummy: this variety platter arrived in a small wooden boat. The tasty morsels disappeared pretty quickly!

However, because many of the dishes were served much like in a non-vegetarian Chinese restaurant, it wasn’t too hard to guess what they were supposed to be. Mock meats and vegetable dishes were served one after another and were really quite tasty, much to delight of all present. Was quite funny when everyone tried to guess what had just arrived on the table. If I’m not mistaken, the name of the restaurant’s Popular Vegetarian (Kuching).

This we guessed to be mock-pork served like a stew but it was steamed wrapped in plastic and foil. Some really tasty dried mushrooms in it.

Soups (either clear or starchy) are essential to any complete Chinese dinner. This one is a starchy soup resembling hai-siam (sea cucumber) soup.

This was a tricky one. But I think we eventually settled on “mock-fish”

Fried mushrooms (nice!) and a mock meat dish which we guessed to be mock-ham.

Cabbage rolls: whole cabbage leaves rolled up and stuffed with a mixture of corn, peas, mushroom etc.

Mixed vegetables
 
A tasty and “crunchy” slice of lotus fruit/seed pod sits among the other veges on the mixed-vegetable platter.


That’s one big slice of cake! - Also celebrated another friend’s birthday that evening and “forced” him to finish this big slice of cake. :)

Like in many Chinese dinners, the feast ended with the arrival of the tong-sui as dessert (we were served longans and some other fruit in syrup but it was too sweet for me).

Actually, come to think of it, the end of a feast in many Chinese restaurants is usually marked with the arrival of the scented moist paper napkins! :)) But it doesn’t mean everyone will get up and say their goodbyes, no, the evening’s only over when the bill’s paid and everyone’s done burping haha. :P

Photos were all taken with a Sony-Ericsson X10 Mini Pro.