Vegan Brunches

One of the reasons I haven't written for a while has been the sheer number of great veggie events recently! First there was the animal rights concert in Wudaokou, to be continued with a concert tour around China (assuming we can raise the funds for that). The club has also switched to three weekly meetings now, with the potluck Sunday brunch being the best of all! It seems our group has some excellent cooking talents. Here's a sample of what was on offer yesterday:

Otherwise it's been lots of work, sports, and dancing. Speaking of which, I shall now return to the least exciting one of the three.

Tempeh goreng and wild Finnish mushrooms

Here's last night's dinner and today's lunch, my very first take on "tempeh goreng" coupled with spinach noodles and wild Finnish mushrooms. I had no recipe for tempeh goreng, so this is just my usual case of using whatever I happen to have around, which tends to be salt and a mix of peppers -- even my chili sauce had seen the end of its lifespan. The tempeh I brought from Germany, haven't found any in China. The mushrooms are trumpet-shaped chantarelles, they're one of the richest natural sources of vitamin D and totally yummy. The whole thing tasted even better with the egg-free mayonnaise from Plamil -- which was brought from England, it's not available in China either. So the only Chinese obtained thing were the noodles and the spices. Oh well.

1st German meal

Time came to start trying the German foods I brought over. I started by boiling potatoes and then started to make a sauce for it, just your traditional brown sauce in principle but I put some onions and quite a lot of mushrooms in there, I thought I was overdoing it with the mushrooms but it was actually really good. Then I went on to fry the first bit of the German foods, Cowgirl steaks they were called, I think. Really tasty, good texture and just the right amount of spices. I fried up the rest of the mushrooms to make company for them.

My friend wanted the broccoli boiled, and that's simple enough, so I put it boiling and fried up the "tofu pizza", as odd as it sounded. Two slices of spiced tofu, they were pretty good also but didn't really resemble pizza in any way. I decorated that with the Plamil egg-free mayonnaise. Best dinner I've had in a while, and there's tons of the German foods left. :-)

Brownies... or something

I saw a raw brownie recipe a few days ago in Dreamy's blog, and having nothing else to eat I decided I might give it a try. So, I went through the ingredient listing. "Do I have walnuts? No. Dates? No. Carob? No. But hey, I have water!" Thus reassured it was possible due to having one of the required ingredients, I set out to look for alternatives for the few missing pieces. :-)

I had some of the dried, salted beans (I think they're broad beans) that they sell in shops in China, not nearly the suggested 1.5 dl to replace the walnuts in the recipe, but they still were a starting point. Then I added some pistachios, didn't have a lot of those either but at least some. And raisins to replace the dates. So on to the grinding and it looked pretty good already. I even had cocoa powder which should replace the carob quite nicely, and that and the actual correct ingredient, water, made a lovely mixture. Of course I never measure anything when cooking, that's just me, and this time I think there might have been too much water for it never really dried down but had to be eaten with a spoon. Actually after being in the fridge for a while the taste as well as the looks reminded me of mämmi. Anyway, it was quite tasty, so thanks for the recipe that I so carefully followed, heheh. :-P

Vegetarian Beijing

As I recently toured the vegetarian restaurants of Beijing with my dad and sisters, I decided share with you what sort of culinary delights this city has to offer, especially since it seems there is no comprehensive listing of vegetarian restaurants in the web in English, or at least I haven't found one. There is one in Chinese at IVU.org. Let's go with this by the district.

东城区 (Dongcheng district -- the eastern parts of central Beijing, with the limit being around the 2nd ring road)

First, there's my local one, the vegetarian buffet at 雍和宫 (Yonghegong) lama temple, opposite the temple of Confucius. I read an interview of the chef long ago claiming all dishes would be vegan, and verified some dairy-looking things to really be vegan, but at the very least their ice-cream does have dairy and the desserts probably do also. I tend to skip things that look like they might have dairy or eggs, but if you feel more interested in them, do ask the staff, they might just be vegan. Lunch buffet costs 48 CNY, dinner buffet 58 CNY. Also serves individual dishes by order, and has bigger private rooms for larger groups.
Address: 北京市东城区国子监大街甲26号 登品素食(原叙香斋) -- Opposite the temple of Confucius, walk south from Yonghegong station exit C and you'll see a sign that says "vegetarian restaurant" even in English on your right hand side, around 100m from the station. There you turn right and it'll be the first restaurant on your left hand side quite soon.
Tel: 64046568
My rating: 4 stars

Next metro station, Andingmen (安定门) would host 莲花海素食 -- well, it's not actually at the station but not awfully far from there. In fact the restaurant is in a hutong. It's a cosy little place, and sometimes serves good food, but the quality seems rather random. Some of their stuff is just... plain at most.
Address: 安定门内大街车辇店胡同河北饭店对面. So it's opposite Hebei Hotel (河北饭馆), that's an easier thing to spot, in Cheniandian hutong, off (towards west) Andingmen neidajie. If going by bus, take 104 or 108 to 安定门内 (Andingmen nei).
Tel: 64036169
Opening hours: 10 AM to 10 PM daily.
My rating: 2 stars

Away from metro lines but certainly worth a visit is Wo xing wo su (我行我素茶食坊), which you can find at the north end of the city wall ruins park (皇城根遗址公园). This is also a tea house, and has nice and simple wooden decor. There's no smoking, no alcohol served, and no eggs in the food. Really good things here include the special tofu of the chef, Xihu (West Lake) vinegar "fish", black pepper steak, and the "meat pie", although many others are well worth trying also.
Address: 东城区地安门东大街61号，在平安大道霞光街口，皇城根遗址公园对面 (61 Di'anmen dongdajie)
Tel: 84011287
My rating: 4 stars

Closer to the city centre there would be 马娘娘斋饭 on Chaoyangmen neixiaojie. It's a nicely decorated (apart from the terrible toilets!) restaurant with usually good quality food, but can be a little random at times. Lower than average prices though. There's no egg in the foods.
Address: 北京东城区朝内南小街221号 (221 Chaoyangmennei nanxiaojie)
Tel: 65594161
My rating: 3 stars

Then there's Still Thoughts (静思素食坊), the place where the Vegan Social Club of Beijing has the Vegan Thursday dinners, but the restaurant is obviously open at other times too. The prices are fair, lower than most vegetarian restaurants in Beijing, the service and atmosphere good.
Address: 美术馆北大佛寺东街甲18号 (18 Dafosi dongjie). Refer to the map at the Vegan Social Club site.
Tel: 64008941
My rating: 3 stars

Name: 功德林素饭庄 (Gongdelin -- the oldest veg. restaurant in Beijing)
Address: Seems to have moved to the proximity of Chongwenmen metro station. From the line 2 station head west for half a block on the south side of the street, it's the big restaurant at the corner, seems to have no English signage. Should be Chongwenmen Xidajie, not sure of the house number, about 10.
Tel: 67020867/65112542 -- not sure if these are valid for the new location!
My rating: 2.5 stars -- based on visits to the old location, they may have changed

(Name: 绿色天食 (Green Angel)
Address: 东城区灯市口大街57号 (157 Dengshikou dajie). A bit off Wangfujing. Take bus lines 108, 111, 103, 104 or 803 to 灯市西口 (Dengshixikou).
Tel: 65242349/65242476
Closed since the summer of 2006. The food was nice and didn't have egg, and the location was a selling point to this rather expensive restaurant, but I don't know if it'll reopen or not.
My rating: 3.5 stars)


西城区 (Xicheng district -- the western parts of central Beijing, roughly within the 2nd ring road)

First this area has my favourite restaurant that I introduced earlier, 嘉禾园素食. Since it has been introduced, I'll simply mention the details now. And that it does serve beer, as I didn't mention last time. Average prices, prepare for up to 100 yuan per person.
Address: 德胜门西大街甲5号（积水潭桥西360米路北地铁集团院内）. Close to Jishuitan metro station, head west past the petrol station and turn to a courtyard that says 北京地铁, then it'll be on your right hand side quite soon.
Tel: 62261846
My rating: 5 stars

Next, 慈海素心. This nice restaurant stands in the basement of a hotel called 齐鲁饭店. It's rather friendly and some of the staff speak English... enough to bother me actually, when I speak Chinese to them and they reply in English. But the food is pretty good, they also have a mock Peking duck which isn't bad, although I didn't try it the last time as we had the mock duck in Bodhi-Sake. The fruit juice is quite expensive and so are some of the dishes, depends much on what you order. The menus are in Chinese and English but without pictures. The restaurant is quite close to Lotus Lane and the Qianhai and Houhai lake areas that have lots of bars and lights at night, it can be a lovely place for a stroll, especially a romantic one. Pricing a little above average, prepare for 100 yuan per person.
Address: 西城区地安门西大街103号，齐鲁饭店后院内. (103 Di'anmen xidajie.) Bus lines 107,118,810,850,204 and 13 take you there, get off at 东官房站 (dong guan fang zhan).
Tel: 66571898, 13301259664
My rating: 3.5 stars

妙膳素食 was the very first vegetarian restaurant I found in Beijing, and it's in the same area near the lakes. However, when I last went there (2006), the place had changed and was no longer completely vegetarian. They had a very extensive range of vegetarian options though, including a lot of mock meat things.
Address: 北京西城区鼓楼西大街76号. (176 Gulou xidajie.) Either take the metro to Gulou exit B and walk south all the way to the Drum tower, turn west and continue a bit -- overall a 15-20 min walk. Or take bus 5, 815, 819 or 839 to 甘水桥站 (Ganshuiqiao). Or walk from Qianhai.
Tel: 84045899
My rating: 2 stars -- the food is good and place nice, but the presence of meat lowers the score

There's also one near Xizhimen station, I'm not sure if this is still in Xicheng district or not, but let's assume so. 静思素食坊（分店） is a nice and clean place, but modern and lacks personality. The food is good and tasty but nothing really fancy about it.
Address: 北京市梅苑饭店高粱桥斜街甲30号（交通大学南门梅园饭店1-2层）. Around the south gate of the Jiaotong university.
Tel: 62255792
My rating: 3 stars

And then there's Shifangzhai (十方斋素食宫), haven't tried them yet:
Address: 平安里西大街甲6号 (平安大街赵登禹路路口往东100米路南) (Location on map.)
Tel: 66166691/66166692
Info: No eggs, no five roots, no alcohol. Seats 300, tables for 8 but can be joined to seat over 30 people together.

宣武区 (Xuanwu district -- south of the city centre)

This has Bodhi-Sake restaurant, of which I wrote earlier. It's not terribly far from the Temple of Heaven, although it can be a bit of a walk for those not used to walking at all.
Address: 10-16 Heiyaochang jie. 200 metres to the north of north gate of Taoranting Park.
Tel: 010-63557348
Opening hours: 10am-10pm
My rating: 4 stars

朝阳区 (Chaoyang district -- north-eastern parts of the city, outside 2nd ring road east and north)

Close to home in Hepingli 和平里 area but a little hard to find is 荷塘月色 or Lotus in Moonlight, and it's worth a visit even though I got a bad impression the first time I went there as they gave us a complimentary dish containing dairy and the waiter denied it -- it's the lie that makes it worse than the dairy, it doesn't claim to be dairy free. However, it is a Chinese restaurant like all of these and the dishes with dairy are few and far between. Average prices, for 1-2 people prepare for 100 yuan per person, for more people it'll be less.
Address: 朝阳区柳芳南里12号楼（104路柳芳东口下/18路左家庄下） -- the bus instructions there tell you to get off from 104 at 柳芳东口 (liu fang dong kou) or from 18 at 左家庄 (zuo jia zhuang). If you're walking along Hepinglibeijie (和平里北街), turn south to Zuojiazhuangdajie (左家庄大街) and walk for a few blocks and pay attention to your right hand side, there will be a sign for the restaurant telling you to turn right, walk for 100m or so and find it on your right. I don't remember if there was any English in the sign.
Tel: 64653299/64663114
My rating: 3.5 stars

Next up, 草木间, although it's quite far from me but it is worth a visit. They have the greatest fake fish, albeit the last time they had changed their menus and I didn't see it and tried other things. Those weren't quite as special, but the atmosphere in the restaurant is nice as it hosts a little stream and a bridge over it. The menus are in Chinese and English and have pictures too. Prices slightly above average.
Address: 朝阳区劲松三区甲302号华腾达厦二层. So it's on the 3rd ring road east, not terribly far from the Temple of Heaven if you're into walking a lot, but most people wouldn't go for it (like I would, haha :-P). By public transport you might take the metro to Guomao (国贸) and either walk south for 20 minutes or jump into any bus going to Jingsong bridge (劲松桥), it's very near. The restaurant is on the second floor like it says there in Chinese, enter through the main entrance of the building. There are signs for vegetarian restaurant even in English on the side of the building.
Tel: 87730135, 87730136
My rating: 4 stars

For upper class dining, try 净心莲素食餐厅. It's rather popular so it would be recommendable to reserve a table in advance. The dishes are set up in quite fancy ways and this shows in the prices too, but on the international level it's still rather cheap, perhaps 100 yuan per person will do if you don't go for the really fancy things. There are no eggs in the dishes and the place doesn't serve alcohol. The menus are huge, in Chinese and English, but without pictures of the foods. Try the mock shark at least, it's yummy.
Address: 农展南里10号中国文联院内. (10 Nongzhannanli, inside the courtyard of Chinese cultural federation.) It's very near north-east from 长虹桥 (Chang bridge of the 3rd ring road east. That means if you head east from Dongsishitiao you will eventually get there, but it is a relatively long walk. Bus lines 350, 707 and 特3 get there.
Tel: 87036669/65923627
My rating: 4.5 stars

And again one I haven't been to yet:

颐养斋

亚运村北苑路阳光广场北侧，公交:358、803、417支、758、858大屯站或秀园站下 / 64976535

海淀区 (Haidian district, north-west of the city outside 2nd ring road)

香阳小筑 is a nice restaurant that unlike many of the other vegetarian restaurants in Beijing seems to be practically only for locals. Also the Chinese-only menus without pictures don't attract foreigners. The price level is more suitable for local budgets than the other vegetarian places mentioned. The food has no eggs, no MSG, and no alcohol is served. There's also a small shop for mock meat stuff in the front.
Address: 海淀区北三环路大钟寺古钟博物馆大门西侧20米. On 3rd ring road north, 20m west from the entrance of the clock museum of Dazhong temple.
Tel: 82112104
My rating: 3 stars with a little extra from the no MSG part

Near the east gate of Tsinghua university you can find Heaven's Kitchen (天厨妙香(清华店)), which is another busy restaurant, book or be prepared to have to wait for a table. The food is really good though, there's no eggs, no smoking, no alcohol served, and it doesn't use the root vegetables the Buddhists don't eat. The prices are rather reasonable.
Address: 清 华正门外，清华科技园，创业大厦一层西侧。A little hard to find perhaps, head west from the Tsinghua east gate (outside campus) within the courtyards where you can walk and it should be one of the first restaurants that come your way. There's a coffee shop with bigger signs at the same entrance. Bus lines 110, 307, 320支, 331, 355, 355支, 375, 375支, 628, 726, 731, 732支, 743, 749, 825, 913 and 951 go to Tsinghua east gate.
Tel: 62797078 / 62780859 / 89833390
My rating: 4.5 stars

Then there should be two restaurants I haven't visited, so I'm just posting the information from the Chinese website here:
Name: 百合素餐厅(稊园店)
Address: 海淀区昆明湖路50号，颐和园新宫门东南50米（乘坐374,374支,704,905,992等公交车在颐和园南门下车即到）. 50 Kunminghulu, 50 m southeast of the new gate of the Summer Palace. Bus lines 374, 374支, 704, 905, 992 and others serve the south gate of the Summer Palace.
Tel: 62878726
Special information: No eggs, no alcohol, no five roots

Name: 六和斋
Address: 海淀区西三旗立交桥东南角
Tel: 86490060/86394733

昌平区 Changping district

Here's another one I haven't tried yet:
Name: 般若素食
Address: 昌平区鼓楼东街33号. (33 Gulou dongjie.) Take bus 21 to Changping 2nd highschool and head north for five minutes. Here's the original instruction too: (乘轻轨到龙泽，换乘21路公共汽车，到昌平二中下车，向北5分钟即是)
Tel: 86694425,13141386173
Special information: no smoking, no alcohol, no meat, no eggs, no five roots

Fruit cake

Yes, fine, I am a fruit cake, but that's not what I mean. :-P What I'm writing about is a fruit cake we made a couple of days ago with my sister Suvi. This one is suitable for raw vegans too... You see there are no ovens in China, so we have to inspire, just like my wok-baking. This fruit cake is just layers of different fruits. Does it stick together you ask? No... but who's to care, it looks pretty and tastes great, what else can you ask of a cake?

嘉禾园素食 -- my favourite restaurant in BJ

I decided it was time to introduce my favourite restaurant in Beijing. 嘉禾园素食 (Jia he yuan su shi) or the "excellent grain garden vegetarian restaurant" (my translation, not sure if they have an English name) is located near Jishuitan metro station along the 2nd ring road north. But the place is quite hidden, in fact the first time I went there we had to call the place three times just to find it! It's hidden in a courtyard of houses, the sign at the gate of the courtyard says 北京地铁 (Beijing metro), which doesn't help matters. Even inside the right area it's easy to walk past the place. Basically from Jishuitan station you take exit A and walk west past the petrol station, and the first courtyard to the right after a short bit of green following the petrol station should have that sign. Within the area the restaurant will soon be on your right hand side.

Now assuming you find it, what you'll find inside is a quiet and comfortable environment and friendly staff. Perhaps due to being hard to find, this place is never crowded. The owners are Buddhists and that explains the decor as well as the music playing on the background. But of course it's a restaurant, so the best part would have to be the food. Everything in the menu is vegetarian, but not necessarily vegan. However, the dishes themselves don't tend to contain eggs or dairy (but do verify!). Among my friends this place is commonly known as "the potato fish restaurant". This is because the very first time I went there, I ordered a dish that was one of these mock fish things in sweet and sour sauce. To my surprise, this "fish" that looked realistic enough tasted like potatoes! For the simple reason that that's what it is. There's also pineapple at the bottom. It's pretty good, do have a try.

While the potato fish is a distinguishing feature, it's not my favourite dish in this great place. That would be their roasted mushrooms in a spicy sauce. I discovered by accident that if you have the mushrooms together with their shredded pancake, it's not too spicy at all, but still enough to wake up the taste buds. It's beautifully set too. A total delight.

Also noteworthy is their sweet taro, of which I have no photos at the moment, and this sweet potato dish featured on the left. A lot of other foods are tasty also, do go crazy experimenting! The only thing I don't like is the fake pork meat which they make too realistically, even adding in a layer of fake fat! What's the point? Nobody wants the fat anyway.

To complete a meal there's a complimentary fruit plate as is rather common in restaurants in China, well, the decent ones. What's more, this place also has vegetarian books on offer, many for free, and sometimes Buddhist music also.

Here's the address so you can find them, first in Chinese:
德胜门西大街甲5号（积水潭桥西360米路北地铁集团院内）
Or if you don't read Chinese but want to say it to a taxi driver:
Deshengmen Xidajie jia 5 hao.
Tel: 010 - 62261846

Bodhi-Sake -- veg restaurant in BJ

I went for two of my favourite hobbies yesterday, one was tango but I'll tell you of the second, trying out new vegetarian restaurants. This one is near Taoranting park, relatively close to the Temple of Heaven, so after touring either of the places you might want to pay a visit. I heard about the place from China Daily, their review is here.

The atmosphere in this restaurant is really calm and peaceful, and I found it great to eat outside in the courtyards of the former monastery. On colder or rainy (who am I kidding, it never rains in Beijing!) days you might want to eat indoors in one of the many buildings. Some of the buildings farther back work as temples with Buddha statues one can pray at.

The menu was extensive and contained a variety of mock meat dishes as well as proper vegetable dishes. It was bilingual (Chinese and English) and even had descriptions of the foods and their health effects in both languages, as well as pictures of many of the dishes. This was also far better than the usual Chinglish, the English descriptions were at least mostly proper language. We went for a fried "fish" which was delicious and had some sea flavour due to being wrapped in seaweed; an interesting and absolutely heavenly mushroom dish with a Tibetan sauce that the staff verified was vegan, as well as noodles is soybean sauce which turned out to be quite necessary as the portion sizes were pretty small. The prices were also slightly higher than in most vegetarian restaurants in Beijing, not to speak of the regular restaurants, but the food was totally worth the price! The mushroom dish came with an amazing pagoda decoration made of a carrot, it just looked deli so I had to eat it which raised a bunch of smiles and laughter from the staff as it was supposed to be just decoration and not to be eaten. But why would good food be wasted, eh? :-)

Luckily they were also celebrating Buddha's birthday, and therefore every table was given a wish tablet that could be hung on a 400-year-old tree at the back of the restaurant. Usually one has to pay for it. This tree is supposed to bring blessings in bringing people together in love, so I made sure I wrote a related wish... in Finnish, surely the Buddha understands all languages. They gave people some literature to go with, I haven't really even tried to read through what it was, all in Chinese of course.

This is certainly one of the better vegetarian restaurants in Beijing and definitely worth another visit!

Vegan life in China

China has a long vegetarian tradition due to Buddhism, there was quite a bunch of vegetarians in China a thousand years ago. Things have changed, however, for the worse. Nowadays vegetarianism is largely unknown except for Buddhist monks. The common question to vegetarians would be if they eat onions -- this surprised me at first, but the Buddhists don't and ethical veg*nism isn't really known here. However, things aren't quite as gloomy as that may sound, for the tradition in cooking persists.

The big cities in China have a number of vegetarian restaurants... about one per million inhabitants, but nonetheless. They can usually be found near or even inside temples, or one can look up where they are from the internet, a list is maintained here by the International Vegetarian Club of Beijing -- but only in Chinese. I'll translate at least some of it here later. They're not completely vegan, but some do not use eggs at all and Chinese cooking generally doesn't use dairy, so most of the things served are suitable for vegans.

As for the regular restaurants, things are more difficult. Tofu dishes often have meat in them, and vegetables may be prepared in meat broth. These are easy to prepare differently though, and most restaurants are willing to do so when asked -- in Chinese. Language skills are essential here. I haven't tested the reception of the Vegan Passport, it might be of use. Generally speaking the south is easier than the north and the east easier than the west... and the big cities much easier than small towns.

The food you get in these is generally quite tasty, although rich in oil. This is the home of tofu, so that is plentiful. The vegetarian restaurants have a plethora of mock meat and fish dishes, to the degree that one starts wondering what is the point. The most ridiculous thing is the vegetarian "pork", where they even add a fake layer of fat on top! Why not imitate better than reality?

The universal key to eating vegan, however, is cooking vegan. The shops and markets sell nearly every kind of vegetable you may want, and tofu is indeed aplenty. They have all sorts of fake meat things in many supermarkets also, a thing that makes you wonder if there is some sort of hidden vegetarianism under the covers. But if you're into cooking Western style vegan food, do note that they generally don't have ovens in China, and that makes things a lot more difficult. Some of your usual ingredients may not be around either, or may be hard to find, especially if you don't speak the language. The big international supermarket chains like Carrefour do have a lot of Western foodstuffs around.

Overall, veganism in China isn't too bad at all, but be prepared for things going wrong sometimes as people won't always understand and they do make mistakes. There can be positive surprises too. Like when I was on a train from Shanghai to Beijing and they served us dinner, I refused the food by telling the train attendant I was vegetarian. To my utter surprise she returned a few minutes later with a completely vegan meal that inspired the meat-eaters in my cabin to ask her "Why does he get better food than us?". Her reply kept me smiling for days: "Because he's vegetarian." :-)