Review: Vegetarian restaurant in Nan Lian Gardens

After the visit of Chi Lin Nunnery we went to the neighbouring Nan Lian Gardens – where there is a really good vegetarian restaurant next to the waterfall.

It is surprisingly difficult finding a vegetarian restaurant in Hong Kong – unless you go to a monastery or nunnery. Everywhere else the assumption is that you will eat meat and fish (unless you are allergic to it), because it is good for you and you can afford it.

I don’t know anyone in Hong Kong who is Chinese and is a vegetarian because of a different reason than religious or allergic reasons – I might be wrong, but I found that meat and fish are considered to be part of a meal. The more important the meal is, there more meat and fish dishes are being presented.

Anyway, I am getting sidetracked here. All that I wanted to say is that we had a really lovely vegetarian lunch. We had a range of different dishes:

(1) Vegetable-filled dumpling in broth. That’s like wonton dumplings, just with vegetables and in a very fresh and tasty soup. We went for the small portion (just six pieces!) and it was still enough for all of us to share.

(2) Braised Eggplant with Yan Nim sauce. I can’t describe what Yan Nim is, but it tasted really good. I think that was the most unusual and my favourite dish of the lunch.

(3) Mixed Vegetables and Mushrooms with Bean Curd in a clay pot. Very hot, very tasty. An earthy flavour balanced with some light, silky tofu.

(4) Glutinous Rice Dumpling. Never looks nice, but often with the right mix of spices, it is very tasty. This one had mushrooms and water chestnut pieces inside the rice so very good too.

Plus we had one mixed mushrooms and mushroom sauce rice that arrived a little late, so I did not take a picture of it. All in all, a lot of food, and together with some tea, we only paid 270 HKD for the three of us, so a very healthy and tasty lunch break.

About these ads