Saturday, February 27, 2010

LivinGreens Cafe

I have a non-vegetarian friend who has the opinion that nice vegetarian food are nice but oily or must be plain and tasteless so in order to correct her perception, I have to be careful in my choice to recommend her a good vegetarian place to correct her misconception.
I have heard much about LivinGreens and a quick search on their menu on their web : http://www.livingreens.com.sg/ , it seems to be the ideal place that could help me.
We met at Bugis MRT & took a 15min stroll (2 bus-stop from Bugis Junction) along Beach Road. It's located along a stretch of shop houses opposite The Concourse, being 2nd shop house beside the famous Bah Kut Teh corner coffee-shop.

They have a variety of salad that sounds interesting but on a safe side, as not a salad lover myself, we decided on the popular Sushi Roll found in most Fusion vegetarian cafe. It is a good starter choice as my friend enjoyed the freshness & crunchiness of the vegetables rolled in the Nori-seaweed.
Xiao Long Bao! Strongly recommended by the lady boss to try. The skin was thin and the mashed bean curb with some vegetables & their secret recipe of yogurt to create a meat resemblence won all praises from my friend. I guess one important ingredient was finely chopped water-chestnut that helps to make a good dumpling for a meat or vegetarian version. The only regret is that Xiao Long Bao is to contain some soup which the version they had was without/little to further close the gap of resemblance.
Still I miss the authentic Lasagna which in most western food restaurant doesn't have the vegetarian version. LivinGreen's come in a shape with an otah-like top with very soft filling of green and red pepper, mushroom and what we thought looked and tasted like brinjal though not listed in the ingredients on their menu. Quite nice with a good portion of salad.
Fried Green Curry Spaghetti, very strong Red curry flavour instead of Green curry taste in my opinion but the Sembolina spaghetti was well-cooked.
My non-vegetarian friend was overall very satisfied with the dishes and commented that this is the best vegetarian meal she had ever tried so far. So, mission accomplished! :-)
We felt that the only setback is their location, it would be more popular if located at more town or accessible area and will be a hit to the growing population of vegetarians and non-vegetarians looking for palatable, healthy food.
It's a great place for gathering too but may not be so not for a weekday nite as it closes around 8.30pm so one has to move to another place for dessert or drink if rushing down from work.

The Cafe is located at 325 Beach Road (Opposite the Concourse).
Open Mon-Sat 11am-8.30pm. Near 2nd bus-stop (bus 100, 107) from Bugis Junction towards Beach Road. Contact: 63965523; web: http://www.livingreens.com.sg/

5 comments:

a veg*n @ Blog*Spot said...

Beautiful Photo :D I want to go there too :D

Hopefully soon :D Thanks for the review.

Cheers

Anonymous said...

Went there liao, you are right :D
Cheers crystal

Val said...

Hi Sunny,

For western food, you mite wanna check out plaza singapura's Tea Cosy at #05-10. they have a couple of veg options such as spaghetti, salads, soups, lovely teas and etc.the place is beautifully decorated with angels too. One of my fav place to go :)

VAL

Sunny said...

Hi Val,
Thanks for the recommendation, I will keep the place in mind.
Hope they can be done without onion & garlic which western vegn mostly included in their gravy which is inseparable.

Vesak@Orchard Vegn Foodfair will be on 30Apr-1May outside Ngee Ann City.
Hope to see you there. :-)

Val said...

ok thank you :) lookin forward to the food fair !!

Val