Lucky Vegetarian Food

After viewing the Claypot Laksa featured at the TV variety show, we got interested to explore the Alexandra Village Food Centre, and I am happy to find 2 vegetarian stalls: Lucky Vegetarian & Xing Guang Vegetarian, in the food centre located in the estate opposite Queensway Shopping Centre. And both serve other than Standard Mee Hoon, dishes such as Vegetarian Chicken Rice, Kwai Chap, Fish Soup, Dry Noodles, etc.

Decided to try Dry noodles from Lucky Vegetarian, which is located at the same stretch as the Claypot Laksa. Forgoing mock barbecue pork, I requested for more mock goose pieces, its other ingredients. The noodles were well-cooked and smooth, nice at $2.50. :-)

Ok , likely to come back to try more as well as from Xing Guang Vegetarian located at centre lane of the food centre. :-)

Bishan Vegetarian

Back to classes, more opportunities to visit Bishan and another discovery that the food centre above Bishan Bus Interchange had renovated and fortunately Bishan Vegetarian is still there, moved to 2nd stall away from the Drink Stall on the right corner.
Looking for something soupy, their Bittergourd Bean curb soup caught my eyes. A good portion of bitter gourd slices (fresh and not that bitter :-) ), red carrot slices, silky water bean curb, tomato cubes, straw-mushrooms and seaweed. Soup was plain but nice. :-)

Located just above the food centre above the Bus Interchange, Up from the colorful stairs near the traffic light, you can see it just 2nd stall away from Drink stall.

Yes Natural F&B (悦意坊)

Another heartening noodles, Chilli Paste Noodles from Yes Natural!
It's been a long while since I revisited Yes Natural and discovered that they had renovated their restaurant and their bakery had expanded. The renovation do really helps brighten the place and one's appetite. :-)
The chilli paste noodles was spicy at acceptable range to me and it was towards the taste of Sichuan Dan Dan noodles with good portion of bean curb & mushroom cubes. Served hot, Nice and my friends commented they will return to try it in future seeing how I had enjoyed the noodles. :-)

It is located at No. 57, Geylang Lorong 27, Singapore 388184. Tel: 67411580
Opening Hours : 11:30am to 9pm Closed on Wednesday

Its Bakery is at No.55 & opened from Mon- Sun 7.30am - 9pm.
The 2nd Stretch of Shop Houses when you step out of Aljunied MRT from left.

慈缘轩 (Ci Yan Xuan) Chinatown

Strongly recommend their Vegetarian Braised Duck Noodles!

Although it does not look as appetising when served, with just some stalks of green vege, bean curb  and mushroom slices, the taste was superb! After mixing the braised sauce, the noodles were smooth & tasty and the bean curb really tasted wonderfully smooth and well-absorbed the braised sauce that every mouthful was touching. Most patrons left the shop praising the noodles. Yummy...

Their dessert for the day was Winter Melon Luo Han Guo, Chinese Herbal Cooling Tea, just what I need for a hot day and it was done like the traditional Qingtang method and really felt good after drinking it. Thumbs up!

Address: 8 Smith Street (shop house near end of Food Street)
Tel: 6225 9026 (If you want to confirm menu of the day:P)
Usual Opening Hours: 12pm-10pm 

Mei Jing Vegetarian Food

I start to love this vegetarian stall at Bt Ho Swee estate which sells a good variety of economical rice dishes (love their fried cauliflower) at $2.50 for 3 dishes as well as their Stir-fry dishes like this San-mee on left. Flavourful and economical at only $3. Mei Jing Vegetarian stall #01-76, is located at the market's food centre just infront of Blk 40 Havelock Road, 2 streets away from Tiong Bahru Plaza. It opens early around 7am to 4pm daily and rests on Sunday.

China Delights

At China Hefei where we visited the temple at their suburb, 开福禅寺 Kai Fu Chan Si, they have simple RMB5 lunch provided where there is strict adherence to traditional practice of eating at specific timing (around 11am) silently and ensuring each grain to be finished.
After paying RMB5 at the entrance of the canteen, one is given a card which serves as a ticket for one to be entitled to a big bowl of white rice and they serve a few variety of vegetables/dishes in a single bowl. At end of meal, they will pass the traditional hugh hot water container for one to pour into the bowls as after meal soup as well as to clean up the bowls simultaneously. Everyone is very disciplined to follow their rules and eat silently and contentedly, an experience.

Located at the busy walking street of Hefei town, there exists a historical temple 明教寺 MingJiaoShi at Hefei town where it is believed that the famous historical figure, CaoCao, used to inspect his troops there. According to our local friends, the small restaurant (明教寺利生斋天然素食馆; 合肥市淮河路44号)situated just beside the entrance of the temple is the town's only vegetarian restaurant.

The standard of the restaurant is quite good and tasty and quite a number of patrons when we visited for dining so I am puzzled why a town has only 1 vegetarian restaurant that I am almost tempted to do a survey on the investment of vegetarian eatery in Hefei.:P Among the dishes we tried included Japanese style of fresh salad with light sauce. Light and fresh.

The refreshing mushroom lotus soup with the dried rice crackers (Woba) are must try together dishes, dipping the rice crackers into the soup creates an unique taste.  It is light with generous portion of shitake mushroom slices and I recall lotus is part of the name of the soup which the green vegetables may be part of the lotus plant. Nice light taste is just what I could recall.  

The rice crackers were freshly made and not those off-shelve products as I had tried to replicate with the instant brown rice crackers found in Singapore Vegetarian stores but it just don't taste as nice and fresh.
When dipped into the soup, it creates a sizzling sensation and tasted great.

Vegetarian Roast Chicken, I was amazed with the crispiness of the vegetarian exterior skin, better than those I had tried in Singapore.

The popular Mock Dongpo meat that really tasted like the real. The fatty oily center pieces replicated by the Yuju jelly tasted real alike.

Similarly, their mock fatty three-layered meat was also delicious and a good replica.

I didnt know that Wild Yam Huai Shan (淮山) can be used other than in soup until I tried this stir-fried version, very crunchy instead of mushy compared to being used in soup.

Another surprise is the stir-fry green pepper becoming a main dish instead of as a complement ingredient. The locally produced smaller green pepper has a slight spicy taste compared to the plainer taste bigger version found in Singapore markets and instead of slices, were cooked as a whole. The tasty dark-sauce (similar to Gongbao black-bean sauce taste) with slight sweetness complimented the spiciness of the vege well. Really miss the dish!   

Overall, the dishes are nice and I learnt new way of cooking Wild Yam and Green Peppers. Missing above recommended dishes already :P

Local China Delights

Looking thru my past photos, I realised that I had not posted my earlier China Delights from my last Nov China trip to Jiuhuashan.

Saw the big pot of reddish Pumpkin Soup? Real rich stuff for a cool weather. Love their cucumber cubes, crunchy. Nice pot of green bean porridge. Their rice grains are those of short sticky grains like the Japanese rice that we all enjoyed. The fresh vegetables, the pickled ginger slices, stir-fry peeled  edamame beans (very common there as main dish unlike in Singapore we usually find it in only Japanese restaurants), the buns, the purplish sweet potatoes. Was told by the volunteers that usually if not with guests,  the temple Venerables will only have rice with simple dishes like pickles or their local wild vegetables.

We were really fortunate and grateful to be welcomed by having the sumptuous meals with the Venerables in a table and a long forgotten tradition whereby we help serve each other dishes that is a quick and good ice-breaking practice when dining with strangers (something that not often practised in Singapore anymore) and public hygiene of using separate chopsticks & spoons for the dishes is practised there.  How I miss those warm-heartening days of dining.

Warm heartening home-cooked vegetarian dishes by a sister from Hefei. It is hard to find vegetarian food in Hefei, in fact there is only 1 vegetarian restaurant in the town so she kindly prepared vegetarian breakfast & dinner for us: Pumpkin porridge, fresh vegetables, pickled young ginger slices, fresh fruits; Stir-fry walnuts, bean curb skin slices with green pepper slices, French bean alike wild vegetables with mock meat, fresh broccoli and edamame beans with mushroom & black fungus, etc.

This pickled young ginger is a must have local dish for the locals to cater for the coming winter that they would buy fresh younger gingers and marinate for weeks themselves. One of my favourite.:-)
Greatly appreciate all volunteer friends for the warmth in making our stay in your country an enjoyable one. Gan En, Thank you!