Hello from Shanghai, China! As we’ve already mentioned on twitter, we’re here on holiday
visiting a friend, wilting in the heat yet seeing the sights and eating very,
very well. Let’s start with a vegetarian restaurant adjacent to the Jing’an
Temple – it’s a location that will pop up during many visiting veg*ns’
research.
The first floor of the restaurant includes a vegan-friendly
bakery and a miniature food court, the second floor has a la carte service, and the third floor
offers a lavish buffet setting with a flat rate of 178 yuan (AU$35.30) per
person for lunch. We stopped in for the last hour of the buffet and could
barely believe the volume and variety of food on offer.
The savoury dishes were well labelled in Chinese and in
English with the food name and indicators of whether the foods contained eggs
and/or milk (no hints about gluten). I enjoyed picking through the snacky
section, trying sesame buns, a date-centered mantou bun, turnip cake and
pumpkin cake. There’s a little Japanese section with fancy-looking sushi and
other morsels. Meanwhile, Michael went hard on the stir-fries, braises and
fried rice. There was a small amount of mock meat, plenty of mushrooms and tofu
that almost mocked meat, and lots of straight-up vegetables too.
The fruit selection was a very refreshing interlude before I
set upon the desserts. Unfortunately the desserts were less well labelled, and
I suspect that most of the little cups and cakes contained dairy. The teeny
portions allowed me the temptation of trying a few (all were very nice, though
nothing different from what we can access in Oz).
This buffet has the price and ambience of a slightly special
occasion (we've been paying closer to AU$10 for other meals), but any hot and hungry traveller should feel welcome to stop in. It’s
an easy way to access lots of veg*n food, and it’s convenient to the handsome Jing’an Temple, which is well worth a visit.
____________
Jing’an Temple/Jen
Dow Vegetarian Restaurant
151 Yu Yuan Lu, Jing An Qu, Shanghai, China
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