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| China, fascinating! |
V and I returned a couple of weeks back from our very first visit to China – an awe-inspiring, vast, chaotic country, steeped in centuries of fascinating history and culture. While I had to cut short my travels at Beijing, V continued on to Xian and Shanghai and had a blast! We happened to be in Beijing exactly a week before the National Golden Week and the crowds everywhere were crazy. Honestly I don’t think I have seen more people anywhere else!
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| Forbidden Palace in Beijing, China |
Beijing is an old great, great, grand daddy of a city with the old and new architectural elements coexisting next to each other, creating an irresistible allure. We had a room with a view of the Forbidden City, a ~500-year old, humongous palace compound situated bang in the center of Beijing. On the first day we sat at our window watching the red sun go down over the Forbidden City, slowly coming to the realization that the haziness and eerie beauty of the sunset was partly due to the horrendous smog engulfing the city.
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| Great Wall, China |
And now, let’s talk chopsticks, lotus root and numbing hot Sichuan peppercorns! As V and I love Chinese food, we put in a considerable amount of research before our trip to China so that we could savor the local cuisine. Our efforts paid off and we enjoyed some wonderful food. But it was not easy. One of our guidebooks simply said, “If you are a vegetarian, good luck finding anything to eat”! (Hmmppff. Who needs their advice?!)
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| Our hotel concierge wrote down “I am a vegetarian” in Chinese for us |
So, here are our top 10 observations on being a vegetarian in Beijing, China:
1. To cut to the chase, traveling as a vegetarian in China is tough and it is made worse if you do not speak the language as it is very rare to find English-speaking staff in the restaurants. Our hotel concierge wrote down for us in Chinese that we were vegetarian, i.e. no beef, no pork, no fish, no chicken, etc. (At least, that’s what we think he wrote).
2. In big cities like Beijing, one can always find international restaurants and American chain restaurants like Subway, but heck, we were not going to resort to that. We were determined to try the local food especially as Chinese is one of our favorite cuisines.
3. It is not that there is any dearth of vegetable dishes. In fact I would say the bulk of the food they consume is vegetable-based. However, it is the method of preparation that is a huge question mark, i.e,. did they use beef broth in their sauce, or pork lard to cook, etc. This is where it helps to have someone spell it out in writing that none of this is acceptable. They do not have an idea of what being a vegetarian means, except maybe that it is some variation of food that Buddhist monks eat.
4. Restaurants in Beijing and other big cities may have an English description below the item in the menu, but it does not contain a full list of ingredients or method of preparation, and sometimes it is not even understandable. (Agrocybe Cylindracea, I learnt later, is simply the scientific name for edible mushroom!)
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| Menu describing a vegetarian dish. We ordered it not knowing what it was! |
5. Beijing, Shanghai and most cities in China have functioning Buddhist temples and we found that most of the all-vegetarian restaurants are concentrated around these temples. (Most of these restaurants also tend to be somewhat expensive.) One of the best meals we had in Beijing was at Baihe Vegetarian restaurant near the Yonghegong Lama temple, a popular tourist spot. Their menu (they have an English version) is as long as a novel with both mock meat dishes as well as regular vegetable dishes. Wish we had time to go back there for another meal. The crispy mock rabbit we had there was juicy and flavorful on the inside , and their mushroom dish with fried red peppers was deliciously spicy!
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| Crispy Mock Rabbit at Baihe Vegetarian restaurant in Beijing, China |
6. Food in Chinese restaurants here in the U.S. does not taste like the food in China, except maybe at a few restaurants nestled deep in China Towns in
San Francisco and New York where they probably require you to order in Chinese.
7. If you ask for your food to be spicy in China, it is guaranteed to make your mouth go up in flames, or numb your tongue to a rock. Red pepper, ginger, and Sichuan peppers are liberally used. (In other words, there is no such thing as hot and
sweet.) One of the memorable dishes we had in Beijing right in our hotel was Bamboo Shoots with
Sichuan Peppercorns which literally made our tongues go numb. Sichuan pepper is an interesting ingredient that has a tingly lemony flavor with a spicy, numbing after taste.
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| Bamboo shoots with Sichuan peppercorns |
8. The variety of vegetables is amazing. There are a million types of mushrooms and yam, and a gazillion types of greens. In addition to eggplant, bitter melon and taro root, there is the popular lotus root and bamboo shoots. Rice and noodles are both commonly available, and is eaten in small quantities along with the vegetables. Tofu is omni-present as well and I had a couple of different, yet delicious versions of vegetarian
Mapo tofu, one of my favorite Chinese dishes (although V is not a fan).
9. Dessert is a low key item on the menu. Most of the upscale restaurants will have western desserts like ice cream in local flavors like green tea and lychee. Fruit-based desserts and fruit juices are very popular. (V overdosed on the freshly squeezed pomegranate and plum juice on the streets of Xian.)
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| Dessert menu, usually low-key and fruit-based |
10. We were complimented several times by the locals on our chopstick wielding skills. Chopsticks are very versatile and I personally found it a bit awkward to come back here to forks and spoons. Inexplicably, Chinese food eaten with chop sticks somehow tastes better.
So at the end of the long write up, I just have two main takeaways to enjoy local food as a vegetarian in Beijing, China:
One, do your research online and look through guidebooks and map out the vegetarian restaurants close to your sightseeing destination for the day. And two, get someone to write down in Chinese all of your restrictions as it will help immensely with the wait staff at the restaurants.
(And as a bonus, do practice your chopstick skills.)
Traveling to China is a once in a lifetime experience and while you are there, I would recommend everyone to be brave and go for the local food! We will probably be making several more trips to explore this vast, fascinating country and to enjoy more Chinese food!
