Vegetarian And Vegan

To celebrate this year’s dumpling festival, Singapore’s vegetarian hawker brand, Jiakzhey 吃斋, has launched its first vegetarian dumpling 手工包粽多多 and deep-fried spicy fish skin crackers 素炸鱼皮 at the Dumpling Festival Cultural Exhibition 2018 at Tampines Mall from 8 to 17 June.
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Well known to her customers as Zhey Soh, 斋嫂 (auntie vegetarian in Hokkien), the 72-year-old madam Heng has built a solid reputation serving “delicious vegetarian food that don't taste like vegetarian food".
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Each traditional triangular bundle of wok-fired glutinous goodness is packed with soy-sauce-braised peanuts, a piece of intensely flavoured abalone-like shiitake mushroom and paired with heartily-crunchy Chinese water chestnut.
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📸: Jiak Zhey
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Pictured is their vegetarian Grilled Haloumi Cheese which found myself having a new love for vegetarian food. 🔸
For meat lovers, they also serve ribeye steak, hanger steak and pork ribs, all affordably priced below $25. And I thought the generous portions of ribeye steak was really worth the $25.
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Taken during a tasting.

[CNY Menu from Today] The texture for these noodles were perfectly silky and smooth. I was told it's specially imported from Taiwan, and was cooked with premium black sesame oil vegetarian chicken and sauce. The accompanying herbal soup was also fragrant with its use of Chinese herbs.
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This dish is part of their CNY menu which caters for 4 to 10 persons. Other healthy creations include a homemade vegetarian fish with fruit salad (my fav dish of the evening), this longevity noodles (as pictured), and a Golden Bowl of Fortune Pen Cai which was brimming with over 22 wholesome ingredients.
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Both Lotus restaurants are open all days during CNY with normal opening ours.
The CNY menu is available from today till 2 March for Lotus Vegetarian at Quality Hotel, and available from 14 February to 2 March for Lotus Kitchen Chinatown Point.
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My first time trying the food at Lotus Kitchen and I was impressed. It tastes clean, healthy, yet flavourful.
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For CNY, they have created a line-up of Set Menus catering for 4 to 10 persons, some including this Pen Cai and Yu Sheng. There are several healthy creations, such as a homemade vegetarian fish with fruit salad (my fav dish of the evening), longevity noodles (wait for my post on this), and this Golden Bowl of Fortune Pen Cai which was brimming with over 22 wholesome ingredients.
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I liked how this Pen Cai was lovingly prepared with many different cooking processes, containing many premium vegetarian ingredients. Wholesome and flavorful, I could go meatfree for a day if this is what I'm having.
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Taken during a tasting.

This vegan burger, reinvented from our much-loved chilli crab dish, was created specially to celebrate National Day. I was surprised by how good it is even though it was a vegan burger!
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The "crab" patty was made from vegan konjac, while the chili crab sauce was housemade from handcrafted rempah with chilli padi, red chilli and ginger. All these sandwiched between artisan wholemeal bun. The set meal costs an additional $4.90 and it includes Curry Fries and Ginger Lemonade. Available only till end September!
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Other items pictured here include:
Creamy Shrooms Burger ($8.90)
Creamy Garlic Fries ($6.90)
Sizzling Brocolli ($3.90)
Old School Hot Dog ($5.90)
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I realised vegan food can be quite good, please try it it you haven't! Feel free to DM me for other places that serves good vegan food as well. This is taken during a tasting.

What's special here is their rendang which was good - firm and chewy mushroom chunks coated in thick and savoury rendang curry rich in rempah flavour.
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The mushroom tastes clean, but it gives the chewy meaty texture resembling meat. Pretty good. The patty here, however, could be more tender and juicy.
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Overall, I love this restaurant for its clean taste and healthy vegetarian food without being overwhelming on gluten, yet rich in the flavour. Definitely wallet friendly too.

Wow, something that is healthy, yummy and cheap. We needed something light to detox after all the CNY feasting, and this is perfect.
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The herbal broth was deep and savory, it's like the herbal version of bak kut teh and I love it. Ten Chinese herbs such as angelica, licorice and wolfberry was used to concoct the broth, served with konnyaku fishball, soya mutton, tau pok, lettuce and carrots.
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It is stated that this nourishing herbal broth aids blood circulation and reduces cholesterol. I'm not sure about that, But I know my lousy mood for that day was instantly lifted once I sipped on this.

Served piping and bubbling hot. Wholesome goodness in this hot stone pot - crispy pancake of glutinous rice, pumpkins, green apples, chestnut, king oyster mushrooms, all braised in red wine and teriyaki sauce. It's a favorite within our group, and I think the old folks would like this too.

This is like a dragon roll without using prawn and mentaiko. The crunchy tempura bits in the middle of the roll is a substitute for the ebi tempura. The avocado adds creaminess to the maki, balancing the consistency together with the refreshing carrots and cucumber. No meat and seafood here, but we didn't miss them that much.

You've heard about Husk, but have you tried Cocowhip yet? It's a vegan coconut froyo made using natural ingredients such as coconut water, coconut and organic probiotics, before churning into a soft serve.
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It's much lighter and less sweet than other froyo. It may be less creamy but that's cos it's diary-free and has lower fat content.
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I always applaud good vegan products given their constraints on ingredients. But this isn't for everyone especially if you aren't used to a vegan diet. But if you're a vegan or is lactose intolerant (I'm thinking of some of you now!), you now have an additional healthy dessert option.
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This free sample is provided by @cocowhipsg, arranged by @burpple.

In Chinese philosophy, the dark has to be balanced by the light. Given my no holds barred diet which can get meaty, oily and heavy, there're times I'll opt for healthier alternatives such as fish soup, or even vegetarian food at Elemen restaurant which I'm a regular at.
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I especially like the mushroom salad. They're plump, juicy and refreshing to the extent it's rather thirst quenching. But of course, alkaline rosemary water is always complimentary (previous photo).

The same lagsana as in the previous pic, but this photo shows the inside.