Sarah from England is visiting Shanghai this week. She is a vegetarian, so I took her to Gong De Lin, a well known Chinese vegetarian restaurant with long history.

We ordered a few dishes which are the restaurant specialities and interestingly they all have meaty names, for example, vege sweet and sour pork, vege fish etc. To me, it was a bit weird that coming to a vegetarian restaurant for fake meat food.

When all the dishes were brought on the table, I was amazed by the chef’s creativity because all the vege dishes looked and tasted very much like the real meat or fish.

Sweet & Sour Pork at Gong De Lin Shanghai Restaurant

As a Chinese, I knew that lots of traditional Chinese vegetarian restaurants actually originated from Buddha temple and are famous for the skills which makes the various vegetables to be like the real meat in terms of taste, shape etc. The ingredients are mostly bean curd or mushrooms but cooked the same way with those meaty dishes, such as deep fry, stew etc.

I guess lots of people become vegetarian because they want a healthy life style. But I don’t think those traditional Chinese vegetarian food are actually healthy because to make the meaty taste, they usually are cooked with lots of oils and seasonings.

There are some new style vegetarian restaurants in Shanghai which focus on healthy eating rather than make vegetables taste like meat. So next time, I should take Sarah to one of those.

Veg. Fish at Gong De Lin Shanghai Restaurant

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Tags: Chinese Food, Chinese Restaurant, Eating in Shanghai, Shanghai Restaurant

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