Do most Chinese restaurants have items that are truly vegetarian?
June 5, 2010 by MrAuthor
Filed under Restaurants
I know all the Chinese restaurants have a "vegetarian" section, but I’m not sure if it is really what I would call vegetarian. I’m afraid they may be making things with fish or oyster sauce, or even other meats for flavoring.
I used to eat the Buddhist Delight until someone told me it was probably not actually vegetarian.
The problem is, I can never communicate well enough with the employees in the Chinese restaurants in my area to make them understand what I’m asking when I ask about the ingredients. And I can’t easily understand their response to me either. 
I love them to death – they are the nicest people. I don’t mean to stereotype or anything.
Well, you can ask them like this – "Zer ke yo mei yo ro"?
It’s as simple as I can put it for you in mandarin. It means – Does this have meat in it?
And most CHinese restuarants probably do not really cater for vegetarians.
A true Chinese vegetarian restuarant – especially the ones you find all over South East Asia, even in high-tech Singapore, do not mix utensils or even share cooking space with shops that sell meat. They run their own shops or completely separate sections with different cooking spaces.
Plus you should see their menus, pages and pages of different vegetarian dishes.
Not because they’re holier than thou, but more like because they don’t want to get the meat and veg all mixed up.
Try looking for a Chinese vegetarian restuarant, where you won’t have to keep probing the waiters and waitresses (sometimes they just tell you yes yes, even though they might not understand you, just to get it over with) whether there’s meat in it.
You can also try out Indian vegetarian (very varied and huge selection!).
Jenova