Being a vegetarian in China
Being a vegetarian was always going to cause problems for me whilst travelling. In China I expected to be eating nothing but bowls of rice, but apart from on a few occasions early on I managed to eat pretty well. Before leaving home I bought a copy of the Vegan Passport. It has translations in a number of languages to say I’m vegan, I don’t eat x, y or z, please don’t cook my food in a, b or c. The hope is that by showing the appropriate page to a waiter you will be served something you can eat. I tried using the Vegan Passport a few times, but had very limited success. Yes, I was served a vegetarian meal, but it was cooked in animal fat just like everything else. I found that carrying a piece of paper with a few phrases on it worked a lot better. I asked an English speaking receptionist at a hostel to write down in Chinese “I’m vegetarian” and “I don’t eat chicken, fish, pork or beef” along with the names of a few vegetarian dishes egg and tomato, fried eggplant and spicy tofu were particular favourites. From that point on getting a decent meal was easy. At a restaurant I could show the names of dishes or if I felt adventurous I could show the other phrases and hope for the best. The I don’t eat meat phrase worked well at street stalls too where I was able to vegetable stirfrys, tofu, bean dishes and vegetable dumplings.
A couple of times I found vegetarian restaurants, usually via Happy Cow, but each time, without fail, I was incredibly confused by the menu. It turns out that in order to not put off carnivores, vegetarian restaurants in China style their dishes to resemble meat, they even go as far as to give dishes meaty names. Usually these dishes are made from tofu but cooked to resemble the texture of the meat and apparently an attempt is made to flavour it too. Some of the dishes looked like lot of effort had been put into their preparation, tofu cut to look like meat and vegetables such as carrots sliced and positioned to look like bones. I avoided any dish that wasn’t obviously vegetarian through and through.
One benefit of being vegetarian in China is that meals are incredibly cheap. Vegetable dishes cost a fraction of the price of the meat dishes and then rice is only a little extra on top.
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funny, here in budapest it seems chinese restaurants are one of the few places you can get a decent vegetarian meal,
also lol@ It turns out that in order to not put off carnivores, vegetarian restaurants in China style their dishes to resemble meat, they even go as far as to give dishes meaty names. Usually these dishes are made from tofu but cooked to resemble the texture of the meat and apparently an attempt is made to flavour it too
wouldn't carnivores just go to a restaurant that serves meat?
Really good idea to get the receptionists help, the passport sounded a little bit much for waitors to be dealing with.
Thats what I would've thought, I really don't get fake meat at all.
fake meat is cool and all, tofu, soy, but vegetarian food there is way more to vegetarian food than meat substitutes
Being vegetarian is certainly much cheaper in most places although it's sometimes hard to find a meal or figure out a menu. I've also found the definition of 'vegetarian' certainly varies from culture to culture.