Can it be???

Stop the presses!

I found a vegetarian restaurant in our city of carnivores!!!  I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw (in English at that!) "Jingxi Zhai, Vegetarian Restaurant" on a little hand drawn map for foreigners that we just happened to come across.  So I went tonight, trying not to get my hopes up as I've been disappointed by the words 'no meat' before...I wish I'd had my camera on me to show you pictures because you would not believe what we ate was vegetarian!  Let me touch on the subject of soy for a minute though.

By the way, in Mandarin, vegetarian is said: Su shi (I know what it looks like but it's pronounced "soo shir").

The Chinese first cultivated the soybean 3,000 years ago. It took them nearly 1,000 years to develop its full nutritional potential. In the west it took only 30 years to turn soy into soy burger.

Roughly some two thousand years ago when two Buddhists missionaries named Kasyapa and Dharmaraksha arrived from India after a long journey on the Silk Road, they brought with them a belief in the virtuousness of the meatless diet. Their teachings eventually found an a receptive audience - meat was a luxury the Chinese peasant could rarely indulge in, and for some the gap between a diet of little meat, and of no meat was not a wide one.

The great Chinese art of meat substitution was born. Meat analogues can be amazingly meat-like. You would assume that it would be much cheaper than the stuff hacked from the carcasses of animals, unfortunately due to the art and novelty its become,the vego dish is generally a more expensive choice.  Whether made of tofu, soy protein, wheat gluten or mushrooms, mock meat remains a major feature at vegetarian restaurants and temple kitchens throughout China. 

In fact my heart sank when I first glanced at the other tables and saw chicken and prawns.  But the waitress assured us several times (you could tell by the 4th time of us asking, she was thinking 'stupid foreigners') that the dish was, in fact, meat free.  They can make their not-meat look and even have a similar texture to 'the real thing'.  If that's even what you're going for...all I can say is to the original Tofurkey company...eat your heart out!  

Sorry that's not very vegan of me, is it?

Next time we go, I'll post pictures!

For anyone that's possibly interested in the location of this delightful gem, it's off Minzu Lu on the 1st floor of the Xiangyun Hotel.  Well worth the look-see.  Now if only I could find an Indian restaurant!