Friday, March 12, 2010

Beijing - Chamate (一茶一座)

Went to visit this place during my Beijing work trip last month. Sadly I was not able to go to the vegetarian places in Beijing as I was mostly in the office and there wasn't much choices last month. However, I was pleasantly surprise to find some non-vegetarian places offering options for the vegetarians. I still remember many years back when I went to Beijing, vegetarian options wasn't readily available in most places and I usually bring my own supplies. I guess its all thanks to the olympics, people do have a better grasp of the notion on vegetarianism today.

I was really glad to find a page in the menu that writes about vegetarianism. Translated, it literally mentions about the human's body need of keeping healthy and that vegetarian diet is something new, light which is becoming a healthy diet trend.



Signage on the wall showing some other option with "Full Vegetarian" in brackets.

I tried the Healthy Vegetarian Noodles as shown below. Comprises of Lots of mushrooms, enoki mushrooms as well as tomatoes.

*Pic taken from website*

Initially I was skeptical about the soup base as it wasn't easy to do a vegetarian soup base as most people thought that soups must be brewed with bones or animal meat usually. I still remember my harrowing experience in Harbin a couple of years ago when I found Clams in the soup, and the waiter was telling us that clams are not "meat". Luckily, this soup base was made using tomatoes, hence it was mainly sweet. Aint too bad, as tomatoes are good for our health! Do note that the noodles do comprise of eggs, hence may not be suitable for the vegans. Nonetheless, there are other mushroom pots which vegans can take.

The good thing about this cafe is that there are many outlets since this is done as a franchise, hence you need not worry as this is always a option if you are out with friends who do not really take vegetarian food!

Location: There are many franchises available, hence do check out the website for more details. I shall only put the out that I went to.

Dong Fang Plaza (地址:北京市东城区长安街1号东方广场地下一层FF12店铺)

Tel: 010-85186067

Website: http://www.chamate.cn/

3 comments:

a veg*n @ Blog*Spot said...

Thanks for sharing. There should be some real good veg*n restaurants in Beijing, I read about it in some of the Travel Guide Books.

When my boy was in Beijing for 13days few years back for cultural immersion, he dined at the non-veg eateries and find the veg*n food nice. Surprisely, non-veg can cook yummy veg food and up the standard of veg. food.

Like the famous and oldest Dong Po Meat Restaurant in China. They have a special Dong Po Meat for Vegetarian - Dong Po Tofu! But we didn't have such dish here. hmm... what is going on?

Cheers :D

missveg said...

hey crystal.. yea thats true.. i remember eating the veg version of "peking duck" when i was there on the immersion during my sec sch days. The Veg Version was using eggplants to wrap in the skin.. Very good! Anyway, SG do have a lot more non-veg places having veg menu these days, which is good, i think :)

a veg*n @ Blog*Spot said...

You are right.

These non-veg eateries will be able to do wonders to the veg cuisine, as they can taste non-veg cuisine and had master the trade and got the recipes, with some modification - veg version is born.

That's is to say, we will have more delectable veg food soon :D Good news.

Cheers :D